Hard Way will run the same course and distance at St. Cloud on Monday that Turfani ran on Thursday. Turfani went well, but got a horrible trip. She pulled again for the first three furlongs or so of the 12-furlong race, which is not good, but kept on gamely in the stretch and should probably have finished about 4th. Instead, she got jostled terribly and then flung into the rail, where she spun her wheels until the jockey dropped his hands 100 meters out. Very frustrating, but I think she ran better this time than in the last claimer. I also think she was in season, and she was very washed-out before the race, which I didn’t like. But she’s come back well and is eating, which is progress over the last time.

Hard Way, meanwhile, will make his comeback Monday after not running since Jan. 10. He’s looking fantastic, and will carry the colors of his new owner, Mark Tronco. I would have preferred an easier race for his comeback, but this was the best we could do. It’s a 2,400-meter handicap; he’s rated 30, which means he has to carry 59 kilos, near top weight. The point of this race will be to keep him as calm as possible and not ask for too much. He’s an overly generous horse, and I’d rather see him run a correct race and not take a check than pour his heart out to make 4th or 5th place. He needs experience, and if he has a hard race it will take too long to bring him back again.

Tyke, meanwhile, is entered on Friday in Lyon, a long way to go but a good race for him. He worked well with Skid this morning; we’re shooting for a comeback race for Skid on June 11 at Maisons-Laffitte.

Turfani runs tomorrow at St.Cloud, her first handicap. She seems in OK form, but it’s hard to know where we are with her. I was disappointed in her last run, but we’ll see what happens tomorrow. According to the Paris Turf, we have no chance in hell, so at least the pressure’s off! Tommy and Tyke both had entries for Friday in Croise-Laroche, but it turns out neither will run. Tyke was eliminated because there were too many entries, and Tommy was assured a spot in the handicap, but when I checked him at evening stable tonight it looks like there’s a problem with the front leg opposite the one we’ve had problems with before. It might just be a strike, but it looks, unfortunately, like a tendon problem. In any case, he will have a vet certificate to scratch for Friday. I’ve bandaged it tonight with Sepflogil and we’ll see how he is in the morning. He’s not lame, but it doesn’t look good.

On the upside, Tyke is in fine form, and will have another entry for June 5 in Lyon, hoping we get in this time. Hard Way is still on track for his comeback Monday at St. Cloud; he will have his final workout, in partnership wtih Skid, tomorrow morning.

My friend Jean-Paul won the Grand Steeplechase yesterday, thankfully, because if he hadn’t, I’m not sure what would have happened to the elaborate party planned by his wife. But it all went according to plan; the color-coordinated hat-wearing group of supporters (myself included – the things we do in this business…) surrounded the winning owner and trainer for the photo op, and a good time was had by all….except the horses.

We got hit with a freak heat wave yesterday, and the temperature spiked above 30 degrees Celcius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). It came out of the blue, because it had been about 21 degrees in the days before the race. The horses had no time to adapt, and even if they had, it would have been hard to handle a race 5,800 meters long with 23 jumping efforts. The equine body count was at least three on the day, but that count might have risen in the hours after racing. Two horses went down in the big race; one was killed instantly after breaking her neck jumping the oxer, and another collapsed between the final two fences, the heat and distance taking their toll. Another horse was put down in the last. I’m not sure what the circumstances were – I just saw the horse stagger after being pulled up and the jockey jumped off.

The survivors were not immune to problems. Remember Rose, Jean-Paul’s champion, needed to be hosed down for at least 10 minutes on the track before he could walk safely back to the stables, and three other horses needed similar attention. Another, Cyrlight, collapsed an hour after the race and stayed down for several minutes as he was worked on by vets.

The whole thing left a bitter taste in my mouth about steeplechasing. The horses running Sunday, even on the undercard, were all tough champions, and most will come back to fight another day. And to be fair, those conditions would have taken a toll even if it had been a day of flat racing. The wise thing would have been to postpone racing to another day, but I’m not sure how that could have happened on the Championship day at Auteuil. The Grand Steeplechase is the French Gold Cup, worth 800,000 euros, and the competitors are all primed to be right on the day. Remember Rose, for his part, was absolutely on form, looked fantastic and jumped perfectly despite the heat. He actually had a finishing kick and made it look easy. But just before midnight last night, with Champagne corks still popping not 20 meters from his stall, he was on IV fluids and looking quite an exhausted horse. It was one of those moments that made me thankful that – for the moment anyway – I only have horses running on the flat in my yard.

Steeplechasing can be a wonderful sport, and I’m sure I will have some starters over the jumps again. Some horses – the best jumpers – thrive on the battle. I listen to the horse and try to do what’s best. But it’s not for the faint of heart. And an aside – it’s not just the horses that suffer for their sport. Remember Rose’s jockey, Christophe Pieux, mashed his foot into the rail two-thirds of the way through the race and nearly fell. He finished the race with his boot filling with blood and had to be carried off the track after dismounting. What a day.

I’ve neglected my blog since Tommy’s race because I’ve been too swamped, but it’s past time for an update. First off, Tommy ran relatively badly; he was laying third or fourth for most of the race, then had no finish and tailed off. He was really difficult to handle and nervous before the race, which isn’t at all like him, so I knew there had to be a problem. I was most worried, of course, about his leg, but that seems fine. But he was coughing in the days after the race and ran a slight fever, so we can put it down to that. There’s been a small bug that’s been making the rounds in Maisons-Laffitte, and nearly all of the horses in the yard have been coughing at some point this spring, so it seems this is his turn.

Meanwhile, we’ve got plenty of entries at the end of the week, and I’ve been busy introducing new fans to racing. I had a group of 20 from the American Women’s Group at Longchamp last week, and I’ve had two receptions during the week to talk up racing with various expats. Then this weekend there’s Grand Steeplechase mania. My friend, Jean-Paul Gallorini, has one of the favorites in the big race, and his wife always plans a huge party around the event. I’ve been drafted since Thursday to help decorate and plan, and the first of the parties was tonight. Tomorrow is the big event – 5,800 meters over 23 obstacles. There are also three other Group races on the card, so it will be a very big day of racing. Jean-Paul’s wife, Alex, always gets a little carried away when they have a real chance of winning. The entire yard is decked out in yellow and green, the colors the horse, Remember Rose, will carry, and various friends (including me) have been asked to dress in those colors tomorrow. I’ve also been assigned a hat to wear. So if you’re watching the race, you’ll probably spot me. I’ll be the one that looks like a cake topping.

Little Tommy is in the last at Maisons-Laffitte tomorrow (Saturday), and there are lots of reasons this is a good thing: It’s been a month since his comeback race, he really needs the run, he’s well-placed in a handicap that should not be all that difficult for him and he has a great jockey. But there’s one big drawback: It’s been pissing down rain all week, and Tommy doesn’t go in the mud. Soft is fine, even very soft, but once the barrier is crossed into heavy or stick going, he might as well stay in his box. That seems to be the rule in racing: When you have a horse that needs fast ground, it will rain nonstop before the race, and when you have a horse that wants the mud, you get a week of tropical sunshine. We will make a final decision around noon tomorrow (post time is 6 p.m.), and I’m really hoping he can go, becase he’s driving us all nuts with his excess energy!

Turfani ran a decent race at St. Cloud on Tuesday, but she finished only 8th of 20 starters. She pulled a bit along the rail over the first 500 meters or so, then settled before closing nicely in the stretch. Not too much bad to say, except that she didn’t finish in the money. The jockey said she wasn’t too happy with the heavy ground, and that we could probably run longer. As excuses go, those aren’t too bad; I’ve been thinking of stretching her out to 2,400 meters and the ground was pretty hashed up. I do think she will win a race in the not-to-distant future, but it is frustrating, and it shows we have a bit more work to do before we find the payoff. She’s come back well, so she’ll get her usual break before we try again, near the end of the month or early in June. She clearly isn’t going to set the world on fire, but she’s a lovely big mare, easy to ride, a pleasure to have around the yard and she tries her best to do everything you ask of her. She’s also a very calm and patient leader for some of the fizzier horses in the yard, so she certainly has her qualities. I may start training her over hurdles, since she looks very suited to that physically, and that might help build up her topline a bit more, which she seems to need.

I’ve just got home from Longchamp, where I spent the day introducing a group of 40 people to the sport. We picked a great day for it, with the Group 1 French 1,000 and 2,000 Guineas races. Most in the group were Americans living in France, with a few British and French people thrown in for spice. It’s always fun to bring new people to the sport, and they seemed to really enjoy themselves. I’m hoping, of course, that some will want to take that next step and see their own colors out there on the track. But in any case, I can always talk endlessly about horses to anyone who will listen, and we seemed to have a very receptive audience on Sunday. So thanks to Mark for helping organize it all, and let’s hope we see some of these people at the track regularly from now on!

Turfani will run at St. Cloud on Tuesday, in the same category of her last two races – claiming for 9,000 euros – and nearly the same distance at 2,100 meters. She was 6th at that distance and category the last two times out, so hopefully she can improve this time and bring home a check. She’ll be ridden by a male jockey for the first time, so it will be interesting to see if that changes things. She seems to be fit and well, and her new, less-rich diet seems to suit her better. It’s started raining a bit tonight, so we should have a slight softening in the ground, which is good, and we’ll have – again – a full field of 20 runners. I’m not going to get too optimistic because Tyke was so disappointing at Chantilly last Friday, so we’ll just do as the French do: Say “merde” and hope for the best!

Tyke ran pretty miserably today at Chantilly. First he decided he didn’t want to load in the gate, then he immediately got his tongue over the bit, pulled like a train for about 1,300 meters and then, of course, had no puff to actually finnish the race, which was a mile, or 1,600 meters. The jockey said he has plenty of speed and absolutely no discipline. The gate behaviour didn’t surprise me all that much, since he was acting the same way about going into his box in the stabling area. You had to ask him two or three times, then, when he thought it was his idea, he went in fine. Same with the gate; it was clear it wasn’t fear, and there’s nothing wrong with him, but he just decided HE wanted to be the one to decide when to go in. The poor gentleman jockey had a pretty unpleasant ride, and almost came off when Tyke decided he was going around a horse in front of him, no matter what the jockey thought.

I know at home, Tyke has transformed from a cowardly baby to a big horse with ideas of his own. I was happy enough to accept some character flaws in exchange for training well and an overall more brave attitude, but I’m a little disappointed with his behaviour at the gate. I’ll have to take him through a few times at home to see if we can’t straighten this out. Trying to find the positives, a few things that happened today are relatively easy to fix: we’ll add a tongue-tie and do some gate training, plus scale back the distance for the next race and just let him gallop out. I suspected a mile might be too long, and it was confirmed. He has plenty of speed, so he’ll come back to 1,400 meters for the next race (I’d rather have 1,200, but there’s nothing coming up). He’s training too well at home and showed he has enough speed, so I’m not ready to give up on him yet. He’ll get a couple of more chances before we decide whether to continue with him.

Tyke gets another crack at a race tomorrow in Chantilly; he’s drawn outside, in post 13 of the 13-horse field, which kinda sucks. That means he’ll either have to jump out quick and end up in front, which I don’t really want, or try to tuck in behind without being dead last. Since I’d like to see him relax and show better respiration than last time, I’d prefer he run 8th or 9th, then try to close. It hasn’t rained at all in the past week, so the going will be a bit fast. As usual, I’d prefer more cut in the ground. But Tyke seems in good very fit and happy, so now we’ll just have to see what happens.