Category: Updates from the yard

Cape Tycoon is entered for next Sunday at Longchamp, which would be his debut for me. He will gallop tomorrow morning and so far things have been going pretty well. He was coughing a bit on Friday (I assume after he discovered he was entered in a race via the secret broadband connection somewhere in his box) but he’s eating well, has no fever and didn’t cough today, so hopefully it’s nothing to worry about. Just in case, I’ve given him a dose of Vitamin C (which will make him nearly impossible to hang onto tomorrow) and echinacia to bolster his immune system. There’s been a bug going around, and this would be the worst possible time for it to hit.

Tyke has been looking and acting more and more like a racehorse, and he put Skid in  his place today when Skid decided to try to start a fight walking home after exercising. Skid is going through the horse version of the Terrible Twos (even though he’s three) and hasn’t yet figure out that he’s been gelded. So out of the blue he swung around to kick Tyke – who KNOWS what they were talking about between themselves before that – and then backed into him after I stopped his first attempt. Tyke responded with a good whack, catching Skid right in the ribs and missing my hip by milimeters. Skid should know better than to pick a fight with a horse twice his size and racing fit. He’s got a good egg on his side, but all in all everyone was lucky – especially me.

Well, you can’t say she’s not consistent. Turfani ran 6th again today in a field of 14, just out of the money. Today, though, there were plenty of excuses. I had never seen the track at Argentan, and while it is a decent country track, the home stretch is short and flat, nothing like the nice long uphill at Fontainebleau, St. Cloud or Compiegne, which is where we should go next. Plus, she wasn’t 100 percent going into this race, so we’ll change her feed and get her liver issues ironed out before we think about what to do next. All in all, she ran respectably, but didn’t get the chance to put in the nice finishing kick we saw in Fontainebleau. She didn’t blow much after the race, though, so she didn’t overextend herself. We’ll see how she is over the next few days, and I’ll probably pull another blood sample in two weeks or so to see where we are. But I think we can expect better things next time out.

But it looks like Turfani actually has a chance tomorrow. I’ve finally gotten a chance to take a closer look at the rest of the field, and there’s not much there. Paris Turf and various other tip sheets also like our chances.  Plus, it has rained quite a bit in Normandy over the past day, so the going should be fine. The one downside is that her bloodwork came back and it’s not 100 percent what I’d like to see. Turns out she’s definitely not anemic – her red cell count is actually off the high side of the scale, which is terrific news. But she’s slightly bothered in liver enzymes, which confirms what I’d suspected lately: Her diet is too rich. The numbers are not catastrophic, and not enough to think about scratching the horse. But I’ll definitely be taking her off the Baileys and onto Troffy Rouge, which leaves out the sweet additives that Baileys puts in. I like the Baileys a lot for speed horses, but I’ve found that slower-burning types like Turfani sometimes need a little less in the feed bucket. Basically, it’s like she’s been eating the horse version of cassoulet, when she should be eating steak and salad. Needless to say, I’ve stopped the Hematinic and instead am giving her a few doses of Ekyrenal, an extract of plants and artichokes that will help her detox a bit before the race. We’ll also have to see how she handles the trip – it’s a three-hour drive to the race, but she seems to handle the transport fine. Let’s hope it keeps up.

Turfani made the cut for Thursday in Argentan. It’s a 1,950 meter claimer with a full field of 14; she will break from the six hole and Nadege will ride. It’s not a strong field, but it’s a country track with a fairly short home stretch, so she’ll have to be up closer than she was in Fontainebleau if she hopes to take a check. I still think she’s not quite in top form;  and we took a blood sample Saturday and I’ll see the results today. She is working well and seems certainly capable of racing, but I’m sensing she’s just a little under the weather. I started her on Twydil Hematinic on Saturday, giving her an iron and mineral boost going into the race.  If I see anything amiss in the blood analysis, I’ll scratch, but if the numbers are OK, we’ll go ahead. There aren’t all that many races for her at the moment, so I do think we should take a crack at this if we can. I’ll also scratch if we don’t get some of the rain promised into Thursday. I don’t want to risk running her on fast ground, because she’s not solid enough behind. She definitely needs some cut in the turf.

Turfani is start-declared for a claimer in Argentan on Thursday, but there are 26 still in, so we’ll have to wait until tomorrow before we know for sure if we get in. And it needs to rain. Tommy’s leg seems good, and he is back to jumping out of his skin just three days after Longchamp, so I’m looking for a race in about two weeks’ time, but I’m not finding what I want. France Galop gave us a gift by taking three kilos off his handicap after his race, which puts him in a great position if I can find the right race. There’s a 2,000-meter handicap at Fontainebleau with his name written all over it EXCEPT his third place in Deauville, long ago that it was, disqualifies him. I’m afraid we may have to go to Nancy, but that’s a long haul so I might just have to wait for something closer. Tyke gave us a super workout yesterday, one that allows me to declare him ready to go, so he has a race at Longchamp on April 26, all being well with his knees. So we’re all sitting tight, counting the days.

Tommy ran his comeback race at Longchamp yesterday and appears to have come back sound, which was the objective for the day. He also finished last, but we don’t care about that. He was ridden by an extremely inexperienced jockey in a lady’s race, so anything can happen. I told her that he usually ran at the back, but since he hadn’t seen a racecourse in more than a year, just let him do what he wants and whatever you do, don’t hit him. She apparently only heard the first part of that, because he bolted out of the starting gate to lay about fourth, which is when the jockey panicked and hooked him right back to the back of the pack, nearly causing an accident for the horses behind her. Ah, well, what can you do? It was tough to find somebody to ride him because it was clear it would essentially be a training gallop. But for jockeys, like doctors, the first rule is “do no harm,” and that rule was followed. He came back sound (and not very tired). He’s eating well, his legs look like they’re up to the task and now that he’s got a race under his belt, we can find a nice handicap for him next time out. He looks terrific and I’m glad we’re back in business with him again.

The Internet is buzzing about the latest high-profile scandals to hit U.S. racing just as the Triple Crown season gets under way.  The first black eye came as trainer Jeff Mullins was caught administering an oral paste to a horse in the detention barn before a race in New York, which is illegal under the rules of that state. The paste was contained in a plastic oral syringe – which most people not used to dealing with horses have probably never seen or heard of. So the headlines have been transformed into “Mullins caught with syringe,” which makes it sound like he was injecting some substance. The confusion could draw attention away from the real issue of what should and should not be permitted on race day (the right answer, of course, is that nothing should be permitted).

The second black eye came from Ernie Paragallo, a big owner in New York State who apparently has better things to spend his money on than feeding his sizable bloodstock holdings. Several emaciated mares from his farm ended up at slaughter auctions in New York as Mr. Paragallo enjoyed cocktails at Aqueduct over the weekend.

Both incidents shine yet more light on an industry in trouble, but how much worse does it have to get before any real change happens? U.S. racing is like a substance abuser that has to hit bottom before being hauled off to rehab, but where in the hell is the bottom?

Little Tommy Fella is finally ready for his comeback, which is set to happen Thursday at Longchamp. It’s been a long, patient road, but he seems to think he’s ready, so we’re going to believe him. He hasn’t raced since a tendon problem showed up after his third-place finish at Deauville in October of 2007. Now, after stem-cell therapy and an arthroscopic knee operation, he is back in business. He will run a mile claimer at Lonchamp, in a field that is a bit tough, but this will essentially be a schooling gallop to get a race into his legs and requalify him for the handicaps. His best distance is probably a little longer. Thankfully, it rained last night and more is forecast tomorrow, so the turf should soften up a bit. We just want a safe comeback for him, to see what we should do next.

A hearty congratulations to one of my newest owners, Mark Tronco, who ran the Paris Marathon this morning. I don’t know what his time was (I’m thinking he was somewhere behind the Kenyan who won the thing with a time of 2 hours, 24 minutes and change) but he ran the whole thing, which is no small feat. And just to show his dedication to the yard, he wore a big logo for my Web site on his back. Thanks, Mark!

On the four-legged front, the three Ts worked this morning – Tyke, Turfani and Tommy. Tommy has an entry at Longchamp on Thursday, which would be his comeback race after more than a year off. It’s a mid-level claimer, and there are some very good horses still standing their ground, so I haven’t decided for sure if we should go ahead. If it doesn’t start raining soon, we won’t run, but if the forecast storms materialize, we might give it a shot just to get a race into him. He will have no chance to win, but he will requalify for the handicaps and we’ll see how his legs hold up. Tyke and Turfani worked well, and Turfani has an entry in Argentan next week.

That was the discussion question of  the day after Tyke popped me off (again!) during a hack canter. In France, the tradition is that whoever falls buys the Champagne for the yard (not that we need an excuse). Falls are part of the job, unfortunately, and they happen to everyone. Theirry was felling pretty defeated a couple of weeks ago after Turfani chucked him off while walking back after her work was finished and then tanking off at a full gallop across the training center. The very next day, I was walking out Skid when a loose horse (not one of mine) came careening around a corner right at us in full gallop. Today, Tyke was surprised by a group of horses on a path normally only used by service trucks. The path intersects that galloping track where he was hacking with Tommy, and I felt him tense up, but then he relaxed again when we had turned the corner and the horses were behind us. But it was a trick – a stride later he pulled his hind quarters under him in a stop worthy of the finest quarter horse and spun around in the direction of the departing horses. I landed on my feet next to him and managed to keep hold of the reins and not let him get away. Tyke has a gift for this kind of move, which is exactly how he’s dropped me twice before. He’s not very brave, but strangely he always decides to pull his stop and spin AFTER he passes whatever scary thing has upset him. It’s like he’s changed his mind about passing it.

In any case, it happens, and as long as no one gets hurt, it’s no big deal. Good old Tyke did manage to pull a ligament in my little finger, which will be very annoying for a while, but nothing major. He stood on my foot the other day, too, so for the moment, all of my bruises have come from him. Meanwhile, the Champagne is chilling…