A River Runs Through It

I know it’s March. But I want to talk about January and February, because I never got a chance to yet because it all happened so fast. I moved most of the yard down to Cagnes sur Mer for the winter season. The point of this exercise is to A) give everyone a change of scenery, sort of like a vacation of sorts, a concept that doesn’t really exist for horse trainers; B) escape the frozen winter around Paris to get some sun on the horses’ backs and get an advantage in training for the spring season and c) make some prize money. Well, at least we managed to get C done.

Cagnes this year was a muddy, rainy mess, and it never so much as thought about freezing in Paris, so that defeated points A and B. We took nine horses down and in the unending deluge, it all turned out to be quite a bit of work. There was precious little sun, and no leg up on training over the horses who stayed up North, who, for the most part, were drier than we were. Despite it all, we had a good season. Only one win, thanks to the appropriately-named Ray of Hope, but 10 places and 71,000 euros and change in prize money. We were second a lot, which was frustrating, but it still put money in the bank.

And in the end, we did get a bit of sun. But overall it was a much calmer affair this year, with days of rain dampening spirits and all of us hunkered down trying to dry off, only to go out and get soaked the next day. The inner training tracks were flooded a lot of the time, which meant we were all stuck hacking along the main fibersand track, a surface that doesn’t do much to maintain muscle tone on a horse. Drainage pumps were working full time to keep the place from going under water, and that presented problems of its own. In order to get from our boxes onto the main track, we had to pass a drainage hose – which sometimes was spurting water and sometimes not. Any horse person reading this sees where this is going, right? By the end of the meeting, we swore someone was sitting in a booth somewhere with a hidden camera, pressing the button just as our horses had to pass. I challenge any dressage rider to do more perfect pirouettes than we were forced to sit through because of that drainage hose. I was the only casualty, in the end, a victim of my own overconfidence. Ray of Hope and I were already safely passed the danger (I thought) when blurp went the hose, sending King Driver behind me into a spin, and Ray thought King needed a dance partner. I missed the downbeat  and ended up on the ground. Charitable Act was in the middle and just stood there rolling his eyes, wondering what all the fuss was about.

Then there were the trotters, although there seemed to be fewer of them this year, which was a relief. Most of our horses got used to the clatter of sulkies trotting up behind them after a few days. Charitable was the exception. He didn’t care much for the trotters from the start, and his esteem for them did not grow as the meeting wore on. Luckily, he was not a declared runner the day the track decided to run a trotting meeting and a galloping meeting at the same time, with alternating races 15 minutes apart. This seemed like an insane idea when we heard about it, but in the end it wasn’t all that bad. There were a few short tempers around the vet boxes were the doping control was done, because it was far too crowded and the trotting drivers had to leave their sulkies elsewhere. One gave up and just drove in to the stabling area, scattering the gallopers everywhere. A fistfight nearly ensued, but it was diffused and the offending trotter was seen off.

When it was time to go home, I think we were all ready.  We’ve got some good prospects for the spring season, a couple of brand-new two-year-olds and a full yard to take us forward.

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