Author: grarick

It’s a big weekend ahead for French racing, with our European champion Arc day coming up on Sunday. We’ve got visitors from everywhere coming for the festivities, which include racing at Longchamp on Saturday and Sunday, the Arc sale on Saturday night and various dinners and parties around that. Hopefully, we all won’t be too hung over when George runs on Monday in Maisons-Laffitte. We’ll all be there to cheer on Shamalgan in the Group 2 Prix Dollar on Saturday. He’s been staying at the yard for three weeks now and I’m hoping he runs well. His lad, Costia, says his horse doesn’t like heavy ground, though, which could hurt his chances. At least that’s what I think he said. Costia only speaks Russian and Czech, so we communicate mainly by pointing and improvised sign language.

We have a party of 20 in the restaurant next to the presentation ring on Sunday, which should be quite fun. I think this is Youmzain’s year. He’s had to put up with some very good horses in previous years, but if he’s in form, this should finally be his chance to win instead of finishing second. And of course we get to see Goldikova in the Foret, and Poppet’s Treasure, Overdose’s little sister, might line up for the Abbaye. I hope she can avenge her older brother. All in all, seven Group 1 races on the card – a veritable European Breeders’ Cup. What on earth were the British authorities thinking when they came up with the idea of a British Champion’s Day only a week later? We already have a European champion’s day. It’s in France. Be there or be square.

Turfani told me in no uncertain terms last year that she didn’t care for heavy ground, and she made sure I got the message again this year when I tried it at Craon on Monday. The ground wasn’t really heavy as such, but it was very hashed up after three days of racing and just enough rain. She was drawn 1 on the cord, so had no choice but to run over the worst of it. She was already struggling entering the final turn, so Fabien dropped his hands and coasted home – a good decision. She spent Tuesday sleeping it off, and will be in easy work until I can find her something on the fibersand in Deauville. There is little point in trying to run her on turf from here on out. Meanwhile, we’re looking forward to George on Monday in Maisons-Laffitte, where he will run a 1,300-meter straight-line handicap. I wanted to run him on Saturday at Longchamp, but we didn’t make the cut. I’m hoping the Monday entry will suit him.

We’ve had some trouble with distances lately, not necessarily by choice. Little Brazilien ran 2,000 meters last week, which I knew was too far but had no choice because she needed the race and there was nothing else. She ran OK, really, considering. She idled in 5th or 6th position into the turn, then dropped back (as she usually does) but did re-accelerate a bit to try, which was better than we’ve seen lately. About 350 meters from the end she was cooked, though, which didn’t surprise me. What I’d like to try now is a mile with blinkers. Now finding that distance in a race she can get into will be a challenge. We may have to go out to the country to get it. At this point, I’ll go anywhere.

Timelord also found a little too much runway when we tried him over 3,000 meters in Maisons-Laffitte on Friday. It was a trial, really, and he told is in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t interested, so we’ll go back to 2,000 meters next, but not before he has a bit of a break. I think he needs some recovery time.

Turfani heads down to Craon tomorrow to run 2,200 meters. Again, 2,000 is her distance, and the going is likely to be quite soft, so I’m hoping she can do it. She seems keen; we treated her back since her last race and she is moving quite well now, so I’m hoping she is her usual courageous self. She won’t appreciate the long ride down, either, but Craon is really a wonderful track and I’m looking forward to running there again. It’s a shame it’s so far away (about 300 kilometers one way).  I’m hoping it’s worth the trip.

We had some bad news this week. Well Shuffled, who looked to be a promising two-year-old, went to the clinic Tuesday to get gelded and have a treatment done on a suspensory injury. As regular readers know, there was always a question of whether or not his second testicle had descended properly for gelding. It turns out it hadn’t, so he had to have general anesthesia rather than a local for gelding. When he woke up, he panicked and flung himself into the wall, breaking his neck and dying instantly. It was a freak accident, and shocking news.

Well Shuffled was the first foal the second mare I trained, Well Done Clare. Clare carried me through a dozen or so races, and she won a race (not with me on her back) and placed several times (in spite of my jockeying, not because of it). She is a tough cookie with a strong character, and Shuffles took after that. Really, we had no expectations for him, but when he came into training he quickly turned heads as a well-built quick little guy. It is a shame we will never get to see what would have happened. This kind of news is particularly hard to take after a long summer that has not gone as I had hoped. But surely, this HAS to be the bottom of our run of bad luck. We have to look forward. Triple Tonic, Shuffles’ full sister, is a yearling now and almost ready to be backed. Clare is in foal to My Risk. We move ahead.

George ran a nice third at Fontainebleau this past Wednesday, just missing second by a nose. There are a number of good things about this: He finished his race very well, showing a spark we hadn’t seen since last year; he beat horses from the Big Boys – nice to see Kay’s silks finish in front of TWO of Khalid Abdudullah’s horses, including some other big names, and  he won enough to tip him over the magic 3,000 euro mark, so now he has a wider choice of races. His next target with either be the 1,600-meter handicap at Longchamp on the eve of the Arc or a 1,300-meter straight-line run on the Monday after the Arc in Maisons-Laffitte. He may not make the cut for Longchamp, because he’s only rated 27, but if he does he will be well-placed near the bottom weights of the second division. If not, he’ll run here in Maisons-Laffitte instead. He does seem to have turned a corner for the better.

Brazil, meanwhile, will have another chance at redemption on Wednesday, although in her defense it’s not much of a chance. She’s entered in a 2,000-meter claiming race for lady jockeys. The race is too long, but because she is still below the 3,000-euro cut-off, I have to take what I can get. She needs racing, and at this point I’m ready to try anything. I won’t use blinkers this time (wouldn’t be fair at that distance), but my hope is to stretch her out to this, see how she handles it, then bring her back to a mile, maybe with blinkers, to see if she can do something. I do think she was in season at Evreux and seems not to be now, so at least we’ve got that going for us. She will work tomorrow in preparation. Who knows?

…and run so bad? Little Brazilien just didn’t cut it at Evreux yesterday, and I’m starting to lose faith in her. So far, I’ve been able to make excuses – she did so much growing at the beginning of the year and seems to be just coming into herself. She is working fabulously at home – we have to be careful which tracks we choose to work now, because we can hardly hold her. And she looks Marvelous – Absolutely Marvelous (can’t you hear Billy Crystal saying it?).  She is dappled and fit and has tremendous muscle – and for the moment, she is as slow as molasses in January when she gets to the racetrack. I don’t know why. I think she needs racing – and lots of it – to kick her into gear. The problem is, she is disqualified from running almost everything because she has no earnings in France at the grand old age of three.  Her performance in England (yes, she actually did run faster at one point, when she was two) and her pedigree suggest she should be a sprinter. But at this point, I’m going to enter her in anything that will take her just to get her out a few more times to see what might happen. If she doesn’t fire soon, we’ll have to call time, which would make her the first horse I’ve ever purchased at Newmarket that didn’t earn money. Of all the things that have come off the truck from England, I would never have thought she would be the one NOT to make money. Here’s hoping she still might come through…

Over on the Paulick Report, there’s a story about trainer Doug O’Niell’s latest troubles – this time it’s another milk-shaking violation in California. This is the same trainer who dropped a filly into a $2,000 claimer (that’s not a typo – $2,000 claimers exist in America, which is just wrong, but anyway…) in which she broke down and had to be killed not long after leaving the starting gate. These incidents raise a lot of hue and cry, but nothing ever happens to change the rules. Vets and trainers always seem to convince the public that they’re just acting for the welfare of the horse – better living through chemistry. They insist it has to be this way, and of course it doesn’t.

Timing being everything, I had just read the latest outcry before going over to feed my horses breakfast yesterday morning, to find a car parked in front of the gate waiting for me. Vets from France Galop were here for a control. They came with a list of horses to test, and they would also be verifying the identity of all the horses in the yard, plus taking a look at my pharmaceutical stock and checking on prescriptions. That’s the way it works in France. If you have horses declared in training, they can be tested at any time. And that’s the way it should be. The vets spent the morning doing their work – they were courteous and did not interfere in any way with the work that needed to be done. I needed to give them copies of prescriptions for any horse that had undergone treatment in the past three months, plus they checked to make sure all the vaccinations were up to date. They made sure I didn’t have anything locked away I wasn’t supposed to have. It all went very well, and it really wasn’t a big deal.

Drug testing – in and out of competition – needn’t be a big deal in America, either, except that so many things are allowed, I don’t know how it would be possible to have a decent testing program. All you can do is what they do – issue slaps on the wrist for various overages of bute, lasix and the rest. Until all race-day medication is banned, it will be impossible to test for anything.

Things are starting to move in the right direction again. Little Brazilien, who desperately, desperately needs a race, will finally get one on Sunday. She has a 1,300-meter maiden in Evreux. Sheik Mo has a couple in there, too, so it won’t be a cakewalk, but Brazil needs the run. Timelord is in the handicap at St. Cloud on Tuesday – like last time, he is on the cutoff between first and second division, so we won’t know which race he has until tomorrow morning. It looks like he’ll be top weight in the second half again. And George will go to Fontainebleau on Wednesday in a mile maiden. Again, I’d prefer a claimer or easier handicap, but he has to take what he can get. He seems on form, as does Brazil, so we have to hope. Timelord has been such a metronome in his racing that I really don’t have to worry about him – if he runs to form, he will be in the first four. Good to be racing again.

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. These are the stages of grief. Disbelief, alcohol, depression, bargaining, acceptance. These are the stages of a racehorse trainer going through the first years of business. Three months ago, I was absolutely sure I was going to have a great summer season and that business was taking off. By the beginning of September, I was considering whether I need to hang up my saddle for good. My string has dwindled to almost nothing and I am not well-armed for a fall/winter season. Two of my two-year-olds will not run this year – El Camino Real is just not ready, and Well Shuffled injured his suspensory ligament. Rendition, bought at the breeze-ups, still has a chance to see a racecourse this year, but she is growing like a mushroom and we have to take it slowly. Blessing Belle is still healing from her accident this summer; Skid Solo moved down south, where he hasn’t done much and may soon be back; Rapsodie turned out to be a bleeder, and no one could have imagined what turned out to be wrong with Hard Way.

So. That leaves us with George, Brazil, Turfani, Piccolo Blue, Timelord and Rendition. George has been disappointing, but like Turfani has ulcer issues and is now being treated, so I think we can still hope. Turfani wrenched her back while winning in Deauville, but is on the mend and should run in Craon at the end of the month. Piccolo Blue has some back ankle issues that we’re treating, but also should run by early October. Brazil is working gangbusters and desperately needs a race, but can’t get in because she has no performance so far. And Timelord, thankfully, is doing very well.

Frustrating? You can’t imagine. But I have found that I have good friends in times of crisis, and even better owners. Jean-Paul Gallorini, who has been my friend and mentor for many years (and has a herd of 20 golden horse statues awarded for his years as top trainer in France) has pointed out many times that what I’ve been able to do with the horses I have has been miraculous. He should know about miracles – he is known for them himself. He also knows about tenacity. He has succeeded because of both. It’s good to have somebody like that who believes in you. And I have a core group of owners who have become friends. They have remained faithful and patient, and it is because of them that I will pull this together and make it work.

I am optimistic – I have to be. I lost that for a week or so, but I have clawed back and am determined to go forward. We still have horses that can and will win – however miraculous that might turn out to be. The objective is, of course, to upgrade, and I am pushing hard to do that. It’s the season for yearling sales and the October horses-in-training sale at Newmarket is around the corner. I’m launching a full-court press to find investors.

On an upbeat note, we will have a special guest in the yard starting on Monday. Shamalgan, who is trained in the Czech Republic for a Russian owner, will be moving in after he runs the Prix Niel on Sunday and staying until he runs either in the Arc or the Group 2 Prix Dollar the day before the Arc. It will probably be a few years before I have a horse this good myself, so at least we can enjoy having one around for a couple of weeks. Maybe my horses can absorb some ability by osmosis…

Hard Way’s CAT scan has the vets here so fascinated that they sent it on to various other vet schools around the world, including the University of California-Davis. Everybody’s first reaction is that the case is very… interesting. Not exactly what you want to hear from your vets. I’ve had several conversations with my vet in Chantilly about it, and while my French is fine and I think I’m understanding a lot of what is going on, I really wanted to hear it in English. Trying to track down exactly who in California had looked at this was like finding a needle in a haystack, but Jane Smiley was able to help. Thanks to Jane, I was able to talk with the radiologist who consulted on the case.

So: Hard Way does indeed have pretty severe osteocondritis in the first vertebra, and he’s had this for a long time. But he also has a severe fracture in part of that vertebra that is relatively new. What is “interesting” about it is that the fracture is in a very strange place – in order to cause it, he would either have had to have fallen head-over-heels, run straight into a tree, or reared up and turned over. He has done none of these things. Best guess is that he smacked his head rolling in his box. He is a very enthusiastic roller; since the bone was already compromised by the osteocondritis, he must have smacked his head against the wall. The vets don’t care how it happened, but I am, of course, more than curious.

In any case, the prognosis is not all that bad. Dr. Pichalski at UC-Davis says he needs time, which he will get. I will send him to Normandy for four months and we’ll take another CAT scan in January. Best case: The bone has stabilized and formed a bony lesion that will stand up to racing. Worst case: the area has not stabilized and Hard Way will have to be officially retired. But his life does not seem to be in danger; he raced with the facture and came back to buck and play in the walker.

We could, of course, just call it a day and officially retire him now. He’s five, he’s raced, he’s won and there are a lot of other horses waiting for their chance. On the other hand, Hard Way is a bit special around the yard, and it may be completely irrational, but I think we haven’t see the best of him yet. In France, five is not old. He has raced only 18 times in his life; he has one win seven places. With the exception of this problem – and it is a big exception – he has never had anything wrong with him. Early next week I’ll take him up to Normandy where will have his holiday, and then we’ll take another scan in January. I’m hoping by next April, Hard Way will be back at Longchamp.