Author: grarick

Just scanning the headlines, and I see that five top-class mares are already confirmed in foal to Sea the Stars, confirmed today as the Horse of the Year in France for 2009. The mares include the dam of Zarkava (who will visit Sea the Stars herself soon) and the dam of George Washington and Grandera. On paper, it doesn’t get any better than this, classic examples of “breed the best to the best and hope for the best.” I can’t wait to see these foals and how they develop. I am (like most people) a huge fan of Sea the Stars, and of his sire, Cape Cross (who gave us Cape Tycoon, my only duel winner last year). I still believe that the best race mares do not make the best brood mares (Sea the Stars’ dam, Urban Sea, being the biggest exception to that belief), so I have more hope for the combination of the dam of Zarkava and Sea the Stars than I do for the products of Zarkava herself. But who knows? Maybe she’ll be the next Urban Sea. I’ve seen photos of her first foal by Dalakhani, and she looks like a fine filly indeed, although I admit I have no idea how to judge a foal. They change so much and so fast I prefer to look at them as late yearlings, and even then things can change a lot. In any case, I think we can expect to see a few Sea the Stars products entered in the classics in 2014. That sounds like a long way off, but it will be here in an instant (that’s the middle-age lady seeing the years fly by attitude coming through…)

DerringBay ran a clunker in Lyon yesterday, making a long trip all the harder. He broke oddly and never found his action. Boeuf said he had to niggle him along the whole time, and you could see that. I don’t see an obvious reason. His legs seemed fine today. He was coughing quite a bit after the race, and again this morning when he was hand-walked, so maybe he’s got something respiratory going on. I don’t think there is a bleeding issue, because it’s not like he didn’t finish – he just didn’t fire. He ate up everything like he always does, so if he’s sick, it’s not serious. Maybe, in the end, he’s as sick of Lyon as I am. If all is well, we’ll try him in the easiest race I can find in Deauville sometime near the end of the month.

I’ll be up and bleary-eyed at 4 a.m. to put Bay on the truck and head to Lyon, treating myself to another long drive in hopes of finally doing better than 2nd. This meeting is PMU, so I had hoped to get a ride down with the STH transport, but they wanted to leave at noon today, which was ridiculous. I think the other Maisons-Laffitte trainer, who has two runners down there, wanted to have dinner in Lyon tonight. So I rented my own truck to go on my own time – I didn’t have a dinner date. Bay is running in an 1,800-meter handicap, and this time he’ll have Dominique Boeuf on board which should be interesting. Boeuf is one of my favorite jockeys to watch, but I rarely use him because he has had…issues, for lack of a better term. Word is he pulls horses in handicaps, and I’ve seen it happen, which is why I never bet on him. On the other hand, when he WANTS to win, he’s a fantastic jockey. I’ve rarely seen anyone more at ease on a horse. Bay isn’t complicated, which is kind of too bad, because Boeuf has a way with insane horses. All he has to do tomorrow is keep Bay straight in the home stretch and we should be in the top three. And as always, it just depends on whether the guy wants to do it or not.

I brought Little Brazilien and Skid Solo in from their winter vacations yesterday, both covered in mud but otherwise in good weight. Next in will be George and Timelord, so we can get them all moving more or less together. We are about a month behind where I’d like to be because of the weather, but everyone is having the same problem, so this spring will be a contest to see which trainers can be the most patient in bringing their horses along. At least we have some ready for action. DerringBay is likely to go back to Lyon on Wednesday, and Turfani will be entered for a handicap in Deauville a week from Saturday, but I’m not sure she will run. It’s 2,400 meters, and I’d prefer 2,000, but the conditions are good, so we’ll enter and I’ll decide next week whether to go for it. Belle is still on track for a March 13 start, and Versaki is likely for March 11 in Deauville. Versaki, Bay, Belle and Turfani will all work tomorrow, providing the tempest currently blowing through Maisons-Laffitte leaves us a track to work on…

So it’s 12:14 a.m. here in France, and I’m desperately trying to find the results of the Fountain of Youth Stakes, run at Gulfstream Park a half-hour ago, and nowhere on the Internet can I find the results. Nowhere. My friend Ellie Crowder in Tampa ran her old war horse Major Park at Tampa Bay Downs, and I could watch the race live (he finished a game second, by the way – so congrats to Ellie). But not Gulfstream, which appears to have one of the word’s worst web sites. I see on the Paulick Report that Eskendereya won, but that seems to be the best we can do. Wow, in this day of Internet rapid technology. The Gulfsteam site redirects me to a bunch of other sites, which seem to want money before offering anything, including race replays. This now puts me solidly in the camp of those wondering why race results are not immediately made available. Geez, even in here in France, where technology is still in the dark ages in many ways, we manage to get race results out for whoever wants them. Guess I’ll have to go to bed and wait until tomorrow to see how Aikenite, who is owned by a couple of really nice folks I met at the Breeders’ Cup, did…

The worst seems to be over. The tracks are thawed and it actually smells a little bit like spring. I no longer need a flashlight to feed in the morning, or to fill water buckets at night. Turfani and Blessing Belle worked on the fibersand this morning and they are both close to ready to get racing, which should happen in the first week of March. Hard Way is working his way back, relearning how to be civilized on the training track and stop acting like a yearling. Skid and Little Brazilien will come back from the field Tuesday; we are way behind getting the horses that have been out started back, but with the weather like it was, there was no point in bringing them home. George (Email Exit) and Timelord will come back March 2. Bay and Versaki are ready to go, too, and have races in early March. We have two new horses now in pre-training who should come in by April.  I can’t wait to get everything moving again.

Pixie’s Blue was bought by BBA Ireland at the sales today, so she will go back to her native country to be a brood mare. Apparently she will have a date with Soviet Star. She sold for only 2,000 euros, but I’m very happy she is going off to breeding in Ireland, so the price doesn’t really matter. There were many, many horses unsold today, so just to get her placed was a victory. Good luck, Pixie! Maybe one day I’ll be racing one of your babies.

Pixie’s Blue goes to the Arqana mixed sale at St. Cloud tomorrow, so we spent the day spiffing her up for her big day. She got clipped and her mane trimmed, and tomorrow off she’ll go with braids and Show Sheen in her tail. Pixie has been an exercise in frustration for us, so I’m hoping she sells tomorrow to someone primarily interested in breeding her. She won her race in Maisons-Laffitte really impressively, and has shown us plenty in the morning, but I’ve never able to get her back in the money and I’m not sure why. She has been unlucky in many ways, but she is a nice horse with a great paper, and deserves to be a brood mare. She has a brother and sister who were Listed winners, and another sister has already produced winners as a brood mare. She has plenty of black type on her page, so I’m hoping she will catch someone’s eye. If she doesn’t sell, she will go back to David Henderson’s yard in Mont de Marsan, so we do have a backup plan. This will be the first time I’m taking a horse to the sales, so it should be an interesting experience, if a cold one. It’s still below freezing here, although the weather is supposed to warm up to a balmy 4 degrees – starting Wednesday, just 24 hours too late.

DerringBay finished second AGAIN in Lyon today, beaten just three-quarters of a length. He’s going to hit it down there one of these days…that said, he needed to be in the first three to make the trip worth it, and he was, so I can’t complain too much. It was one of the most dismal winter days we’ve had yet, with minus 5 Celcius and a frozen track. For a bit there I wasn’t sure we would race, but they worked over the track with heavy harrowing before every race, and it turned out to be usable, but not more. DBay hated it, actually, so we were sort of lucky to grab second. He lugged left horribly in the stretch, which is what he does when something is not to his liking, but he managed to stick his neck out when it counted. That makes three second places on the fibersand in Lyon. It was the usual lovely five-and-a-half hour drive each way, with the trip home complicated by several bits of blizzard. Probably the leftovers of what the Americans were struggling with this past week. But DBay adds 2,400 euros to his bank account, which is growing far more than I ever thought it would.

We’ve finally got a little racing to give us a break from winter. DerringBay goes to Lyon on Wednesday with a good chance to win. It’s a PMH meeting, unfortunately, which means we have to drive ourselves and it all costs more, but it looks like a great entry, since there are only nine runners in our handicap. DBay is at the top of the second half of the handicap, carrying 59.5 kilos, but the competition looks pretty slim. He seems in fine form, and it’s a track he likes (although I have to say it’s certainly not one of my favorites, considering it’s a five-hour drive and is situated in one of the most dismal urban areas I’ve seen in France). We have a new jockey up, Mikael Forest, who works for  Jean-Claude Rouget (I had said Pantall earlier – this is a correction. I don’t know why I always confuse the two…) and seems to be a promising kid. We have the far outside post, which shouldn’t hurt us at this track. There are two or three horses that look like they can run a bit, so it won’t be a walkover, but if DBay decides to win this, he can. Now we just have to hope he’s in a good mood on Wednesday – because if he’s not, it’s going to be a long drive home…