Author: grarick

We don’t pay much attention to holidays around here; horses don’t know the difference between Christmas, Hanukkah, Eid al Adah and any other day of the year, so the routine doesn’t change much. But New Year’s Day makes some sense as a holiday for me, providing a good opportunity, however arbitrary, to take stock of what’s happened over the past year and look ahead to what might be accomplished this year. This marks my first calendar year as a professional trainer. I’ve had five wins and 16 places from 61 starts, with total winnings of 90,930 euros. This has been accomplished with a string of horses that were all purchased for less than 16,000 euros each (some for a lot less), with the exception of Hard Way, who I bred. That’s not too bad. I’ve fallen just short of my goal of a win percentage at 10 percent, which is where it should be, but we’re finishing the year on a good note, with several new owners and some bright prospects for 2010.

My New Year’s list of resolutions and hopes is not long. For the yard, I hope to build a string of better-quality horses with the help of my owners, who I hope will have a lot of fun and a fruitful season of victories. I hope the horses who are still here stay sound, productive and happy, and I hope for a safe and accident-free year for me and my staff of riders. For racing in general, I hope France and the rest of Europe continues to hold firm against the use of any race-day medication, and I hope the United States, Saudi Arabia and South America will change their rules and end the use of race-day drugs. For the respect and health of the horse, and the jockeys who risk their lives to ride them, running sound, medication-free horses is the only acceptable way the sport can go forward.

For me personally, there are the usual resolutions: Keep the weight down (starting tomorrow!), be more organized and try to govern my passions (or else, as Mr. Spock once famously said, “they will be my undoing”).

Happy New Year to all, and best of luck wherever your horses take you.

Pixie turned in a dismal performance in Pau; I predicted she would either wire it or finish dead last, and unfortunately I was right – dead last. She broke well but then didn’t handle the track at all, and they went a breakneck pace. The fibersand in Pau looks a little deeper than Deauville on a good day, and there is a lot of kickback. That said, she may have just been surprised by it first time out (let’s try to find the bright side) and might do better next time. In any case, she will stay in the neighborhood, moving to David Henderson’s yard. He’s located in Mont de Marsan and there will be better chances for her to run down there. There is nothing left for her to try up here, since she will always be eliminated in Deauville, which wraps up on Jan. 9 in any case. There are a few more races for her in Pau, and after that she can try the turf at Cagnes sur Mer. I’m still convinced she can do something, and I’m hoping for a decent performance before she goes to the sales for potential brood mares in February. She has a fantastic paper for breeding, and she has won a race, so that’s where he future lies, I think.

Meanwhile, we’ll look ahead to Wednesday, when Blessing Belle finally gets to start in Deauville, and DerringBay will get another shot at that track.

Pixie’s Blue finally managed to make it into a race – in Pau, of all places. She left at 5 this morning for what should be a 10-hour or so trip, and will race tomorrow at 12:30 in a 1,500-meter handicap on the fibersand down there. I won’t be able to make it, so Valerie is handling the work; we were lucky to get Jean-Baptiste Hamel to ride. It’s a long trip, but it was impossible to get her into a race in Deauville, so since we got in, we had to take the chance. Pixie has done very little lately, between the frozen weather and the uncertainty of whether she would find a race somewhere. Suffice to say she will run very, very fresh down there, and I expect her to either set the pace or be very close to it. I hope Hamel fastens his seatbelt…

We are launching a full-scale assault on Deauville tomorrow with three runners. Versaki is out first in a 1,300-meter claimer; it’s only a week after his last race, but this is a much better distance for him and he seems on form, so since we got in it was too good a chance to pass up. Greg Benoist will ride. Up next will be George, who is taking on 1,900 meters again but will have a proper jockey on his back this time, so I hope that he gets a better lesson than last time out and we can better judge what he might do. He is also in substantially easier company than last time out. Capping the day will be Turfani, who is at the bottom of the first division of the 1,900-meter handicap. Charge!

Well, we made it. We’re through the winter solstice, so now, even if the temperatures drop further, the day gets a little longer from here on out. About one more minute of sun (or what passes for it) every day gives me something courage to get through the weeks ahead. I do hate winter. We managed to get Turfani, Belle and George (Email) down to the fibersand for some good work today. Turfani runs Thursday, and possibly George, too, and maybe even Versaki, which we didn’t really intend, but it looks like he might make it into a race we had counted on being eliminated from. It’s only a few days from his last race, but he seems in form and could go, so if he makes the cut he’ll take his chance. It’s a much better race for him than last time; this one is 1,300 meters claiming, which is just about perfect. George will have another crack at 1,900 meters; it is probably too long, but since we couldn’t judge anything from last time, I’d just like to see how he handles the distance if ridden correctly. We are lucky in that all of the races this time are not restricted to inexperienced jockeys. On Friday, four of the races on the card were for either young jockeys/apprentices, jockeys that hadn’t won 15 races this year or lady jockeys. The stewards had apparently taken on the role of schoolmaster, because the next day there was a huge list of fines handed out for things like unbuckling the chin strap of their helmets before dismounting, misusing the whip, failing to guard their line in the stretch and other basics. There was a total of 2,000 euros in fines, so we decided the stewards must have needed to pay for their Christmas party. In any case, we will not have to be subjected to the jockey school on Thursday. Now let’s hope the experienced guys are properly motivated!

Winter has taken hold way ahead of time here, and the Paris area is definitely having a white, frozen Christmas. All pretty from the holiday standpoint, but absolute hell for horse training. There was an article in this month’s European Trainer magazine about those hardy (and completely insane) Scandinavians who will happily ride their racehorses through piles of snow and race all winter despite having to harrow the piste about every two minutes to keep it from freezing solid. The point was supposed to be how resilient a thoroughbred can be. Agreed. But these are thoroughbreds that put up with this every year, so they’re used to it. On top of it, the Scandinavians seem to be far better-equipped for this nonsense than we are. I don’t know where they get their clothes, but somebody give me a web site, because they don’t exist in France. I go out in the morning with more layers than the Michelin tire guy and I freeze. But I digress. In the midst of all of this, there are some occasional race dates and we have horses ready to run, so off we go. Versaki debuted for us today in a 1,900-meter condition race for young jockeys, and ran respectably but the race was far too long for him. We knew it, and had him double-entered for Saturday in the race we really wanted to run that was 1,500 meters and we could have put a more experienced professional up. Unfortunately I wasn’t available at deadline time to juggle the entries, and he had to settle for today’s race, which was a shame. (At the entry deadline, I was actually having an MRI on my head because I was convinced I was having a brain hemorrhage of some sort after three days of a migraine turned into something much more ugly. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that this has been a strangely difficult autumn/winter season, physically speaking. I seem to be on the mend – again – now.) In any case, Versaki put in a good effort, finished his race and came home fine. He didn’t get the best of rides, but it was much better than poor Email’s catastrophe.

DerringBay has his chance tomorrow. He has everything going for him, so I’m really curious how he’ll do. Mathias Sautjeau, who rode him in Lyon, is up for tomorrow. We have a far outside draw, but I’m not too concerned about it because in Deauville, the winners are almost never coming on the rail.

Meanwhile, almost everyone else is staying inside because it’s very dangerous to go out. The tracks are being harrowed, but it’s not keeping up with the weather and there are ice chunks everywhere. One bad step could set a horse back for month or worse. We trucked Email and Bay off to the fibersand so they could stretch their legs a bit (particularly important for Bay since he’s running). Turfani and Belle got a sort of bizarre trot/hack canter working on whatever part of the regular tracks we could find that were usable. We need to keep Email and Turfani ticking over for their races next week. Belle is less of a priority because like Pixie, she almost certainly will not get a run in soon because of her earnings exclusion. This kind of weather makes me wish we could set up a satellite operation in Florida, but playing by French drug rules. Not in my lifetime, I suppose.

Cape Tycoon won his race last Thursday in Deauville, but the victory was bittersweet because that race will be his last. As I’ve noted here before, his knees were always iffy, and he came home lame on the right side. He was extremely courageous and won easy, and Greg Benoist walked him off the track babbling on about how fast he was and how much you could do with him, which made things all the more difficult. He cooled out fine, but after we left the vet box for the drug test (which took nearly an hour; Tyke has a thing about peeing under pressure and they finally took blood, as they had to after he won in Lyon) he was slightly favoring it. By the time we left for home about 20 minutes later, he was starting to show lameness and by the time he walked off the truck he was a sore kid. I put him on bute to keep him comfortable and we took x-rays on Saturday, which offered a mixed picture. There was no major fracture, which we had feared, but the limited about of cartilage he had cushioning the joint had all but disappeared on one side, leaving the bone to start fragmenting. He is gradually getting more comfortable, and he will continue on bute for two more days before we’ll have to stop because of other risks. He does not seem to be in distress, is eating his hay and can lay down and get up, all good things. This leaves the prognosis for him to be a riding horse somewhat limited, so we will look for suitable retirement, I think. He is a lovely big horse with a great personality, and that helps in finding a good home for him. Tyke posed more than a few ethical questions for me as a trainer. I knew he had bad knees and that they were getting progressively worse, and I also knew there was a good risk that race would be his last. But I also knew he was dead fit to go and he certainly felt like he wanted to give it a last shot. I rode him on Wednesday, the day before the race; we were passed by a canter on the straight track and I had all I could do to hold him back. I decided that maybe he was like Brett Farvre, the U.S. football quarterback who kept retiring because his body is in pieces but kept coming back and winning. I think maybe I was right. He won the race, which is what I had prepared him to do, and despite his injury, he isn’t looking too sorry for himself just now.

We also took Hard Way and Email Exit to Deauville. I thought Hard Way should win, but he finished only sixth, the first time out of the money in five starts. There was no pace in the race and he got stuck trying to move on the rail in the stretch, which seems to be totally dead and no winners were coming from there. That said, he didn’t pull for the first time and didn’t show signs of trying to gain much speed in the stretch, so I think he’s tired and now definitely needs his break. I have taken him out of training, changed his feed and am treating him like a hack, which seems to suit him. He will stay in the yard for the winter; maybe I’ll change my mind and send him out for two weeks or so at some point, but not more. He likes his double rugs, his prime place in the barn, his trail rides and his Guinness, so there’s no reason to change that.

Poor Email Exit got one of the worst rides I’ve ever seen. He was entered in a race reserved for jockeys that hadn’t won 15 races this year (keep in mind this IS December…) and let me tell you, there’s a reason why some of these guys haven’t made it. An agent found me a guy called Aurelien Malenfant, who should change his name to Malmonte. My first warning signal was when I picked up the saddle and found out he was not a kid, but a grown-up of about 35. If a kid doesn’t win 15 races, it might be because he’s just getting started. But it makes me nervous to see adult still hacking away. I explained to Aurelien that the horse had never run more than 1,200 meters in England, but that he seemed to want more distance in the way he was working at home and had condition. I told him to let him get out of the gate, find a spot behind other horses, do your work in the stretch and see what happens. When the gate opened, this guy gunned him forward like the fires of hell were behind him (don’t forget, he had been a 1,200 meter horse – this would be the very last thing you should do). Not surprisingly, he quickly found himself in front. Then he seemed to remember that this is not where he was supposed to be. So he hooked the horse back so brutally that I think the poor colt thought it must have been a false start. Email quickly dropped back to the back third of the pack of 16. Then the jockey panicked about being too far back and proceeded to start riding the horse again ENTERING THE FINAL TURN. As soon as they got out of the turn, Aurelien dropped his hands and gave up. He pulled the horse up not more than a stride after the wire, then proceeded to babble on about how the colt was afraid of other horses and maybe I might want to try blinkers. I said thank you, now get off. I was stunned, and so was the horse. I have never seen a look of more abject confusion on a horse’s face. Email walked back to the showers with a “what the hell just happened to me out there?” look. I had planned to run him just once and then send him off for gelding, but he has come back fine and I will probably look for one more race because I hate to send him away with such a bad lesson.

Next up in Deauville should be Derringbay, who is working gangbusters, Turfani and hopefully Versake and Belle if we can get them in.