Blog

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.

The Deauville follies have begun in earnest, and seven of our horses have triple entries next week in an effort to get into something. It looks like Cape Tycoon should get a run, since he has a priority entry from the last elimination (along with the 155 others that didn’t make the cut, about half of whom are entered along with us). It’s going to be tough to get Pixie into anything, because she is the first to get thrown out because she hasn’t made enough money this year. Same with Blessing Belle and Versaki. Their performances were in England, where the prize money is so dismal that even Versaki’s two third places amounted to a whopping 600 euros and Belle’s victory was only worth 2,700; in France, those kind of performances would have tipped them well over the 3,000 euro mark needed to avoid automatic elimination. The same criteria doesn’t apply to two-year-olds, so Email Exit might get in through luck of the draw. Derringbay might get in, too, but for once I’m hoping he gets eliminated because I’d rather run the longer race on Dec. 18 but I need the priority entry to get in. Sound confusing? It’s a mess. Hard Way looks likely to make the race on Wednesday. I wanted to start his winter break, but he decided he’d rather race again, so I’ll give him a run in Deauville but then it’s definitely vacation. He’s in the 2,400-meter handicap, which should roll along quickly enough on the fibersand that we’ll let him run out front and stretch his legs for once. Unfortunately, it looks like he will carry top weight in the second division again, but that seems to be where we’re stuck in the handicap for the moment. Another of the frustrations of not knowing until the last minute who runs and at what weight is that it’s impossible to line up a jockey – or at least a decent one. The best guys wait until the last minute to see where the chips fall, then cherry pick the best rides (can’t begrudge them that – we’ve all got to make a living). France Galop said this morning that it is adding one race a day for the meeting, which should help a bit, but won’t do much for Pixie, Versaki or Belle. Bay, Tyke and Turfani all should find something eventually, though. Gotta love Deauville in December.

Turfani spun her wheels in the mud in Lyon yesterday, frustrating us all because she really wanted – and was ready – to do better. I wanted soft going for her, but what we got was “collant,” or sticky, thick mud. I had never run her in anything that deep, but I was hoping she would travel on it. Nope. It was pretty evident from the minute she hit the track for her warm-up canter. She did not have her usual fluid stride. She broke well and went to her usual spot, about fourth behind the leaders, and was gamely trying from there, but she switched legs in the first furlong looking for better footing and I knew we were cooked. This is the first time I haven’t been annoyed with a jockey dropping his hands. Hamel rode exactly to orders, then asked her twice at the head of the stretch and didn’t force it when it was clear she couldn’t accelerate. So my record in Lyon is 1 win and two places from five starts, which isn’t too bad, but it’s a long way down there and I’ll be happy enough not to have to make the trip for awhile. Turfani came back fine, had a good long nap today and is eating up. Best of all, her legs look good, so we can look for something in Deauville…

…like the hundreds of others who are entered. Pixie and Tyke were both eliminated from their race Thursday – there were 199 horses start-declared. Everybody fit to run has entries next week; we’ll just keep throwing them out there and hoping something sticks.

Skid Solo makes his second attempt at a Tierce handicap tomorrow, this time in Deauville and this time at his best distance of 1,200 meters. It’s a great purse – 27,000 to the winner – and a field of 16. We’ve got Olivier Peslier up, and as usual, it’s up to Skid because we know he’s got the ability.

Derringbay heads back to the fibersand in Lyon for an 1,800-meter claimer; this time he’s riding in a truck that he can walk straight on and off, but I won’t be with him this time in any case, since I’ll be with Skid in Deauville. He will be well looked after, though, and Nadege will ride. It’s a tougher field this time because it’s a PMU meeting, but if he can repeat the speed he’s shown at home, that could carry him into the money. Unlike me, DBay seems to be feeling fit and fine since his last race.

Now that we’ve established that European racing has its better qualities, who wants to play? We have a half interest in a French yearling called El Camino Real available. He is by Enrique out of a Green Tune mare, is ready to be backed and looks like he will make a very nice two-year-old. Best of all, he’s eligible for French owners premiums, which means 78 percent added to any purse money as a two-year-old, 68 percent as a three-year-old and 48 percent as a four-year-old or older. Anyone interested can contact me by phone or e-mail. Just a reminder, my fees are 55 euros a day (so a half interest will cost you 27.50), which includes everything except vet fees and racing costs. Vet fees in my yard average about 500 euros a year per horse. (And to my American readers, that’s not a typo – it’s an average per YEAR). I’ve got a 10 percent win rate and 20 percent place rate this year, which is about what it should be for a reasonable yard.

I’m also off to my favorite horses-in-training sale at Newmarket next week, for anyone interested in owning an older horse with more immediate potential. I’ve got six horses in the yard at the moment that came from the Newmarket sales. Four of them have won for us, one has placed and one hasn’t yet run. With one exception, they were all bought for less than 8,000 euros.  The exception is Skid Solo, who was bought for about 16,000 euros. He has since won 22,000 euros and I expect him to have a good chance in the Tierce handicap in Deauville on Thursday. There are more than 1,500 horses in the catalog and surely deals to be had; I will be there for all four days.

Last part of the sales pitch: Just a reminder that French prize money is the best in Europe. The average first place purse for a low-level Paris-area claiming race is 8,000 euros. If you win two races, your training bill for the year is nearly paid. So even if your horse doesn’t have the French-bred premiums, you stand a good chance of breaking even. If you DO have a French horse, things get even more interesting. Hard Way, my home-bred, won 17,000 euros so far this year, but the French premium took that total to 25,000. I expect him to add to those winnings before the year is over.

Oh yeah, one more thing: Champagne flows freely whenever your horse runs, no matter where he finishes! (It flows even more freely when they win…)

I thank everyone for their comments of support on my previous posts; I feel very strongly about these issues and if there’s a crusade to change American racing, sign me up for the front lines. I do want to take a minute, though to defend Patrick of the Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance, a tremendous organization without which many of you would never know I existed. Yes, Patrick made the decision to hold back the post, but if he hadn’t done that, someone at the NTRA would have. He knows the score over there, and I think he is just as disappointed as many of the rest of us bloggers about how the whole thing is going. Patrick is one of the good guys, and he told me he agrees with most (not all, but most) of the things in my post. But he also knows how thick the wall is and what does or doesn’t pass through the cracks. While I am someone who prefers to smash through the wall and damn the consequences, Patrick knows that won’t work and has the finesse to try a gentler way (and finesse is something I have never been attributed with having).  We’ll all keep fighting the battle in our own way, but I just want to thank Patrick for working tirelessly to try to put together something he thought would be good for all of us.

As I mentioned in my blog about a month ago, I’m doing some side-blogging for the National Thoroughbred Racing Association leading up to the Breeders’ Cup, commenting on the European contenders. It turns out, though, that the folks at that site aren’t too interested in anything that might be controversial, so the following post I wrote for them was deemed unsuitable. In the interest of not wasting my work, here is the post I had offered (and actually, I thought it was pretty toned down compared to what I usually say about these subjects):

Many of the comments flying around the Internet about Sea the Stars and other European contenders for the Breeders’ Cup point up the vast differences between European and American racing, and it usually deteriorates into an “U.S. vs. Them” mentality. And I’ll be the first to put up my hand: I’m a convert to the European way and I’m very quick to defend it. This is in large part because I’m American, and I feel like it would be out of the question to ever be able to train horses in my native country under the current system.

The main difference between the two systems is, of course, medication. I couldn’t agree more with the person who commented (on the NTRA blog) that he was glad Sea the Stars would not have to face the choice of running on Lasix. I, too, was relieved that the Tsui family decided not to come to Santa Anita. In Europe, no race-day medication is allowed, period. No Lasix, no bute, no anything. Unfortunately, when European trainers race in America, many feel they have to use the permitted medications because they’ll be at a disadvantage if they don’t. Some resist, and with success. Pascal Bary won Breeders’ Cup races with Domedriver and Six Perfections and neither raced on medication.

I’ve heard all the American arguments about why horses there “need” to run on drugs. Which brings up another big difference between the two systems: American horses, for the most part, are stabled and trained at the same track where they race, and those tracks are usually located close to major cities and the pollution that comes with them. The tracks are usually quite tight by European standards, not usually more than a mile around, and the horses go through the same routine every day, galloping the same direction around the same tight turns. Most races are short by European standards, so you have horses sprinting around a tight turn, always in the same direction, usually with a shot of bute and lasix to ease the pain. What could go wrong?

In Europe, horses train in rural training centers, galloping on the Newmarket heath or winding through the forests around Chantilly and Maisons-Laffitte. They are trucked to the track on race day, and the track surfaces and distances are varied. Races are run on the straight, left-handed, right-handed and often with rolling terrain. And most of our racing is on the turf, although there are more and more synthetic sand tracks, which many American detractors refer to as “plastic.” The emphasis is on stamina, and 2,400 meters, or a mile and a half, is considered a middle distance race, not a stayers’ contest.

Another difference between the two systems is the U.S. obsession with reducing the sport to a mathematical formula. Timed workouts, track records and speed figures have pretty much removed the actual living horse from the equation. The object seems not to win the race, but to win it by as many lengths as possible and maybe set a track record in the process. Which brings us to the next difference: The use of the whip. I was appalled when I saw the video of Calvin Borel flogging Rachel Alexendra to the finish in the Haskell when clearly the filly had the race won. He would have been stood down for several days in Europe with that performance. Here, the rules say a jockey must give the horse time to respond to the whip before using it again, the number of strikes is limited and the whip hand cannot be raised above the shoulder. Thankfully, the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities agreed recently to crack down on the use of the whip worldwide.

The Federation also urged U.S. racing authorities to consider banning race-day medication at least in Group 1 races. I wish them luck, but closing the Pandora’s Box of pharmaceuticals in the United States will not be easy. The partial steroid ban that most U.S. jurisdictions have enacted over the past two years is a step in the right direction, and the strong European showing at last year’s Breeders’ Cup shows that the field is slowly being leveled. There is a long way to go before America can really be a part of international racing, but I keep hoping for change. Despite the defection of Sea the Stars, I’m hoping for a strong showing from Europe again this year. And I hope that one day I get lucky enough to have a horse good enough to think about bringing to America for the Breeders’ Cup, and that by then, no one will have to face the choice of running on Lasix.

A minor miracle happened Sunday when Derringbay managed to finnish 2nd of 12 runners in a maiden race on the fibersand in Lyon. He ran really well; the winner was unbeatable (for us, anyway) and he ran far better than I expected.  I was worried about his habit of hanging left on such a tight, right-handed track, but with a brush added to the left side of his bit, he handled it well. I put Nadege back in the saddle, and she rode a great race. All was well…except…I trailered him down with Theirry for company; Derringbay loaded with no trouble and took the trip like a seasoned traveler. Until it was time to unload. Turns out Derringbay is a one-way horse, and that way is forward. He doesn’t do back, and shoving him out of he trailer was akin to childbirth. I ended up shoving my backside into his chest, grabbing onto the side bars and pushing like I was having triplets. At one point, and I’m not making this up, I saw both of his front feet leave the ground, meaning the entire front half of a 500-kilo animal was perched on my backside. (Must be those Eastern-European plow-horse roots I have.) Anyway, out he finally came, we ran the race, loaded up for home and then wondered how we were going to extract him at midnight in Maisons-Laffitte. It turns out our concerns were well-founded. Three hours, three people, one vet, two IV shots of tranquilizer and several broken ribs (mine) later, we ended up letting him do what he wanted to do originally: jump through the front door, which is not exactly designed for this sort of thing. The first attempt to push him out the back way like I did at the track ended with him backing out half way, panicking, stumbling back into the trailer on his knees and then mashing me against the front bar because I wasn’t quite quick enough in avoiding the worst. Much, much profanity and struggling for breath later, we tried again (with Theirry doing the pushing), to no avail. We tried the nice way, with apples and food, and the not nice way, with brooms and whips, but the response was always the same: one step back and then a panicked jump forward. Chantal got in on the action. No better. We backed up the trailer to his box and slammed feed buckets around. Nope. We pulled, pushed and prodded, but it was hopeless. That’s when I called the vet. Tranq him just enough and we’ll push. We did. He didn’t. Finally, we padded the sides of the front door with styrofoam (god only knows where Chantal was able to lay her hands on exactly something that worked at 2:30 a.m.), put a heavy canvas rug on the horse and drove the trailer to the side of the sand track, so that if he made a crash landing there would be fewer pieces to pick up. Out he came, without a scratch. I drove myself over to the hospital.

“When did this happen,” they asked.

“About three hours ago.”

“Why didn’t you come in right away?”

“Had to extract the horse from the trailer first.”

They think I’m insane. They’re probably right.