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We’ve been dropped into a flash-freezer this week, and if the training center in Maisons-Laffitte wants to plug the whole in its budget deficit, it should start selling tickets to the spectacle down on the all-weather track rather than raise our gallop fees. With most of the tracks and trails impassable, every horse in town has no choice but to head down to the oval. It is 1,450 meters around, which is long enough to get some serious work done, but it is only about 2 meters wide, so at best you can gallop two abreast. There is no room for passing and no room for error. It is prefaced by two all-weather trotting rings. These days, the whole thing resembles a cross between the Barnum & Bailey Circus and O’hare Airport on the day before Thanksgiving without the benefit of an air-traffic controller.

If you hit it during a calm period, things work OK. People watch out for each other. You can warm up on the trotting ring and there’s sort of a cue to get onto to the main gallop. But as anyone who has lived in France knows, the French appetite for cues quickly turns into a mob mentality when there are more than a few people involved. Sort of like at the grocery store, when the woman of a certain age behind you edges ahead with a “oh, I’m just looking at the chewing gum” look, then she drops her shoulder, does the half-turn and miraculously is now in front of you like she’s been there the whole time. With riders busy trying to cut in line and a cold wind sweeping through from the north, the horses are all on their worst behavior. Yesterday, Belle was warming up calmly enough, but decided to get vertical just as we turned to head to the main track. I came off the side, fearful that she was going to turn over again (she has a bit of a history), and luckily there were a couple of people around to help. Today, we had just turned into the trotting ring when I heard a thump behind me; the next thing I knew, a riderless Hi Shinko was next to George, who thought he might take that moment to show how high he could jump, too. Shinko was quickly caught and Philippe remounted, once he got his breath back – he had the misfortune of landing on the frozen sand rather than the all-weather bit. Shinko continued to put on quite a rodeo even with the benefit of Phillippe, who stuck this time, so by the time we had him headed back toward the main track, a load of horses had cut in front of us and went on to hack canter. I yelled at Phillippe to go anyway; I didn’t want to be around to see what would happen if we didn’t get that horse galloped. I was behind him on George, and neither one of us were able to pull up our irons to ride a proper canter – both horses were jumping around too much to even consider it. So off we went, cowboy-style. Phillippe took off like a bullet and I knew I wouldn’t catch him for a decent head-to-head, plus there were too many other horses out on the track anyway. Shinko cleared the way like a bulldozer, and George and Timelord followed in the slipstream.

Turfani and Belle galloped the second lot, which was slightly calmer but not by much. After yesterday’s rearing, I had Seb meet me at the track with a lead rope. Once we trotted a warmup, he picked us up and made sure her front feet stayed on the ground getting onto the main track. Another string of horses had cut in front, but this time they were all over the track instead of in a line. Belle was rolling in her canter with Turfani behind. The problem with the all-weather surface is that you can’t hear the hoofbeats of anyone coming up behind you, so as we rolled up the backside, I just had to scream at the others and hope they would move. Belle’s gallop is straight as an arrow, but she is a huge orange filly who is not particularly maneuverable – think Airbus A380. Once she’s rolling, it’s best just to get out of her way. Eventually, people did, and we managed to get a decent canter, even if it wasn’t exactly what I wanted because there was never room for Turfani to get beside me.

We’re in for four more days of this, and it has now started to snow. At least the canters are out of the way for a few days, so now we can just keep everybody ticking over until the thaw comes, which is promised for Sunday. Until then, it’s fasten your seatbelts, because we’ve definitely entered a zone of turbulence.

Despite my best efforts, Hi Shinko got absolutely clobbered by the handicappers, who gave him a rating of 36 (about 80 on the British system). This means there is no race for him before Dec. 18, which means we have to manage to keep him down to a dull roar until then. Since his race last Sunday, he hasn’t left a grain of oats uneaten and can’t get enough work. Today, he chucked off his rider and lapped the training track a couple of times before we could catch him. The saddle had slipped onto his side (he’s such a round thing it’s almost impossible to get tack to stay put), so we re-saddled, threw the rider back up and off he went to do the work we planned. You’d think he’d have been a little tired, but there was no sign of that. I’ve already taken his feed down a liter and may have to take it down a little more, since we’re going into a deep freeze and I don’t know how much work we’re going to get done over the next week. Once the sand tracks freeze over, I’ll truck him down to the all-weather so he can let off steam there. For the moment, he reminds me of the old Meatloaf song: All revved up and no place to go.

Hi Shinko ran his third race in France on Sunday so can now enter handicaps, which is good news. He finished 5th of 14, again beaten only a couple of lengths and this time only nosed out of third place as two horses caught him just on the wire. The 5th is good, though, because hopefully it won’t draw too much attention from the handicappers and it still gave us a little check to pay the travel expenses down to Le Mans. It’s a nice little track down there, but the recent rain left the ground in horrible shape. We know Shinko doesn’t travel on that sort of ground, but needed the race and all things considered he did very well. He couldn’t blow out a candle after, even though they actually went quite fast. He’s come back fine and still kicking down the door for food. He could race tomorrow if there was something for him. As it is, he is entered in a handicap down in Marseilles just to get the rating – I don’t plan to actually run there but the best race for him coming up is for horses rated 29 and under in Deauville, and I’m afraid if I enter that race directly, we’ll get stuck with a rating of 30 or better and won’t get in. The waiting will be over when the weights are announced for Marseilles on Thursday morning.

The rest of the horses are gearing up for Deauville in December, too. Timelord seems back on track, and so does George, who is over his cough and just about ready to start cantering again. Actually, he decided he was ready to canter yesterday, when he popped me off in the training center and went for a few laps on his own before I could catch him. He seems no worse for wear. Blessing Belle is coming along nicely, and Turfani is all dressed up with nowhere to go, since there’s nothing for her before the 17th or so. Strictly Rhythm has settled in and will make her target race at the end of December.

We’ve also been busy in this off-season getting ready for the main flat season next year. Rendition is enjoying her break and will come back in mid-January, and word is she may be getting a little sister…deal in progress, so watch this space. The yearlings we already have, King Driver and Triple Tonic, are learning their lessons well up in Normandy; I plan to go have a check on them on Saturday. We’re also on the look-out for a good claimer, and with all that we should be pretty well-armed for next year.

Well, it looks like the Life at Ten incident is falling out of the news cycle, much to the relief, I’m sure, of Todd Pletcher, the Kentucky stewards and the Breeders’ Cup organization. The mare’s owner released a statement saying that no, the horse definitely should not have run, but no word on whether she stays with Pletcher. No word, either, on her current state of health and whether she will stay in training at all.

But on a brighter front, looks like my friends over at Betfair lost a court case in Australia that could cost them some money. Good on the Australians for having the balls to point out that running a racing industry carries an enormous cost, and that it is not OK for some parasitic betting exchange to leach off the spectacle for free. Actually, it is really too complimentary to refer to Betfair as a parasite, because an effective parasite won’t kill the host. Racing is in the death throes in England and Ireland, thanks in large part to Betfair and the bookies. (Are you listening, America? Betfair has its eye on you, too, and you’ve got too many problems of your own to solve without Betfair stepping in.) Bravo to France for keeping them out, thus ensuring that we are the only country in Europe where it makes economic sense to own a racehorse.

And last but not least, a little news from the yard. This being football season in America (as my husband reminds me every Sunday night), I will try to borrow a few terms from across the pond. Apologies if I’ve screwed it up somehow. On the active roster, we have  Hi Shinko, who will go to Le Mans on Sunday for his third race in France, which will qualify him for handicaps and then we can get serious. Email Exit (George) seems to have gotten over his cough and is on the comeback trail with an eye toward Deauville in early December. Tufani is working well and is just waiting for a decent race on the all-weather to stretch her legs, too, and Blessing Belle is coming back nicely after her time off to recover from her accident. Our new recruit, Strictly Rhythm, has a Deauville target at the end of December. Timelord has had a small setback but will also be ready for December.

On injured reserve we have Rendition, who is recovering from sore shins in Normandy and will be prepped for a debut in early spring, and Hard Way, who is recovering from his weird fractured vertebra and will have another scan in mid-January.

Recently drafted was King Driver, a very nice-looking Domedriver yearling who is now being backed in Normandy, and Triple Tonic, the full sister of the ill-fated Well Shuffled who is going for backing this week.

We’re still shopping for one or two new recruits, so watch this space. And I promise that’s the last time I try to borrow from football.

When a plane crashes, investigators often find that it is not a single error that brought the craft down, but rather a pyramid of mistakes that culminated in disaster. This model is often true for most big screw-ups, and certainly seemed in action in the case of the Life at Ten fiasco at the Breeders’ Cup.

For those of you who hadn’t been paying attention: Life at Ten, a mare trained by Todd Pletcher, turned out not to be fit to run the Ladies Classic (god, I cringe every time I write that name – sounds like a deodorant brand. Can’t we PLEASE change it back to the Distaff??). Apparently Pletcher knew – or at least strongly suspected – that something was wrong with the horse. He told the jockey. The jockey told ESPN, the network covering the races in the United States, that the horse didn’t feel right. Nobody told the vets or stewards and the horse ran the race – or didn’t. She broke from the gate and then immediately trailed off to lope around at little more than a hack canter. The jockey was praised for “doing the right thing” by not insisting on more when clearly his horse was having a problem.

There is plenty wrong here, but let’s work backwards. Johnny Velazquez, the jockey, did not do the right thing. From most accounts, the mare had tied up, which means that any move she made was causing more damage. I haven’t heard or read anything since that tells us what was really wrong with Life at Ten, so I don’t know for sure whether or not she tied up. But when a jockey senses his horse is not galloping properly, the only right thing to do is stop. Immediately. But even before it got that far, he should have notified the stewards or vets on duty that something appeared to be wrong. He apparently did not do that. Now let’s back up another step. Apparently, the horse was moving extremely badly before entering the gate – so much so that even casual viewers who knew nothing about horses suspected something was wrong. In full disclosure, I have not been able to find any video of the warm-up, so I don’t know how bad it was. But there were at least three vets stationed at the starting gate, not one of them paying attention. Back up again. An ESPN commentator who is a former jockey asked Velazquez about the horse, and Velazquez said she wasn’t moving right. This prompted an ESPN producer to phone the stewards and notify them that something may be amiss. The stewards decided to ignore the potential problem. And then back up one final, and most important, step. In the saddling enclosure, Pletcher told Velazquez the horse didn’t seem right.

Rules governing horse racing around the world vary somewhat (with the most glaring example being the panoply of medication allowed to be used on horses running in the United States) but there is one rule that is universal:  The buck stops with the trainer. No matter what happens to a horse, for better or worse, the trainer must take the ultimate responsibility. It is not permissible to blame the vets, the jockey, the stewards, the weather, the anything. That is why most of us have gray hair (those of us that still have hair) and a high alcohol tolerance.

After the race, Pletcher said his mare must have had a reaction to her Lasix shot. This is lame and wrong on so many levels it makes my stomach turn over. First of all, it points up Problem No. 1 in American racing: That this excuse can even exist. The Breeders’ Cup should take a first, bold step and ban all race-day medication in its races. The organization wants to call the Breeders’ Cup event the “World Championship” of thoroughbred racing. There is no way it will ever live up to that title as long as the usual race-day meds permitted across America are allowed in Breeders’ Cup races. If the Breeders’ Cup would take this step, it might encourage further change, like eliminating race-day medication in two-year-olds. American racing has to get itself on a serious methadone program and it has to start somewhere.

But back to Pletcher’s excuse.  Life at Ten ran 16 races before she was loaded in the gate at the Breeders’ Cup. Lasix was certainly not new to her. Pletcher hinted in some of his remarks that she had problems with Lasix before, but “not before a race,” meaning she was probably shot up with it for workouts, a common practice in American racing.  The injection of Lasix is usually administered about four hours before post time (during which time the horse’s kidneys are thrown into overdrive as it pees out about 20 kilos in body weight).  Although Todd Pletcher has more than 200 horses in training, he apparently had enough personal knowledge of this particular animal to realize she was not acting like a healthy horse when he saddled her. He chose to send her out to the track anyway.

Life at Ten was sent off second-favorite in the betting, meaning this whole affair costs punters millions. Those who were lucky enough to pick up on the ESPN feed could change their bets, but anyone out of range could not.

Various racing authorities in America are ducking this like a hot potato, which is their usual reaction to this sort of thing. The solution proposed by the chief steward in Kentucky is not to question the judgment of the jockey, trainer or vets involved but rather to ban comments by jockeys to broadcasters once the jockey is in the saddle. I’m not making this up. This harkens back to a similar event in France a few years back when Equidia, the horse racing channel, decided it would be fun to put microphones on a few trotting drivers during a race. Not long into the experiment, the mikes picked up what amounted to race-fixing as one leading driver exhorted another to close a hole and not let a horse through. “Don’t be an asshole,” the driver yelled, “close it up, close it up!” Rather than investigate the situation, stewards promptly banned the microphones.

It’s very frustrating to see the sport I love, and one that I completely changed my life to be a part of, continue to shoot itself in the foot. Every time an event like this happens, I keep thinking OK, now is finally the chance to make a change for the better. And every time I am wrong. I still score the French authorities WAY ahead of their American counterparts in terms of how to run the sport. Viva la France. At least Pletcher couldn’t get away with it over here.

Oh, and by the way: Goldikova and Zenyatta were stars. Jane Smiley was right on Mike Smith’s ride – the nose Zenyatta lost by equaled just a fraction of a second’s hesitation on the part of the jockey. My friend Jean-Paul Gallorini had a different take on the ride, though, and it bears mentioning. Rather than moving too late, he maintains that Smith moved too soon. Zenyatta wasn’t balanced coming through the turn, and that was when he was asking her to move up. Gallorini said that if Smith had balanced the horse before asking for the move, he would have won. Interesting. In any case, clearly Zenyatta should stay in training, as Goldikova will. This fantasy about her going off to make super-babies is nonsense. This is a racehorse, and she should be racing. She is not old. She started her career late. Let her run – it’s clearly what she was born to do.

George (Email Exit) has had a chronic cough for the past few weeks. Nothing too serious – no fever or other sign of illness – but enough to make me doubt the wisdom of trucking all the way down to Lyon for his race today. So when he coughed once going out yesterday morning, I called the vet and told him to bring over a scope. I use different vets for different problems; for this, I called on Jerome, our local vet who is pretty competent and is always there when you need him. (He’s also on the expensive side and I don’t trust him on lameness issues, but that’s another story.) George scoped dirty, and I can’t say I wasn’t somewhat relieved not to have to get up at 4 a.m. to drive to Lyon.  That said, I’d rather the horse was 100 percent well.

Jerome didn’t think there was any infection, rather a light bronchitis caused by seasonal irritants. He also saw very slight evidence of bleeding, but very slight. I wasn’t panicked about any of this, because all horses bleed a tiny bit now and then. Jerome, on the other hand, went into full pharmaceutical mode. He recommended treatment with DMSO and a nebulizer for 10 days, while keeping the horse in light work. I was OK with that. Then he said it would be wise to inject 3ccs of Dimazon, a lasix-like diuretic, the morning before working him next. I’m definitely not OK with that. Jerome preceded to argue the benefits of lasix, citing various studies. I’ve read the same studies, and my take on them is 180 degrees from Jerome’s. I explained that yes, of course vets were in favor of lasix. That was what was keeping 80 percent of the U.S. practice in business.

In my experience, a vet’s zealousness for the prescription pad comes in direct proportion to his age and experience. The younger the vet, the heavier the shopping bag at the pharmacy. Hachem, a young associate of Dr. Douay in Chantilly, is a wonderful guy – thorough, patient and extremely competent. But when he looked over Turfani the other day, he came up with a laundry lists of tests we could do and injections to follow to resolve that last bit of hind-end stiffness. I explained to him that the mare was never a great mover behind, because her pelvis is not straight and her joints are fragile. But I also explained that I was retiring her in January, so all we needed to do was decide if she could race another two or three times without undo pain or damage.  Dr. Douay understood that perfectly, suggested a shoeing change that might help and we will leave it at that.

Don’t get me wrong. If a horse has a problem that needs to be treated, it should be treated. But if the problem can’t be resolved reasonably, perhaps that horse shouldn’t be a racehorse. I am absolutely confident that George will come back and win a race in Deauville before the end of the year – without injecting anything to “help” him work. Turfani has at least one more win in her, too. My vet meant very well when he wrote out two pages worth of prescriptions for George. It’s my job as a trainer to do what I think is best for the horse – and that doesn’t necessarily mean doing everything a vet tells you to do.

Hi Shinko finished sixth of seven runners in a claimer today, which was absolutely perfect. Now let me explain why. The French racing system is based on handicap races, not claiming races as in America. But a horse has to run three times in other races – claimers or condition races – in order to get a French handicap mark. Hi Shinko came from England, where he has five wins, six seconds and five thirds from 28 starts. Not too shabby, but he was too highly placed in the handicaps there to find races. My goal is to get him qualified here at a reasonable level – which means three performances that won’t draw the eye of the handicapper. It’s a game everyone plays, and it’s not necessarily fair to the average horseplayer, who may not understand the game at that level. But there is a fair way to play it. Shinko was carrying 63 kilos today, top weight by miles, which was pretty much guaranteed to put him out of the running. If I had really wanted to win, I would have scratched him and found something more reasonable. On the other hand, if you bet on horses and you can read the form in the most elementary way, you would see the weight penalty and bet on something else. My jockey gave the horse every chance, and got beat by the weight – and then by only three lengths. We need one more race to get a handicap rating before Deauville, which is the objective for this horse. I will try to choose something that he doesn’t have much chance of winning – and if you can read the form, that will be clear. But maybe not for everyone. Shinko was backed down to 9-1 after opening at 20-1, which is something I don’t understand. The odds fell despite the fact the horse was kicking the paddock apart on his way to the track. I’m told Shinko has a habit of this – his old trainer warned me not to dally in the presentation ring. He’s right – after one tour, Shinko started to smack the rail with his back feet like it was target practice. This was after he had already turned his box on the racecourse into matchsticks. We were stabled in the new wooden boxes rather than the older more solid block, and Shinko must have liked the sound of his feet hitting the padded wall, because it took him two minutes to trash the place. The thing is, he’s not a bad-tempered horse. He just has a few quirks that we have to manage. And manage them, we will. Just in time for the winter handicaps.

Newmarket may be the cradle of thoroughbred racing and breeding, but as a culinary destination it leaves very much to be desired. I just got back from the big autumn Horses in Training sale, and I think it’s going to take a week to detox from the experience. The sales are always the same: Wonderful, intense, exhausting and nonstop. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. But the sales involve constant motion between the heat of the sales ring, the cold of looking at prospects, the heat of the bar, the cold of looking at more horses, the heat of the restaurant…you get the idea. Steak and ale pie. Beer. Lasagne. Beer. Fish and Chips. Beer. Shepherd’s Pie. More beer. One can go days without seeing a green vegetable while increasing one’s alcohol tolerance (and waste line). But I’m back in France now and here’s the upside: I think we bought a wonderful filly for our Guernsey owners. She’s called Strictly Rhythm, a two-year-old daughter of Hawk Wing who should arrive tomorrow in the wee hours of the morning. We’re all very excited about her. Meanwhile, I’m off for a dinner of salad and water.

George (Email Exit) finished 9th in his handicap in Deauville yesterday, which sounds worse than it was – just a half-length away from a check. We’ve been close lately, but not quite there. He was going back to 1,900 meters after running 1,300 last time out; because of that, I told the jockey not to bother him too much at the start so we had some gas left for the finish (since the strikes have hit France, I guess I’m a little obsessed about conserving gas). Unfortunately, that left us with too much to do in the stretch, and George couldn’t quite get there. The race also had absolutely no pace, which didn’t do us any favors, either. But he came back well and he should definitely take a check in this kind of race again if we let him press the pace with the leaders next time out. He is in good form, and is starting to pick up a little attitude at the track – he decided he would go into his box only when he was good and ready, which wasn’t necessarily when WE wanted him in the box. I did win that argument, if a bit unconventionally. Turns out my friend Leah was filming; you can see it if you are on Facebook. (Apologies for that – I find Facebook as annoying as the next person, but I couldn’t figure out how to extract the video from the site.)

There is no gas or diesel in France at the moment, it seems. Those of us lucky enough to have filled up while the filling was good are still OK for a bit. The measure that is the bone of contention for strikers is supposed to pass the French Senate tomorrow, which means that things should then get better – or worse. My car is full, which means that if I don’t go anywhere between now and Sunday, I can still get to Newmarket, filling up on the English side, where they still have gas. My truck is three-quarters full. That means I should have enough to take George to his race in Deauville tomorrow, and probably get home, too, if I don’t drive as fast as I usually do.

Since I’ll have one horse in a two-horse truck, I did the neighborly thing and called up another trainer with one runner, in the race before mine. No, he said, he couldn’t come with me, because his horse won’t get in a truck. He won’t get in a trailer, really, either, but apparently this can be accomplished with skillful positioning of said trailer just in front of the horse’s box, and piling bails of straw on either side to prevent escape. This done, a Chifney bit, a couple of good-sized pushers and a broom are required to complete the task. If he’s lucky enough to get the horse on the trailer, the trainer said, racing is still far from certain, because the horse often won’t load in the starting gate, either. He was banned for a year from any races requiring a gate, which turned out to be OK, because it gave him time to recover from a fracture sustained during a previous loading experience. “Once I was stuck in Seiches sur Loire for three hours because he wouldn’t get on the trailer,” the trainer said.

So I’m hearing all this, and thinking maybe retirement would be a better option for this horse. “Ah, mais il galope un peu,” the trainer said – “Yes, but he can gallop a bit.” Further proof that training horses makes you insane, if you weren’t that way to start with.