Category: Updates from the yard

Well, I guess you’d have to say the yard is in a slump, but that’s the way racing works and at least I know it’s temporary. That said, Versaki and Turfani both ran well yesterday, but didn’t manage to pick up money. Versaki actually exceeded expectations, running a good 7th in a race he had no business being in. We were running him to get his third race in France and qualify for handicaps, so all we needed to do was show up. But he held his own and beat some good horses (which, quite frankly, isn’t going to do our handicap marks any favors, but…). Next up for him will be the Tierce race in Maisons-Laffitte in April. Turfani, on the other hand, continues to frustrate; she really should have had money in Deauville when Prat fell asleep at the wheel. In Compiegne, the going was much heavier than I had wanted, and she still handled it decently. She had the far outside 18 draw, which wouldn’t have been that bad if the field moved toward the better ground on the stands’ side rail in the stretch. But they didn’t, so she was hung out wide looking for better ground while the field toiled away on the rail. With no one to race with, she just coasted up the straight to finish midfield.

Both horses came back well and will get their checks on another day. We’ll have to wait for better ground for Turfani, which may take awhile, but Versaki showed that while he would probably prefer lighter going, he’ll try on the heavy stuff, too.

We have one more chance to get a horse in the money on Friday, when Blessing Belle goes to Deauville. This should be an interesting race, because she’ll go back on the fibersand in her first handicap, and we’re stretching her out to 2,400 meters. I think she will stay, especially since she managed to run decently over 2,100 meters on the grass uphill at St. Cloud, but we’ll find out on Friday. Theirry Thulliez will ride, and I have a feeling he might be a very good jockey for her. Sean Connery once said, much to my horror, that some women need a good smack now and then. I hate to say it, but in Belle’s case he’s right – she needs a little manhandling, and I think Thulliez is just the man for the job.

DerringBay did not run well in Deauville, and in hindsight (which as we all know is 20/20), I shouldn’t have taken him there. He has been a bit dull since his bad race in Lyon, although I couldn’t find anything specifically wrong with him, but when we got to Deauville it was clear he was just not a happy horse. His action was better than in Lyon, but he was just going through the motions and was never a threat in the race. He came home slightly sore in his right front ankle, so I think it’s time to call it a day. He already has done far, far better than we had expected, picking up some nice placings, but he’s just not good enough to insist on going forward. His ankle just needs a bit of rest and he is completely sound for pleasure riding, so I think I will try to find a new job for him while he is fit and looking great.

Tomorrow, meanwhile, Turfani and Versaki will run in Compiegne. For Versaki, the race is essentially a training gallop; he has absolutely no chance in a field that is much too tough for him, but we need a third race in France to qualify him for handicap races and there has been absolutely nothing for him since the claimer that would have been perfect in Deauville – but he was eliminated and didn’t get the run. The only other claiming options are either too cheap or too long, so we’re stuck with tomorrow’s race. Turfani, on the other hand, should have a good chance in her handicap, reserved for fillies and mares four-year-old and older. The distance is right at 2,000 meters, she is well-placed in the field and Olivier Peslier will ride her again, all factors in her favor. The big question mark is the going, which risks to be heavy. I had hoped we would get lucky and have soft – but not heavy – going, but it has rained more than originally forecast. We’re drawn far outside in the No. 18 post, so Peslier will have a chance to find the best ground possible for her, in any case.

DerringBay will run in Deauville on Friday, a 1,900-meter claimer on the fibersand. Although it’s a cheap claimer (he’s in for 9,000 euros, the base price for claimers in races that support nationwide betting), there appear to be a few decent horses in the field. He would be much better placed in the handicap next week in Lyon, but I honestly cannot bring myself to truck down there again. So we’ll go to Deauville and try our luck. I’m hoping he will appreciate the shorter trip (in the truck, not on the track) and decide to participate this time, as opposed to grudgingly grinding it out, like he did in his last race. He seems fine and I couldn’t find anything wrong with him after his subpar run last time out, so we’ll see.

Turfani, meanwhile, will try her luck in the filly and mare handicap in Compiegne on Monday. It’s a bit close to her last race, but she seems to have come back well and it is a good entry for her. She will be back on the turf for the first time since last year, and I want to take advantage of the good ground. We haven’t had any of the predicted rain, but we are promised some this weekend which should make the going just about perfect for her. And once it starts raining in France in the spring time, it doesn’t stop, so I want to get out before the going gets heavy. Versaki might run on Monday in a condition race, but we’re still deciding on that. He’s had a slight setback in his training because of a rash on his back, so a final decision will be made tomorrow. He won’t have much chance in this race in any case, but he needs a third race in France to qualify for handicaps, so if he is fit to run he will go. The race he would have won was last week in Deauville, but he was eliminated in the drawing because of too many runners. We really need to get him qualified for the handicaps, because it’s been tough finding a race for him otherwise.

Belle ran a decent race at St. Cloud yesterday but the competition proved too tough in the end, as I feared it might be. Olivier Peslier gave her a great ride, and she was much better placed during the running than she had been before, moving along a comfortable fourth for most of the race. But she didn’t show much turn of foot in the stretch and finished midfield. For her first race in two months and the first on grass since last October, she did well, and she didn’t have a hard race so she will progress from here. It was also her first try at 2,100 meters, and it seems she can stay that without too much trouble. I think she will go back to the fibersand at the end of the month for a 2,400-meter limited handicap in Deauville, where she will be much better placed. I wasn’t going to stretch her out to that distance until later in the year, but if she can handle 2,100 meters coming up the grass hill at St. Cloud, she can handle the flat 2,400 on the quick sand in Deauville.

Of the last three runners we’ve had, Turfani is the most frustrating, because I think she really should have had a check if she hadn’t gotten caught in traffic. Belle and Bay got beat fair and square, but Turfani was robbed! Anyway, they all should have another chance by the end of the month.

Turfani had a disappointing run in Deauville yesterday, but I have to say I’m pretty disappointed with the ride she got from Flavien Prat. He rode the first part of the race fine, but he did have to check her back pretty brutally to get cover going into the backstretch. Once they turned for home, he seemed a bit asleep at the wheel when everyone else started to move, and got boxed in and then jostled back badly. He had to give up when he got himself behind a wall of horses in the last furlong. Turfani is a big mare with long action; she’s not the kind of horse you can ask to shoot through a hole when it opens. You have to balance her up and then move evenly, and that didn’t happen yesterday. In the end, she didn’t have a hard race and came back fine, so we can expect better next time out.

Meanwhile, all eyes on Blessing Belle, who tackles a 2,100-meter claimer at St. Cloud tomorrow, with Olivier Peslier on board. Everyone is paying attention to her because of Peslier, but frankly, she will have tough work to make the top three. She is in fantastic form but needs this race, and I’m not sure she’s ready to win yet. Peslier is riding because he was available, and three other jockeys I asked (with lesser reputations) were already taken, so we had to skip straight to the top. That means we should expect a good race and a good assessment of her from Peslier at the end. Who knows? We might have a good surprise. In any case, she has grown tremendously since we bought her last summer and is certainly not the same horse that ran last year.  We alternate calling her “Xena” or “T-Rex” around the yard because she has gotten so big since she came, easily outsizing anything in the yard. Now we have to see how she races.

Turfani made it into the second division of the Tierce handicap on Thursday in Deauville, but Veraki was eliminated for his claimer, which is really too bad because he is kicking down the door to run. We will try to get him into Amiens next week, but that’s not nearly as good a race for him as the Deauville one would have been. I’m pleased Turfani gets to take her shot, though. It’s a 1,900-meter race, which is a good distance for her, but it is an open handicap this time, so the competition is tough. Flavien Prat will ride. The jockey situation was a bit of a mess; I had entered a race last week and was going to put up Mathias Sautjeau, a jockey I like working with, but then I decided to wait and run this week. Sautjeau thought he was still getting the ride, but I went with Prat because I thought we were going to have 52 kilos, which is impossible for Sautjeau. In the end, we will carry 55.5, so Sautjeau could have rode. Too late, already went with Prat (who is a fine young jockey, too, but I do like Sautjeau).  Their agents are all annoyed at the switching around, but they’ll get over it. I have to remember that they would drop me in a heartbeat if they thought they could put their guy up on a better chance. Prat is fresh off a stint at Santa Anita; I’ll have to remind him to remember he’s now back in France, and we don’t want to see the first quarter faster than the last!

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…