READERS
FORUM
Dear BYRH,
Five Star Warrior, or "Jazzy" was foaled April 19, 1994 at the farm of
my veterinarian and I was up at dawn to see her about an hour after she
was born. She was only my second foal, and her birth was much cause for
celebration for myself, my husband and his business partners. Her mom
has a nice pedigree, beautiful confirmation, and had just broken her maiden
at Philadelphia Park when she was injured as a three year old. Her father
is one of NJ's top stallions. Obviously, a racing career was planned for
her and our dreams seemed close to becoming reality. From birth, Jazzy
was picture perfect: bay, tall, straight in the leg, healthy and an absolute
delight to all who met her. We brought mom and baby home after an uneventful
trailer ride and the filly spent a quiet summer growing like a weed and
learning the basic things a horse has to know. She accepted it all without
a fuss. Picking up hooves and balancing on three legs, halter-on, halter-off
(little sticky at first), feeling a rubber bit in her mouth with lots
of sugar afterwards, standing on cross ties, shots, the first visit by
the farrier, and standing at attention so a group of Girl Scouts could
see how sweet a young race horse can be. (Jazzy is always a natural born
diplomat between the equine and hominid species and she helped me dispel
a lot of anti-thoroughbred biases when I used her for lectures and demonstrations).
I have many images in my mind, clearer than photos a new mother might
paste in a photo album called "Baby's First Year!" When she and my colt
were weaned that September, we let the two of them romp together in the
big pasture while their mothers resumed their mare-band stamping and squealing.
It was the most beautiful autumn I remember: the two foals playing and
racing each other (Jazzy always won), the mares dozing or fighting, the
geldings playing halter tag under the falling yellow leaves. In October,
unbeknownst to me, the girls who work at my barn costumed Jazzy as a unicorn
for their Halloween Party! Six month old Jazzy humored them and stood
patiently for photos... .until her unicorn horn fell off and only then
did her eyes widen just a little. We laughed ourselves silly for days.
Time passed. My weanlings grew into yearlings. Strong, bold and beautiful.
Then the partnership we were depending on to manage our racing plans evaporated,
the syndications we were promised never happened and the yearling market
for "Jersey-breds" was dismally depressed in 1995. By the first snows
of the next year, my own finances were in bad shape. Letting my dreams
rule my brain, I had invested in too many "great prospect" horses I couldn't
sell at the profit I'd hoped for and they sat in my barn eating, getting
shots, getting wormed, and costing me money. To make matters worse, my
husband was trying to start a business and we were reduced to paying for
feed on credit. All the contacts who promised me help turned into ghosts.
One backed out because Jazzy is a cribber (so was John Henry!). When another
offered me $2,000.00 to buy her outright, I knew I'd been taken. By the
new year of 1996, I was stuck with a filly and a colt, no financial partners,
and no hopes of syndication. I had tapped out my last contact and all
of my resources. People who had promised to act as sales agents didn't
follow through, people who had promised to help me get my start in racing
simply disappeared and the ground was covered with a sheet of ice, making
turn-out impossible. It was the most dismal winter of my life. Only the
horses never knew the depth of my disappointment and despair.
Spring came, the ice melted and I came to some tough realizations. I could
sit and blame myself and everyone involved in this "pipe-dream," or I
could take action. I bit the bullet, took the loss and found good homes
for my extra horses at a fraction of their worth. Although I couldn't
afford a trainer or pay the salaries of the exercise riders, I was darned
sure I was going to do something with Jazzy and her brother. Her bloodlines
wešre too good to just allow her to be another throw away thoroughbred!
We started breaking the babies ourselves.
Getting up on Jazzy was no problem since she'd been accustomed to weight
on her back since weanling days (saddlepad, then saddle, then me hanging
over her back, then eventually parading up and down the aisle
Ever she proved to be the "volunteer" horse. In July, we started lunging
her over fences; she has a bascule that a 1940's hunter of the classic
would die for and a 1990's hunter seldom achieves. When she runs freely
in her four acre paddock, she has more stretch to her shoulder than Cigar.
She can dig in with her hind end and go for broke and has never once let
her brother beat her. Children are her favorite friends and my working
students can easily lead her in from the pasture, groom her on cross ties
and tack her up. She loves the kids and they love her because she is the
closest to the glamour of the racetrack they might ever experience. Since
I can't afford an exercise rider, one of my working students rides her
in a synthetic dressage saddle (Alyssa is a vegetarian and will not use
leather products!). The two of us laugh at ourselves, pretending to be
trainers when we're more like Beverly Hillbillies trying to scoop up road
kill in the suburbs! Working around horses gives one a sense of humor,
and watching a filly being galloped in a dressage saddle is certainly
funny!
On the other hand, the filly is fast, agile, and strong. The filly has
class that deserves better than what I can give her, but I'm giving her
all I can afford right now. After all, I'm not Allen Paulson. But the
question still haunts me: If I only could afford the training, the trainers,
the barn, the exercise tracks, the exercise riders... could Jazzy be a
superstar? If only I had the money, if my connections had kept their promises,
could we be up and running in the Spring of 1997? Could she be a stakes
horse if I just find the right backers? Always the questions. Always the
dreams at the heart and soul of the Thoroughbred Industry. Dreams that
never seem to die. Realistically, I have to accept that I might never
come up with the money or find partners for a syndication to pay for her
race training. And then I realized that in a big way I've been paid back
for her breeding expenses by the smiles on the faces of lead-line students
whose thrill of a lifetime is riding a 2 year old race-bred TB (yes at
the ripe old age of 2 years, four months, she does lead-line better than
my 34 year old appaloosa). And I hear her talking to me: "Hey mom, I'm
a New Jersey bred, which isn't so great, so don't get your hopes up or
your fantasies running. My 3/4 brother... he's No Cow, looked like NJ's
great prospect, then he dropped dead of a heart attack as a three year
old last spring. Life's promises are always vague, mom, and the promises
have a way of not fulfilling themselves. But I'll always be your volunteer
horse... your willing worker, in whatever way you want me to be." And
if she's never anything more than a school horse packing kids in hunter
classes at local shows, I'll know in my heart she's done exactly what
she wanted and she's exactly where she wants to be. Her brother, "Bug"
(no relation and with a less impressive pedigree) is currently under saddle
too, but his is a different story. He's big. He's bad (hence his papered
name, "Big Bad Bug") and his training didn't go as smoothly as Jazzy's
did. He's got an ugly head, massive bone, gaskins like cannons and an
eye that has nothing friendly about it. But under saddle, he was the first
to understand "leg to the left means move right, two legs mean walk on".
Of the two, he's the smartest and the most difficult. He had the same
early "softening" as Jazzy, yet the first rider who mounted him got bucked
off. Hard and very deliberately. Bug learns fast and he forgets fast.
Every training session, he forces us to reinvent the wheel for him. He
performs very much in accordance with his own game plan. Sometimes he
wants to run and sometimes he doesn't. The human factor seems irrelevant
to him. If Bug were human, he'd be Marlon Brando in his early years. Not
very likable but seductive, erratic, temperamental, and with the looks
and personality of a professional pugilist. If Jazzy were human, she'd
be Tom Hanks. A good-natured, handsome guy who's always on top, with a
shrug and an "aw shucks" kind of attitude towards success. If
Big Bad Bug could talk, he'd say: "All right. All right. You want me to
do this!? You really want me to do this!? Okay, okay, I'll do it. So what.
Don't try to bribe me with sugar. I like it... but hey... bribes ain't
gonna get you nowhere. Know what I'm doing. Stay outta my way. And when
it's over, I'll buy you champagne!"
Morgana Curley
The following letter from Morgana came a few weeks later.
Dear BYRH
There was a time I had grandiose plans that completely fell apart and
I found myself faced with the decision: train the 'kids' myself or let
them go to hell. I chose the former and HAVE NEVER ONCE REGRETTED IT.
My family had a lot of trainers (now dead) and owners and riders. Unfortunately,
none of them are around anymore to help me.
I know I'm overstepping my bounds in asking for free advice, but I don't
have any place to turn. Everybody I know in racing is looking out for
their own percentage and I've become very mistrustful. I feel I was set
up by wheeler/dealers who wanted some idiot (me) to pay the expenses for
breeding, birthing and raising, and then they disappeared when the subject
of training money was brought up. I remember the day that one of the partners
came by to see Jazzy . I asked if he wanted me to put a rider up and watch
her gallop. He looked at me as if I was an idiot, said "Nahh... never
miind" and walked away, WITHOUT ever looking at her! Yet he stills
owns a 10% share in her and he promised me the moon, the sun and the stars
when we bred her mother - his horse! I should have gotten everything in
writing (stupid me, I though he was my friend!). Talk about being screwed
and tattooed!
I have finally found a Standardbred training track that will let me ship
in and run my youngsters with no requirements about stabling, using their
trainers, etc. The surface is sand, not the customary hard surface of
SB tracks and it's only $10/hour. I had to look long and hard to find
a track to fit my requirements, but my research paid off and I credit
your book with giving me the confidence to go for it. Ironically, the
exercise track is called "Wing & A Prayer." They're just starting
out too. But their track surface is superlative and exquisitely maintained.
Last week you should have seen that experienced old-timer 'Regal Destroyer'
dig in at the stretch when all my students started cheering him on! The
youngster, "Jazzy" just thought it was fun galloping with her
nose at his tail and couldn't really understand what all the fuss was
about. The next day my vet asked me if I'd given her bute after the workout
and your book gave me the confidence to say "NO, WHY would a healthy two
year old need bute after a couple of easy gallops on a well-surfaced training
track!!?" The day after her virgin run, her legs were tight and clean,
and she was a happy camper. Yesterday, we ran them again. My exercise
rider got her into a full, flat out gallop for a 1/4 mile, then made a
judgment error and went too wide. Because of the centrifugal force at
the far end of the turn, Jazzy slammed into the outer rail (which popped,
doing no damage to her except scaring the bejeezus out of her. Maybe she'll
never slam into a rail again. I'm glad this rail was wood and nailed in
on the opposite side because it just popped). Even though she ran only
two furlongs, I've seen few horses that FLAT OUT FAST. One of the Standardbred
trainers who was watching her wants to clock her next week, which is fine
by me because I don't even own a stopwatch! While he was being bathed,
my husband took the "old geezer" out and let him breeze for
a mile. Neither horse was blowing. The old geezer likes to strut his stuff
and the filly is learning to enjoy strutting hers! I brought them both
back to the farm, turned them out with hay and let them sleep under the
stars. God, I'm starting to actually LIKE this, and the horses seem to
like it, too! She's fine, fit and sound today, so I let her be walked
under saddle, trotted and then given a little light canter work at my
farm because she was offering it. Then this afternoon, I used her on crossties
as a demo horse for a Girl Scout troop to learn grooming with. And the
kids were so awe stricken at being able to touch an ACTUAL YOUNG TB, their
eyes were wide, like children seeing their first Christmas tree! Even
if she's never fast enough to be "black type", she'll make someone
a handsome hunter/jumper or dressage horse. I only have one current glitch.
My office has been foolishly unsupervised and both Jazzy and her brother's
papers "walked" ( I won't say stolen, but I have one suspect).
Now, I have to pay $150 to the Jockey Club per horse to get duplicate
copies and pay a public notary to notarize my statement! That's how one
learns. I'll NEVER make a mistake of leaving papers in a public access
area again. Please alert your readers to this problem: PUT YOUR PAPERS
IN A SAFE DEPOSIT BOX (I was told by the Jockey Club that it's all too
common and they advised extra vigilance regarding the horses in question,
which is no problem since I live on my farm. Evidently, theft is not uncommon).
Another interesting story: I was talking to the owners of the track where
I'm training (it's a Standardbred facility with a "big name"
trainer footing most of the bills). They have a horse that sounds like
one of your "medication scenarios." They've spent over $1200
HAVING HIM INJECTED ALL LAST WINTER AND SPRING and he STILL has never
won a race! In fact, he can BARELY WALK! I talked to the owner's wife
and we finally agreed that maybe the horse just doesn't want to run and
they should find him another career. He's only three but is saddle broke
and the owner's wife would like to put him into a driving career. Thanks
for giving me the confidence to say what I've known all along. I've given
them your address for ordering your book. With much gratitude I continue
to learn.
Morgana Curley
Freehold, NJ
When
you started your saga you said you were sad that you couldn't send your
horse to the best trainer etc. to have her reach her true potential. Perhaps
that is a Godsend. If you give your horses the time to grow (as you are
judiciously galloping them) you are setting up a foundation that will
hold for the rest of their lives. Turning those horses out to grow and
frolic through their two and even three year old years will develop resilient
bone and tendon. If your horses have talent, it will be apparent as you
escalate the training process. Should they show brilliance, you will then
have the opportunity to go to a leading trainer and be able to afford
it as the horse will have proven himself in the races. In my case, I never
knew I had a stakes horse until I couldn't find allowance races for her
to run in! The same may happen to you. If your horse starts beating good
horses then you'll have a notion she may be able to pay her way into stakes.
Talented horses make their trainers look good... not the other way around.
A good trainer can't create talent where there isn't any, but he or she
can keep a talented horse running for years with judicious training.
You worried me a little when you said the filly ran into the rail at the
track. I definitely think you should only do high speed at a track. And
the horse has to EASE into it. And you need an experienced rider to know
how to help a young horse handle his or her speed. This is a crucial part
of training. If the horse rushes into speed WITHOUT REALLY BEING MENTALLY
AND PHYSICALLY ready for it, the horse and the rider can be injured. If
you don't have an experienced, race/exercise rider, then maybe it's time
to start shipping into the track and connecting with a trainer who will
help you transition your horse to the racing routine. Let me know what
tracks are nearby and I'll see if I know any trainers willing to work
with you. Good luck with your dreams! Many people reading this have the
same love and pride of their own homebreds. Speed can come from anywhere!
We ALL have a shot! Editor
Dear BYRH,
I have read your book and would like to thank you so very much for writing
such a book. I hold your philosophy with the highest regard. I am a firm
believer of coupling common sense with kindness. I find that there is
way too much abuse in the racing business and am very disturbed by this.
A sick feeling overcomes my body when I witness these youngsters breaking
down on the track. To see their fear and pain is horrible! I get really
scared for these horses and always say a prayer for each and everyone
of them that leaves the starting gate. I've written letters to the Jockey
Club, the Thoroughbred Times, and the Daily Racing Form about this. I'm
happy to say they felt my comments worthy enough to publish them, but
I still find the attitude concerning the problem all too lackadaisical.
Everyone seems to think that broken legs go with the territory. NOT SO!
I mentioned this to the Jockey Club and told them that I strongly felt
it was their responsibility to ensure the safety of these animal. Especially
when owners and trainers refuse to keep their horses sound. How can this
industry expect to gain fans or new blood when cruelty is running rampant?
If you're going to run an unsound horse on drugs you may as well hit his
legs with a crow bar! Well enough said. I could go on and on and I know
YOU know all about these kinds of things. I feel better venting to someone
who understands! Thanks to your book I have been reassured that racing
can be safe. BYRH has given me so much hope. I plan to make a difference
in racing. And I'm starting by breeding a sounder horse! I will start
him myself and will try and keep the horse at home as much as possible.
I love the idea of shipping in from the farm. I am only 1 and 1/2 hours
from both Belmont and Aqueduct. I met a good trainer who stables at Belmont
who is willing to work with me. The key is breeding a horse that will
be able to run with that sort of company. We shall see! I have a small
barn where I keep a broodmare and a gelding. The gelding is a super uncle.
He helps me at weaning time. I can never have enough land though! But
at least it's affordable. I want desperately to begin starting my own
horses, which I plan to do with my '97 foal. Your book is an inspiration
and I thank you for making it possible for little folks like me to stay
in the game. I look forward to your next newsletter. Incidentally, I work
in the publishing industry and if there is anything I can do to help you
get your newsletters out please don't hesitate to call me. I don't think
I'll have the time in the near future to get down to Florida for one of
your seminars, but if you ever get up north, call me! Thanks again!
Maria Mann
High Tide Farm, Watermill, NY
Dear BYRH, I just
finished reading your book BYRH and I wanted to write to say thank you.
I am trying to read all the books I can get my hands on, being a "baby"
to the world of racing. I am more interested in the breeding aspect of
Thoroughbreds more than racing (I dream of one day working full time on
a breeding farm or even having one of my own, BIG DREAM) but I am working
part-time at a Thoroughbred farm. They have both racehorses and broodmares.
I was very encouraged to read about how you train horses and your opinions
on all the medications that horses receive. Your book brought up a lot
of good questions for me to ask the farm manager about how they do things.
It also gave me good information to keep in the back of my mind so that
if I ever own a horse I can be more responsible and involved in their
training and the care they receive. I wish you all the best in your training.
Your horses are blessed to have someone who truly cares that they are
healthy, happy, and live up to a ripe old age!
Deborah J. Piccarello
Des Moines, Iowa
Thank you Deborah! I hope that you become an owner
someday. The more you know, the better for the horses. Then decisions
are made together - between the owner and the trainer - with the best
interest of the horse at heart. Editor
Dear BYRH, I am sorry
that I missed you while you were in New York. I was up in Saratoga but
I did speak to your daughter. I want to thank you for the newsletters
and was thrilled to see that you have a video out now. You were nice enough
to send me a copy of your book last year and I'm happy to be able to return
the favor by sending you a copy of my book. It's been selling well of
late. I just completed a book signing at Saratoga in August. It's the
type of book you might want to give someone who is interested in racing
in general. I do hope you enjoy it. Feel free to mention it in your newsletter.
I can use all the help I can get! I am presently looking for horses for
the Aqueduct Winter meet with hopes they will let me have stalls if I
go in with no maidens. We'll see! Take care and I will stay in touch.
Ted Landers
TB Trainer / Equine Journalist
Floral Park, NY
Ted's book is excellent. It's a textbook for good
race-horsemanship The title is "Professional Grooming and Care of
the Racehorse." If you would like more information, call or fax Ted
at 516-352-2544
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