The Path To The Winners Circle
Are We Having Fun Yet? The Saga of One Very Difficult Filly
Written by Janet
Del Castillo
She was born by the light of a silver moon. A perfect, strong boned beautifully
formed red filly. Her sire, On To Glory, was the sire of my only really
good horse, and was throwing runners here in Florida. For Jan and Rick
Stanford, two seminar attendees, it was the first equine birth they had
ever seen. They were awestruck by the miracle of birth and the resiliency
of the newborn."This horse will do great things" they predicted. That
sounded good to me as I hadn't had a viable runner in ages. I needed an
allowance or stakes quality horse (Ha...don't we all?) to justify my training
program. So the dream began...this will be the one! Heard that before?
Many readers will admit that they have the next Cigar frolicking out in
their pasture. As a yearling red filly was hauled over to my partners'
ranch where there were larger pastures and friends to run with. She was
comfortable eating in a trailer and seemed to be trainable. Lois at first
found her very intimidating. The filly would roll her eyes and over-react
to every change. She immediately injured her legs trying to get through
a fence when moved from one pasture to another and Lois was ready to send
her to a sale rather than risk handling such a troublesome animal. But
bonding started to take place and soon Lois and her husband Eddie were
partners in her ownership, along with my parents.
Though difficult to handle, the filly showed great intelligence. That can be a problem as she could overreact to every situation since she remembered all the bad things that could happen in her life more than all the good. It became apparent with basic groundwork that the filly would fight everything. From sircingle to saddle to round-penning to bridling, everything was a fight. Boy we would say...if she'll put that same energy into running...she'll be some racehorse. All the home videos of the training process show a leaping plunging rearing animal more eager to fight than to go forward.
A dear friend, astute in the sales industry, suggested I sell her since her blood was good and she was perfect conformationally. No-no-this could be my big horse! "Hmmm .."she said, "She's got a bad eye...she's going to be a hard one!"
The time came to train and I went to the ranch with my almost new, very sturdy four horse slant load trailer. Red filly loaded perfectly and I secured her in the second slot from the front and closed all the other panels. When I started to drive away I heard great crashing and slamming noises. She was "bungeed" tied on both sides and locked in so I thought she can't get loose and the rhythm of the road will soothe her. As I drove slowly away from the barn Lois came zooming up in her car "..she's loose...she's loose in the trailer" she yelled over the roar of the diesel.
I got out and saw that the panels were swaying and clanking and the filly was trying to turn around. I repositioned her and this time used two lead ropes to anchor her head and again closed the panels. She mustn't learn that she can get loose and break the equipment I thought. With more crashing and thudding , the truck again pulled onto the ranch road. The filly seemed to be quieter as I accelerated...good ...she's accepting the trip.
All of a sudden Lois appeared along side- frantically honking at me. "She's out! She's on the road! She's loose! " I couldn't believe my eyes..the filly was galloping back towards the barn. There was only an opening the size of a large window on the back of my trailer and she had broken the shanks, sprung the panels, and leaped out of the moving trailer!
We went back to the barn, assessed the damage and decided to haul her home on another day-after her scrapes had healed. I went directly over to the welders and had them weld locks with pins so that the panels couldn't be sprung with force.
Next trip to the ranch to pick up the filly, I had my two old men pony horses along. Big solid steady quarter horses. I put Mulliken in the first space, locked the panel, loaded red filly into the second, locked her in, and then put old Cherokee in the third.
As I drove slowly away this time, the crashing and thumping began and carried on for a few minutes but no panels popped open and the ponies on either side seemed to say "Have you ever seen anyone so ridiculous?" Red filly jerked her head until she hit the ceiling of the trailer. She yanked and pulled and threatened to no avail. I kept driving and the other horses munched their hay contently. I had a list of errands to do in two different towns and went from one place to the other, stopping and opening the windows every time I'd be gone. Filly was lathered up with her eyes bugging out for the first hour. Then she seemed to get tired and then eventually she even started munching hay when she saw that she wasn't getting out of that darn box. Six hours of traveling around got her settled. She seemed to accept that she couldn't escape. A very important first lesson.
Then training began at the farm. She reared bucked an fought with riders even though she'd had a saddle and equipment on for months previously. Finally, she started to accept and allow riders to stay on her back. Then the gallops. She absolutely refused to leave the side of the pony horse. If there was no pony she would not go forward. Beating, kicking arguing, cajoling...nothing would get her to simply gallop forward willingly. ( Are you starting to wonder why anyone would bother to train such a miserable animal? In retrospect, I am too!)
We devised a system of ponying her out to the galloping route, making her stay there while the pony went further on the route, and then she would run hard to get back to the pony. She would not gallop alone and tried to climb on any animal at her side. No stamina could be put into a horse that would not even do a basic gallop. My legs were bruised as we tried to get her to gallop forward. I would dig my stirrup into her side to get her off me and the pony, We would hit, poke, and push her away but she would just lean in more. We could only go as fast as the pony and that wasn't fast because he had to gallop so hard against her. When possible, if I had another rider, she could gallop with another race horse but generally they were green and didn't handle being leaned on well. So filly would go as fast as any horse she was next to ...pony or otherwise.
The track opened and I took various trips, ponying her outside on the road along side the track before we'd felt we could maybe control her on the track itself. Everything was a major fight. "Why don't you give her something to settle her down?" I was told many times. I believed that if I could train her through her problems she would be a useful athlete. I did try to help her nerves with diet...giving extra vitamin B. On the ship-in trips to the track she was a complete nervous wreck. She would weave and fret and try to crash into the stall door continually. If the other horses from the farm went on the track while she was in the receiving barn, she was capable of harming herself trying to break out of the stall. I was very persistent and gave her plenty of time to learn and adjust. She took forever to settle even a little. The only way she would sort of breeze on the track was in company and then only would go as fast as the horse next to her. I had one big horse that bore out on the far turn. I put red filly outside of him and she held him in on the rail by just being her usual self. Eventually the time came to race. She wasn't fully fit but I had no horses to challenge her ability in the morning. She was an excellent breaker from the gates. Once out she would immediately latch on to the nearest horse and lean on that horse the whole way. She raced a few times with a very patient and strong jockey. We put blinkers on, took them off, tried different bits...she leaned in, she leaned out...where ever another horse would come up. Meanwhile we lost races because she quit in the stretch-(tired? or shins? or muscle tear? or was she quitting because of the roar of the crowd?) We were now giving her a few treatments of acupuncture until her back healed from the muscle tear and then we tried ear plugs and muffs to cut down the sound of the crowd. In spite of herself, she was incrementally improving and quitting a little further out in each race. She was nervous in the paddock , nervous in the post parade and nervous in the gates. Now the jockeys were saying...maybe with something to calm her she could concentrate more on running. The main "help" for calming a fractious filly seem to be Soludelta-a steroid-which, if used frequently, will cause negative effects long term on the overall structure of the horse...and once you start using "stuff" when and how do you stop? I was determined to give her enough experience at the local track so that maybe she'd stop fighting and just run.
It took almost twenty races and two seasons to finally break this filly's maiden. It's a good thing that I owned part of the horse-few owners would put up with the time and patience necessary to get there. If owners were paying day money they would have been broke . The advantage of having the small farm to turn out the horse certainly helps with cost. We have waited on sore shins, coughs, muscle tears, bad breaks, flipping in the gates, a tear between the tendons and many other minor setbacks. However, we now have a sound four old starting to understand the racing business. She still has a miserable attitude around the barn and track (the glass is half empty-not half full) and now that she has broken her maiden, we'll have to get realistic about where to run...at what price can we win?
But the early patience and persistent training has paid off. She is much more workmanlike and might eventually even like racing someday. Meanwhile...we ARE having fun!