One of the biggest stories in racing these last few weeks — finally supplanted by the $5 million Rachel-Zenyatta challenge (the bet here is that one or both horses will not go to the post in the Apple Blossom) — has been the decision by jockeys at Penn National to boycott races in which owner Michael Gill had horses.
The jockeys maintained that his horses broke down with excessive frequency, thus endangering not only his horse and rider but also all other horses and riders. The Paulick Report has covered the issue with admirable tenacity and investigative zeal, revealing, for example, that Gill employs a seeming rogues’ gallery of trainers and vets with a nasty habit of ending up on the wrong side of the rules. Gill, on the other hand, maintained that the problems were with the track surface and not with his horses, and that he was being victimized by a jockey colony that wanted him, at least, to spread the wins around.
But as is so often the case in horse racing (and as I’ve blogged about previously, here), the debate has engendered a considerable amount of heat — read some of the comments on Paulick’s reports if you want a glimpse of an angry mob with pitchforks –and surprisingly little light.
In this case, light and context are more or less synonymous. In other words, yes, Gill had a high number of breakdowns; he also ran a ridiculous number of horses. How does his rate of breakdowns compare to other owners at the track, or to the track as a whole? Yes, Cole Norman has a lengthy list of violations (21 pages of them, from Racing Commissioners International); given the large number of horses at one time in his care, how does that compare to other trainers? In particular, how does his rate of significant offenses (such as Class 1 offenses, involving drugs with “no generally accepted medical use in the racehorse” and “a very high potential… for altering… performance”) compare to the training community at large?
These are critical questions, for a couple of reasons. First, breakdowns are an inevitable part of the equine life; anyone who’s been around horses for more than about 10 minutes can tell you of a horse or two who was galloping in a field and suddenly, randomly suffered a fatal injury. They’re fragile critters that way. In this case, if Gill is the bad guy he’s alleged to be, then we should be able to demonstrate that through statistics; his breakdown rate should be markedly higher than the rest of the Penn National group. Similarly, if Cole Norman is a cheater, the evidence should be clear, when his stats are compared to other trainers. (I’m using Norman here, though the same issue is fairly raised for Gill’s other trainers, Anthony Adamo and Darrell Delahoussaye).
The trainer question lingers unanswered, but, thanks to the Thoroughbred Times (here), we now have the beginnings of an answer regarding Mr. Gill — an answer he’d prefer to have avoided According to authors Jeff Lowe and Ed DeRosa, Gill horses accounted for five of the 21 breakdowns at Penn National during the last 13 months. Gill’s rate of breakdowns was one horse per 208 starters — nearly one-half of one percent.
Meanwhile, the breakdown rate was considerably lower for the rest of the horse population at Penn. In fact, 16 horses out of more than 17,000 starters broke down, a rate of one per 1085 starts. In other words, Gill’s horses were more than five times as likely to break down as anyone else’s.
The authors admit to some obvious flaws in their methodology. For one thing, it’s based entirely on chart comments; it does not include horses who were eased, some of which may subsequently have been put down. It also excludes at least one Gill horse (and potentially others both from him and from other trainers and owners) that fell after the finish line. Moreover, because the item studied (fatal in-race breakdowns) is, thankfully, relatively rare, it’s possible that a weird spate of bad luck could account for at least some of the difference between Gill and other owners.
Nevertheless, the evidence they’ve compiled is damning, and, equally important, a critical element in allowing us to understand what is going on.
As news organizations, inside and outside racing, have, for economic reasons, cut back on staffs, requiring fewer people to do more work, one of the real losses tends to be context. It’s easier to damn Gill for having had six horses break down than it is to determine how that compares to other owners; it’s easier to lump all medication violations under the umbrella of “cheating” than it is to understand the critical differences different classes of violations and what those distinctions tell us about intent. The result is more heat — more outrage, more anger — and less light.
As racing lurches, either towards oblivion or the twenty-first century, there will be no shortage of angry mobs to guide them, and invariably towards oblivion. Reasoned debate, informed by actual facts, will be harder to come by, but it’s the only way forward. Because of the work done by Paulick and by the Thoroughbred Times, we have the context necessary to understand this issue. More important, so, too, do racing commissions that might in the future be considering license applications from Mr. Gill and others; the commissions should have pertinent questions to ask, and Mr. Gill and his trainers should not be permitted to skate around them.
In the days after the 2003 Wood Memorial and leading up to the Kentucky Derby, a clear consensus emerged.
It claimed that Empire Maker, who had won by a diminishing neck over Funny Cide, had triumphed easily, as he pleased. That he could have won by five if they’d wanted him to. That he was fooling around in the stretch. Even after he suffered a foot bruise the week before the Derby, jockey Jerry Bailey and trainer Bobby Frankel insisted that he would run a big race and all but guaranteed victory. “Bet against him at your peril,” Frankel warned the assembled masses.
Fast-forward to last week. In the days before Saturday’s Holy Bull, trainer Anthony Dutrow had this to say about Winslow Homer: “[A] one-turn mile is not what my horse wants and I’m not excited about the Holy Bull a little bit.” He suggested that future, longer races, like the Fountain of Youth and the Florida Derby, would be more relevant tests of the horse’s ability.
Of course, in the 2003 Kentucky Derby, the unbeatable Empire Maker loomed up outside of Funny Cide at the head of the lane but could not keep the pace, settling ultimately for second. And on Saturday, Winslow Homer, after a less than ideal trip around the turn, shot a gap between horses to grab the lead and then held Jackson Bend off through the lane to win by three-quarters of a length.
All of which points to an interesting question for handicappers: how to assess the words of horses’ human connections and how to integrate those words with the evidence on the page and on the racetrack. Put a different way, the question is whether to listen to connections or not.
It’s a tricky question. For one thing, training a horse is more art that science. It’s not at all uncommon for horses to train well and then run poorly; many’s the trainer of a beaten favorite who has repeated the mantra, “I don’t know what happened today.” Any number of things — a bad trip, tough track conditions, a snotty nose — can conspire to prevent a horse from running well on any given day. Plus, as young horses take on new and different challenges — stretching out, switching surfaces, etc. — their connections are constantly in a “best guess” mode: making their best guess that the horse will like turf, or dirt, or will want to go farther. We never really know until they try.
Moreover, the best you can hope for out of a trainer (or owner) is that he will accurately assess his own horse’s likely performance; he’ll have no idea how other horses might perform. A couple of years ago, a friend told me that a certain high-profile trainer had told him that his horse “couldn’t lose” in a maiden race that afternoon. In fact, the horse ran a terrific race — but was beaten by an unheralded first starter. These things happen.
Finally, in racing, as in all competitive endeavors, there’s a certain amount of gamesmanship that takes place. Horse trainers are under no particular obligation to tell the public the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but; and more than one has used the media to try to scare off rivals, suggest one strategy while actually following another, or otherwise create what Oliver North inventively called “a version of the facts that wasn’t true.”
I was smart enough, in 2003, to go with my eyes — that Funny Cide was gaining on Empire Maker in the Wood — rather than my ears. On Saturday, unfortunately, I wasn’t so smart and tossed Winslow Homer without a second thought.
All of this leads to an obvious but easily forgettable conclusion: the words of trainers are an additional data point for handicappers to consider. No more, and no less. The confidence of one trainer and the doubt of another are additional items to consider in making selections — but they don’t trump what your basic handicapping skills tell you. Until someone figures out how to get info straight from the horse’s mouth, what we hear from the connections might be educated, but it’s still, ultimately, guesswork.
The 19th running of the Grade 1 DeFrancis Dash takes place at Laurel on October 24. The 2003 winner was A Huevo, whose victory is remembered here.
Once upon a time, there was a trainer widely considered to be “mad” and also a “genius.” His name was Michael Dickinson.
Most often, the words “mad” and “genius” were combined; most people thought of him as a mad genius, tinkering with exotic approaches to the hidebound game of horse racing and achieving racing feats seldom, if ever, witnessed previously.
First five finishers in the Cheltenham Gold Cup? Sure, no problem.
Bring Da Hoss to the Breeders’ Cup off a two-year layoff and win? You got it.
Occasionally, some people chose not to use the word “genius.” They thought that “mad” pretty much covered it. But they were in the minority.
Michael Dickinson was English, and so he was most often associated with turf racing. He also had a rather well-known desire to win the Kentucky Derby, and in this way, he was exactly like every other horse trainer in America. Shortly after our story, he would pursue that dream with a horse named Tapit, who won the Laurel Futurity and the Wood Memorial; that dream, alas, would not be fulfilled.
What Michael Dickinson was mostly not associated with, however, was dirt sprints, which in a way was too bad, because one of the three most important races contested in Maryland, the state in which he lived and trained, was the DeFrancis Dash (G1) — a six furlong contest on the dirt, or, as the Yanks liked to call it, the main track.
The DeFrancis Dash had its own interesting history. Inaugurated in 1990, the race memorializes Frank DeFrancis, who owned the Maryland Jockey Club until his untimely death in 1989. Typically placed a few weeks after the Breeders’ Cup, it provides one last opportunity for sprinters to make their case for Eclipse Awards; and four horses — Housebuster, Cherokee Run, Smoke Glacken, and Thor’s Echo — have successfully done so.
In 2003, a series of misfortunes visited on one horse — A Huevo — brought Dickinson and the DeFrancis together.
A Huevo was a talented, West Virginia-bred son of Cool Joe (who?) out of the Baldski mare Verabald. He had reeled off victories in his first four starts, including a track record in the West Virginia Breeders Classic (from which he was disqualified because of the presence of clenbuterol in his system).
What made A Huevo an intriguing horse in the DeFrancis was that the race was his third start off a layoff — a layoff of four years. After his win in the West Virginia race, A Huevo had suffered various injuries. Dickinson gave him two years off to recover but was dissatisfied. So he gave him another year. Still not ready. One more year? Yup, that does the trick.
The hot favorite in that year’s DeFrancis was former claimer Shake You Down, winner of four prior graded stakes that year, third-place finisher in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, and owner of eight consecutive 100+ Beyers entering the race, with figures ranging up to 121. Shake You Down was sent to the post at odds of 4-5.
When the gates opened, Shake You Down, with good early speed, went forward to press the pace set by Crossing Point.
A Huevo, with no early speed, went directly to the back of the pack, and for a while, seemed to be going backwards.
But Shake You Down was getting quite a fight up front. Crossing Point led him through a quarter mile in 21 4/5 seconds and a half in 44 2/5. The pair was pushed along by a couple of others, and when Crossing Point finally backed out, local favorite Gators and Bears and Way to the Top continued to push Shake You Down.
Meanwhile, out in the middle of the racetrack, A Huevo was getting revved up. The bay came rolling up outside of the leaders, motored on by, and cruised to a nearly two-length win in 1:08 4/5. “Another Michael Dickinson miracle,” called track announcer Dave Rodman.
Others agreed. Owner Mark Hopkins told The Blood-Horse, “This might just be Michael Dickinson’s greatest achievement. It is mind-boggling what we went through with this horse. I have no idea what we’ll do with him but hopefully it will be half as spectacular as this was.”
The ending of our tale is a mixed bag.
Unfortunately, A Huevo’s subsequent efforts were nowhere near as spectacular as his DeFrancis. Even worse, a couple of years after the DeFrancis, he suffered injuries necessitating his euthanization. He won six of 12 career starts.
Michael Dickinson no longer trains horses. He is the godfather of synthetic surfaces in the United States, which means that the “mad genius” label continues to stick to him, although many horseplayers would probably lean more towards the “mad” side these days.
Shake You Down, who held on for second in the DeFrancis, raced for three more years, earned more than $1.4 million, and was retired sound and healthy. “He’s a grand looking son of a gun,” says John Evans, of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation. “He looks like you could run him tomorrow.”
But probably not off a four-year layoff.
(Thanks to Virginia Thoroughbred Blog for the tip!)
You’d be hard-pressed to find a historical blindness more humorless or tiresome than the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. And that’s why the petition to erect a monument to Secretariat in Richmond is so inspired.
If you’ve been to Richmond, you know that it’s a city that takes its onetime role as the Capital of the Confederacy seriously. Ground Zero is Monument Avenue, which memorializes Virginia-bred (sorry, couldn’t resist) Confederates Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Jeb Stuart, and Stonewall Jackson, as well as oceanographer Matthew Fontaine Maury, who was himself a Confederate veteran.
More recently — and more controversially — the city added a statue memorializing tennis star and Richmond native Arthur Ashe.
Now comes the proposal to commemorate the successes of another Virginia-bred, the “tremendous machine” named Secretariat, winner of the 1973 Triple Crown.
Erecting a statue to Secretariat is a good idea.
Putting it on the otherwise oh-so-serious Monument Avenue is a better one.
But it’s the petition itself that moves this proposal into “truly inspired” territory. For one thing, the petition suggests placing the Secretariat “monument” between Lee and Davis memorials. That would give us the following sequence: Revered leader of the Confederate armies-racehorse-President of the Confederacy.
Good stuff. But it gets even better.
The petition goes on to suggest that a Secretariat statue would actually upgrade the avenue. How so? Because, the author suggests, it’s time “to remember winners instead of traitorous losers.”
He wouldn’t be the first horse on the avenue. Lee, Jackson, and Stuart are all portrayed as mounted. So Secretariat wouldn’t be lonely. However, there is, according to the petition, one critical difference: “[W]hen someone was riding Secretariat, that person was a winner.”
Anyone could have come up with the idea of a Secretariat statue at Colonial Downs. It takes real inspiration to propose placing it amidst the ghosts of the rebellion.
The “Lost Cause” mythologists have to be rolling over in their graves. Which isn’t such a bad thing.
Item: The Baltimore Sun reports (here) that Magna Entertainment is seeking a January auction to rid themselves of their Maryland racing assets.
Item: The Washington Examiner (here) informs us that the city of Baltimore has argued, in a court filing, that Magna’s proposed bidding process is plainly uncompetitive because it grants Magna what the city calls “unlimited discretion” to allow or disqualify bidders for any reason — or no reason — at all.
Item: The heretofore unknown-to-me publication Standardbred Canada (here) headlines their report on a panel at the International Simulcast Conference thusly: “Panel On Change: Horse Racing is Doomed.”
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln…
Some years ago, in Oh, the Places You’ll Go, the late, lamented Dr. Seuss called it the waiting place:
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.
Which leads me to think, with apologies to the good Doctor…
Lament for Horse Racing, or Green Eggs and Reduced Takeout
I am Sam
Sam I am
Do you like change and growth?
I do not like them
Sam I am,
Change and growth –
Like eggs and ham –
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
Would you try them for the sport?
Would you try them with a snort?
I would not try them for the sport,
Nor with a snort.
I will not try them, Sam you sloth,
I do not like change and growth.
Would you try them for the bettor?
You could write it in a letter!
I would not, could not for the bettor,
Will not, shall not by a letter.
I will not, cannot for the sport,
Or with a snort,
Or with an ale,
Or by the mail.
I do not like change and growth,
I’ll swear that as an oath.
Would you try them for the horsemen?
Could you try them with a Norseman?
I would not try them for the horseman,
I could not try them with a Norseman.
No trainer, so striking,
Nor anachronistic Viking
Can make me try them,
Sam I am.
I do not like growth and change,
For they are new and they are strange.
Change and growth,
Growth and change,
Try them now!
Sing them strange!
You will like them, you will see,
As you love a won Pick-Three!
I will try them, if I must,
And you will see….
Hey, wait a minute – these are pretty good!
I will try them, growth and change,
I will try them though they seem strange,
I will try them, Sam I am,
You need not go
On the lam.
I will try them for a bettor,
And via letter,
And for the sport,
And with a snort,
And for the horsemen,
And with a Norseman (hey, Leif!)
I see now,
Life’s a race,
And I must not stay
In this waiting place.
So thank you, thank you,
Sam I am,
But… eww… keep the green eggs and ham.
Even in the best of times, the auctioneer’s job is somewhere between begging and cajoling. In a marketplace where the only certainty is continued uncertainty, the begging aspect takes center stage.
And that’s exactly where the good folks at Fasig-Tipton found themselves during this week’s Eastern Fall Yearlings sale. For one thing, of course, the thoroughbred market has been taking a beating of late; as a second-tier sale in a market largely, these days, devoid of a second tier, the Eastern sale began with problems.
Moreover, as one of the auctioneers noted in a listless pep talk at the beginning of the sale, Maryland breeding and racing have traditionally been the engine driving the yearling market in the region. Given the status of Maryland racing — and the concomitant decline of the state’s breeding industry — that’s an awfully balky engine. Sorta like driving an Edsel.
Driving the point home, this year’s sale was two days, down from three in 2008, and included 220-plus fewer horses than a year ago.
It took all of five minutes to smash the unspoken hope that reduced quantity would generate better prices. The first four hips through the ring on Monday brought a combined total of $9,000, which is not exactly the tone one might have hoped would be set.
And so we were left with a lot of dazed looks on the faces of long-time breeders and buyers. “Shell-shock” was one popular word; “bloodbath” was another. The sale-topper was a sharp-looking Malibu Moon colt, but his $117,000 price tag didn’t have anyone turning handsprings.
In good years, the auctioneers often sound like scolds. “C’mon, folks, this is a racy-looking Orientate colt out of a stakes-winning mare,” they might note. “There’s just not enough money out there for this kind of horse — he could be anything.” All said in that tone of voice that means, “Do you dunderheads not see what a nice horse this is going to be?!?”
This year, though, it seemed almost as if the auctioneers were bobbing and weaving, ducking what they feared would be yet another blow. They may have said the same words, but this time the tone said, “Err… if you could see your way clear to possibly re-examine the pedigree on this horse, it’s possible that you might discover he’s worth more than what you’ve bid, though most likely I’m wrong and I certainly don’t want to offend.”
A funny thing happened on the way to disaster, though. As a friend observed to me on Tuesday, “The sharpies came out of the woodwork when they saw how cheap everything was yesterday.”
As a result, Tuesday’s bidding was far more spirited, and the average price of a horse climbed from less than $13,000 on Monday to more than $16,000 on Tuesday. Even though the median continued to fall (to $5,000 on Tuesday and $5,500 for the sale as a whole), there was a distinct feeling of relief in the sales pavillion. The sales had got their groove back.
Still, the last four through the ring brought a combined total of $15,700. Which suggests that it’s not quite time to put those begging voices away just yet.
The return of former claiming horse, one-time King of the California circuit, and multi-millionaire Lava Man has generated the entirely predictable spectrum of reaction: all the way from “Yippee! He’s back” to “I can’t believe those greedy SOBs are cruelly abusing this poor horse.”
Which, I suppose, is further proof that where you stand depends on where you sit.
For myself, I’m cautiously optimistic. For one thing, the owners appear to be saying all the right things: that the horse wants to come back, that they’ll only run if he can still run at the highest level, that his well-being is paramount.
Beyond that, I have a pretty clear memory — apropos, as it happens, since Maryland Million Day is tomorrow — of another listless old warrior who decided he had one more race left in him: La Reine’s Terms.
The now-14 year-old horse by Private Terms is, these days, a $1000 stud standing in Maryland, passing on his somewhat less than fashionable pedigree (Private Terms-La Reine Elaine, by King’s Bishop) and, perhaps, preference for racing long on the grass.
In the 2005 Maryland Million, though, he was a 10 year-old more than a year removed from his last race and three years removed from his last stakes victory. He was an old soldier who’d earned 10 stakes triumphs and more than $700,000.
He’d missed his eight year-old season with nagging injuries, then returned as a nine year-old to win an allowance and place in two stakes. He received time off following the second of those placings — a third place finish in the Maryland Million Turf — and retirement seemed a likely option. But as time went on, the horse indicated a preference: he wanted more work.
Returning to training with Larry Murray, the horse grew stronger and fitter. Come Maryland Million Day, jockey Jeremy Rose told the Washington Post, the horse looked “like a two year-old. He was jumping and squealing.”
He wasn’t jumping and squealing when the gates opened, however. He calmly — you might say professionally — stalked the pace set by the speedy Bingobear, surged to the lead, and held off defending champ Dr. Detroit by a little less than a length.
In the happy winners’ circle, owner Sondra Bender told the Post, “This horse.. is special. He’s a stayer. He’s still a horse.”
In these days where we value the hare over the tortoise, that’s a pretty nice — and richly deserved — legacy. La Reine’s Terms was, indeed, a horse — in all the best senses of the word. So’s Lava Man.
Here’s hoping that Lava Man’s comeback goes just as well as La Reine’s Terms, with just as happy an ending.
As the dog days of summer give way to the cool mornings and evenings of fall, and the Nationals’ long-since guaranteed last-place finish, I asked myself: What exactly did I learn this summer?
Myself answered, “Not to ask yourself questions that teachers ask third graders on the first day of school.”
But, having long ago learned to ignore myself, I plunged ahead. Herewith, things I learned this summer:
- If you want something done wrong, you should put the state of Maryland in charge of it. Still limited progress on slots, and as regards the slots license for Anne Arundel County, where Laurel is located, well, the local government is waiting on the state government, which in turn is waiting on… you guessed it.. the local government. This way lies madness.
- People who do not own racehorses have, truly, no idea how expensive it is. Not long ago, a person who would widely be considered an ace handicapper and racing expert estimated to me the monthly expenses for a Maryland horse owner — at exactly half of what they really are.
- Similarly, non-owning folk believe that owners are making piles of money. Not so. Horse owners don’t make money; they’re just really bad at math.
- Saratoga is still Saratoga. Even NYRA hasn’t managed to screw it up. Yet.
- A summer with no racing in Maryland (since it decamps to Colonial from late May till August) feels like a long time.
- In my next life, I ought to be a sheikh. I mean, the guy rescued his own Saratoga select sale from the oblivion facing every other sale — single-handed. That’s a lot of cake.
- Anyone who’s ever been to a barn can instantly recall the pungent stench of horses. For this reason, I’m going to have to pass on Kendall-Jackson’s Rachel Alexandra wine. Thanks anyway.
- Racetrack people take care of each other.
- A lot of horseplayers get the crazy eyes when you mention synthetic surfaces to them. Hey, guys, it’s not that bad.
- Lot of folks watching simos seem to think that whips are magic wands — hit the horse, watch him win. If only.
- Standing in the winner’s circle after one of yours wins is still the best feeling I know.
Once a race of national prominence, one that counted Kelso and Broad Brush among its champions, the John B. Campbell Handicap has largely receded into the background of racing noise on the East Coast.
This year, the nine-furlong Campbell was merely an undercard race for Laurel’s Valentine’s Day feature, the Grade 2 Barbara Fritchie.
But something just a tad unusual happened in this year’s Campbell. Well, after it, anyway.
The 9-10 favorite in that race was denied his first-ever stakes win when a 10-1 shot rallied down the middle of the track to get the money. It was the longshot’s first stakes victory.
What happened next?
The 9-10 favorite has gone on to get his stakes victory — three of them, in fact. Indeed, he’s catapulted himself into the upper tier of East Coast handicap horses. His name is Bullsbay, and he validated his G1 Whitney triumph with a solid third place finish, behind Rachel Alexandra and Macho Again, in the Woodward.
The winner of the Campbell, however, had seemed destined for mediocrity following his upset triumph. Three straight mediocre efforts on the main track had considerably dimmed his star — but not so much to scare off Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert or owner Arnold Zetcher LLC, who purchased the son of Lemon Drop Kid, out of a Broad Brush mare.
This horse now seems to have found his stride going long on synthetic tracks. His name is Richard’s Kid, and he delivered the surprise of the weekend when, at 24-1, he ran down Einstein and favored Rail Trip to win the G1 Pacific Classic on Sunday at Delmar.
Handicappers traditionally define a “key race” as one out of which two or more runners win their next race.
But when two previously non-descript horses come out of a non-descript race ultimately to become Grade 1 winners… well, maybe it’s time to give a little more thought to what a key race really is.
In other words, these days, PV Lightening’s third place finish in this year’s Campbell doesn’t look so bad!
In racing, as in show biz, the show must go on. Which is another way of saying that the show itself is paramount — more important than the individual performers.
Or, to pilfer a line from show biz, our troubles don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.
When people ask me what it’s like to own horses, I tell them that there’s no feeling like watching your horse win. I tell them there’s no happier place in the world than the winner’s circle. I tell them it’s like watching your favorite sports team win, times a million. If they push just a little, I tell them about our first victory, our cheap horse beating other cheap horses, a win that made us feel as if we’d won the Derby.
If they’re perceptive enough, they make the obvious connection: the highs are so high precisely because the lows can be so low. All we cherish comes dear.
Cherish we do, though, in part because the good times are fleeting. There’s always another race. There’s always somebody else whose turn it is in the winner’s circle. And bad news is always lurking around the good. So you embrace the good times when they come and steel yourself against the bad news.
It’s been that kind of week.
On Monday, the vet called to tell us that our brave filly Higher Authority had lost her battle with pleuropneumonia and that the time had come to put her down.
We did that.
In truth, it was an easy decision. She had had the best available care from the beginning of her troubles — a condylar fracture — to the end. We had employed the best people in the best facilities with the best equipment. They had done the best they could. We had fought, and we had lost; simple as that.
And yet not so simple. She was a kind filly with a gentle way around people and a competitive spirit on the track. Everyone in the barn loved her; everyone who came in contact with her was struck by her winning personality. She moved with an easy athleticism that promised future win photos. She was, in her dappled chestnut coat, the physical manifestation of a bright future. She was ours.
And then, Monday evening, she was gone.
This morning, one of the partners in Higher Authority sent me an email entitled “Congrats.”
He sent it because Tuesday afternoon, our Kim’s Dixie Tune — once himself the physical manifestation of a bright future, these days another hard knocker with a little bit more talent that that — ran a good race to earn a solid second-place finish.
It wasn’t quite a win, and even a win wouldn’t have — couldn’t have — erased the sting of losing our filly. This game is cruel that way.
It was, in fact, just another race on just another day at Delaware Park. But, still, it was a race, and a decent one at that.
It was the show, going on, and we — sadder, perhaps wiser, but not so wise that we won’t expose ourselves to heartbreak again in search of those elusive highs — go with it.
