Starter Allowance, Arc de Triomphe - To-ma-toe, To-mah-toe

I’m usually at my seat in the Canterbury Park press box about an hour before first post.  I like to get set up, talk to the folks in the box about the card and what’s been going on around the track and start getting into the rhythm of the evening.  The Canterbury card will end with a Quarter Horse race or two and usually, if I’m writing an article or blog post, I’ll stick around and finish it while the Quarters are running.  If not, I head home.  Especially now when my two youngest are visiting from Nevada for part of the summer.

Saturday, though, I was running late and barely managed to get there fifteen minutes prior to the first post and when the Thoroughbred card was over I was heading right out.  It just so happened that this was the day after Tabby Lane won her third race in her last five attempts.

“Coming in late, leaving early, a fresh shave” teased track announcer Paul Allen on my way out the door.  “It’s like you won the Arc de Triomphe!”

“The Arc, a $7500 Starter Allowance,” I shot back.  “Is there really any difference?”  The wide smile was hurting my face. A win is a win and this game you celebrate them when you can get them.

The night before Tabby Lane ran in the 4^th race, a $7500 Start Allowance for horses that have run for a claiming tag of $7500 or less or a $10,000 claiming tag.  The race was a mile over the firm turf course.  As I saw the race shaping up, the very talented So Divine looked to have her way on the front end.  This would force Tabby to close into a slow pace which was going to be a very tall order.

When the gates sprung open, Jody’s Included, the only other horse in the race with any kind of early speed, rocketed to the front.  It wasn’t long after that So Divine met her there and the two steadily moved away from the field as they moved passed the stands for the first time.  As they bent through the first turn and hit the quarter mile mark, :22.4 flashed on the toteboard.  Trainer and friend Christine Riddle, sitting next to me, looked at me with a huge smile.  That :22.4 was the best news I could have hoped for and she knew it.  After the race talking with our trainer, Bernell Rhone, he said that while he was obviously interested in the race, he, too, was concerned about the lone speed but that when Jody went to the front and the time was posted, he got real interested, real quick!  While the top two were about 10 in front of the field, Dean Butler kept Tabby in mid pack and saved ground down the back side.  As the field moved into the far turn, the front runners were coming back to the rest of the field, Jody much quicker than Divine. 

The field turned for home and Dean angled Tabs to the outside and gave her a clear path to the lead.  Jody’s Included had faded but So Divine was still game and clear by two.  Tabby switched leads and came charging.  With a sixteenth left she was pulling even and it was no secret which horse was traveling best of all.  Under the wire, Tabby was first by 2 ½ and looked relaxed doing it.  I was, of course, nuts.  One of our partners, Cody, and I hugged hard and his poor wife, Alicia, was caught in a crazy manwich.   

The crowd in the winner’s circle was large. We don’t have near that many folks in the group but all of us brought brought friends, and we had nearly 30 people in the photo!  Friend and fellow horse owner Jay Dailey asked when I posted the photo on Facebook, “Do you know all of those people?”  I had to sheepishly respond, “Only a few!”  But the more the merrier! 

The winner’s circle is the track’s happy place.  The more people that you can bring in to share the experience the better it is for the game. You never know how many may say to themselves, “How do I become a part of this?”

Tabby came back from the experience very well. Horses that day were coming back blowing hard and sweating profusely on the warm Friday evening.  Tabs was barely breathing hard.  It makes me wonder where her bottom is and what we can get out of her with a full effort.  She registered a 72 Beyer for the trip and while not stakes worthy, it does help illuminate a pattern of steady improvement over the past few months.  I don’t know where we’ll send her next yet, but it’s exciting to know that we have some options.

I don’t know what it feels like to win the Arc, but I for me I can’t imagine that it feels any better than it did Friday night!

Big Thanks From a Small Time Guy

We haven't had a stakes winner yet and our stable has only been as large as three horses (though we're working on that!) but there is still a lot to be thankful for in 2010 - big picture and our our own window:

- Thanks to our partners. Without you we wouldn't be racing at all. Some of you have had a great ride, others not so great but almost down to a person (I'm NOT thankful for the one guy that stiffed us) you all understood the ups and downs of this business. We'll get you your winner!

- Thanks to Bernell & Cindy Rhone, Dean & Leann Butler and Christine Riddle. Our horses could not be entrusted to better people. It's one thing to be good horse people, that's hard enough, to be the the quality of people that you are - that's something special.

- Thanks to Tabby Lane & One For Zetta. Without horses, nothing is possible. Tabby started the season off with a bang and finished with some rest while Zetta never made it to the racetrack. Tabby taught us to stop making plans more than one race at a time while Zetta taught us patience and having the strength to do the right thing. Love you ladies!

- Thanks to all the unsung barn help - the grooms, exercise riders and others on the backside who go nameless and sometimes even faceless but whose love for the horse and dedication to being there every day makes our world run.

- To all the vets that keep our horses healthy and try and put them back together again, I thank you.

- Zenyatta. Thanks to a wonderful race mare who came back one last time but fell short only to further illuminate her greatness. She may be a once in a half century horse and I'm glad I saw her.

- Uncle Mo. For a crushing Breeder's Cup win, but more for continuing to stoke the winter fires with the can he/can't he Derby talk.

- Randy Sampson, Jeff Maday, Paul Alen, Kevin Gorg and all the folks that make Canterbury Park tick. Find me a racetrack where there is more fun, excitement and management interaction with the fans than at Canterbury Park and I won't believe you. Great job folks and thanks for the 62 dates next year. Good luck with the legislature!

- Special thanks to Jeff Maday and his staff in the press box for allowing me to blog there on big days and making me feel welcome.

- Brenda Rick, Leslie Morley, Darla Jefferies, Karin Wagner and folks all over the country who strive to protect, retrain and mend our retired racehorses. The job is too big for everyone involved - I hope the job gets smaller over time. Thanks for all you do.

- And to all my friends in racing: thanks again for sharing your thoughts, insights, hopes, dreams, wins and losses with me. That includes the bloggers on the left but also all of the folks whom I've met along the way that are now close to me in this world.

Have a safe, healthy and happy Thanksgiving everyone! And thank YOU for reading!

Five Days in July

And JFK thought 10-days in October were rough. It's been quite the year already but the last five days have been something else.

July 2

Horrible breakdown at Canterbury Park that resulted in the death of a racehorse and severe injuries to jockey Scott Stevens as well as major back injuries to Paul Nolan and Don Proctor. The single greatest factor in the severity of the accident was that the horse on the lead was the one that went down. I don't care what your reaction time is, at 40 mph on suddenly spooked and scared 1100 pound racehorses when the horse in front of you breaks down the result is in God's hands. It was a miracle that no jock was killed and that fourth jock in accident, Dean Butler, was able to walk away with minor injuries.

I'm not going to preach about the perils of race riding (I've done that already) but they are folks with families and livelihood and the Don McBeth Fund was set up years ago to help injured jockeys and their families. Rachel Blount in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune had a nice column on this accident and the work of the Fund. Try to ignore the many ignorant trolls that commented on her work. David Miller over at View From the Quarter Pole has a good take on this as well.

July 4

Tabby Lane gets railroaded in a $10,000 Starter Allowance. It was a race she should have been competitive in but she was not. I was in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan visiting family for the 4th and was unable to watch the race live. One of our partners texted me the details of the race and it wasn't pretty. Bernell and I talked and have some ideas for changing things up for her, though she made need to get away for a few months and then we can start from scratch. While not heartbreaking, it certainly was disheartening. I still have been unable to bring myself to watch the replay.

July 6

I was meeting one of our partners at the track in the early morning hours to visit One for Zetta (as well as Tabby). It was his first time on the backside and it happens to be his first time owning a racehorse. We get there and Zetta seems relatively antsy in comparison to when I usually go by and see her. Turns out she's going to gallop in an hour so we stick around which is no real sacrifice for me. She heads over to the training track and Frankie warms her up and turns her to pick up her pace. No sooner does trainer Christine Riddle get the words "She's had some problems at this point over the track" out of her mouth than Zetta decides that she's all done, puts on the breaks, rears and goes, as my mom would say, ass over tea kettle. Thankfully horse and rider are fine but Zetta is free and she's going home and tears out for her barn. There are few things scarier than a horse loose on the backside and, to my horror, it's my horse!

Zetta gets back to the barn and Frankie and Chris settle her down, dust her off and up he goes to get her back on the track for the work. She needs to learn that her antics don't reward her with a bath, lunch and her stall and they handle it like champs. There is no retribution, just a patient return to the training track where she's taken around three times (looking like a horse that's never seen a racetrack rather than one that worked like a champ through the gates just days before!!) and then Frankie patiently takes her to her problem area and moves her around and makes her stand still from point to point, all the while talking in her ear. I can imagine him telling her, "See, it's OK. Nothing is going to hurt you here." She leaves the track much more settled (and having learned a little something) but her connections a bit shaken.

Will all this work out? Of course it will. I look forward to the day when I write about the best five days that I've ever had racing. This game can take you to great highs but it also makes sure that it keeps you humble.

On the Backside...Whoa-Ohhh

Yup - you're supposed to sing the title like that song from "Eddie and the Cruisers"!

This has been an EXTREMELY long month for me, not just because it's the last full month before live racing begins at Canterbury Park, but because through the month of April I spent exactly 6 full days at home (4 if you count the night my wife and I spent away concert-going to belatedly celebrate our anniversary which I missed in my travels). Needless to say, blogging and the radio show took the hit though I did manage to be able to keep partners updated and keep the stable moving along.

Yesterday morning I arose around 4 AM to catch my last flight of the month back to the Twin Cities and when I landed I finally got to get over to the back side. I did my licensing bit up front and then headed on back to visit. I found Tabby Lane in her stall fresh from a romp around the oval and a bath. She lived up to all expectations finally meeting her in person: tall, athletic and gentle as all get out. It truly is almost hard to believe that she is as much of a competitor as she is with her demeanor. Cindy Rhone took some time to introduce us and even present me with our first racing trophy - a silver plate she won the first time back for us.

I have to take a minute here to praise the barn folks in general and Cindy in particular. To take care of a stable full of living, breathing, high strung (mostly) athletes is difficult under the best of conditions. It's a seven day a week job, period. The barn help was supposed to arrive yesterday, but that hadn't happened yet and while the Rhone barn is only about a third full at this point, it's still a truckload of work and Cindy was handling it all like a champ. Yet she still was able to take the time to talk with me for a few. I swear if I didn't have to be in the office (and if I dressed for it), I would have grabbed a pitchfork and dug in myself - after being told exactly what to do, of course! Amazing people who don't get near enough credit.

Tabby is doing well and we're still looking at pointing her to a race next week at Prairie Meadows. I also stopped by to see Chris Riddle and get a brief update on One for Zetta. She was also in the process of getting horses to settle in so Zetta will stay on the training farm a little while longer until the backside is full up and the activity level settles down into a daily routine. Thankfully she is doing well and learning more and more every day. Her progress is steadily moving forward and for that I am thankful. It was great to be on the backside again. Sadly this one was a short visit, though I am looking forward to being able to hang out a bit more, watch some works and grabbing breakfast in the kitchen. My version of heaven.

Welcome back everyone!

This Will Be Fun

I finally got to spend some time in a barn yesterday. It was only an hour, but it was a good hour. My wife and I jumped in the car and navigated "Road Construction Season" in central Minnesota and made our way down to Russ Rhone's training farm in Chaska, MN - about a 45 minute drive. It was a beautiful spring day today and with the smell of the first grass cut of the season in my nostrils we got out of the car and made our way to the barn.

Russ was there along with our trainer, Chris Riddle, and we hung out and talked, sized up One for Zetta and, as you can see above, she sized us up as well. She started training in earnest again yesterday when she galloped a mile and then another loping mile and a half today. As Paul Simon would say, she's a little "soft in the middle" right now, but her initial gallops showed in her an interest in her work and a positive mental attitude to the task at hand. It will take her a while to get into race shape, but she is game and Russ and Chris are two of the best.

While talking shop a bit, Zetta took a real shine to my wife. When Theri would stop showing her attention for a few minutes, Zetta would strain her head out of the stall trying to get her attention. Theri finally gave up and just let Zetta nuzzle. Horses apparently love my wife. Each one of them she has been around has fallen hard for her. I can certainly understand it, but it still is a pretty interesting phenomenon. This is one of the main reasons my wife hates the claiming game. I think she should just tell them to be allowance level horses and then she won;t have any worries!

As we continue to move forward with Tabby Lane, Zetta will keep on pushing forward as well and we should have two interesting stories to tell: one of an inexpensive claim that could amount to much, much more and one of getting a promising horse to the track to prove herself. There should be really interesting stories on both sides and I look forward to telling them.

Welcome "One For Zetta"

We'd like to welcome to the family "One For Zetta" an unraced three-year old Minnesota bred filly out of Zach's World (Distinctive Pro) by Ballado Chieftan. We put together a small group that owns half of "Zetta" and she will be under the guidance of trainer Chris Riddle. She's a smart, lovely chestnut that is getting back to work and looking to debut at Canterbury Park this summer.

Thanks to partner Shelly for the above photo which she had taken when visiting Zetta last week.

Best of luck to all the partners. If you're looking to get involved, there is the possibility that we can pick up a bit more of her, so let me know as soon as you can!