Another day at the office for Deep Ocean

After the race, a shower

The racetrack, for some -- the thoroughbred racehorses --, is an office like it is for any other who goes to work and brings home a paycheck for their trouble. There are colleagues, too; the trainer, the lad, and the jockey; and, there is the essential support staff of track veterinarians and stewards, the waiters, bartenders, and betting window cashiers, the scales and dressing room attendants; and the parking lot valets and horse van service drivers. Deep went to work in Deauville on Tuesday and brought home a check for his staff, trainer Gina Rarick, his young apprentice lad (a girl), his various exercise jockeys (mostly women), and owner, Mme Paule Descargues and her husband.

He is a regular and dependable professional, bringing home a paycheck in each of his last six races (4p3p4p4p5p5p), not counting his victory in the race just prior. In his racing career, he has run 16 times, and he has won or placed in 11 of those races. 5-year-old son of the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe winner Sinndar out of Ocean Reef, bred in the Aga Khan Studs and possessing an interesting personal history, you cannot ask for much more, unless you are hoping for the ultimate, a crack.

When the paper is good and the race performance history is 69.75% for combined wins and places, granted a mere 6.25% for wins -- still, a win nonetheless; not every horse gets one --, but a fairly stunning 62.5% for places, you can't help but hope for those bronze and foot of the podium finishes to turn to gold and a place in racing legend, perhaps for a surprise victory, like his sire's, in even just one of horse racing's most prestigious races.

If the lass in Deep's and his colleagues' stable is an apprentice, so am I. I am just learning the feelings, the hopes and the expectations of thoroughbred racing, and their management. I am hanging around the office, the guest of my patient and generous "maître de stage", Gina, and her "entourage" of owners and staff. I am even starting to be recognized as I walk the corridors by the other trainers, and the track officials, even the members of the media. The Nikon D300 around my neck makes me look more like I belong there than I perhaps do. This was my fourth time at the races, but I have already seen that there are not two identical trips to the racetrack, not even with the same horse and the same owners, the same trainer, and even the same jockey. There is not one single variable that is not subject to change, else, how could you call them "variables"?

It starts with the horse. One, trainer or owner, buys a horse, looking a good paper, for signs of conformity, the horse's movement, perhaps a previous track record, something in her eye and the way she conducts herself in the presentation area. No single element, no matter how shiny, is a guaranty. Like Deep, the horse might walk on three legs and still run as though he had four perfectly functioning ones; unlike Deep, he might have four perfectly functioning ones, and run as though he had three. There is no magic bullet recipe for choosing a horse who will run well for her owner and her trainer, and it is probably easier to spot the factors that will make that extremely unlikely than it is to spot those that will favor it. At least there is that much.

Nerve-wracking.

Listen, though, to Gina, and learn something.

Training, she will tell you, is only a part of the equation, after the horse itself. I get the impression that trainers could benefit from taking the Hippocratic* oath, like doctors: first, do no harm. The trainer's work is to care for the needs of the horse: nutritional, veterinary, and exercise; enough of each, but not too much, dosing, and listening to the horse's response. The reins in your hands, she will tell you, are the yoke in those of the pilot of a small airplane. Through them, from the bit in the horse's mouth to you, is transferred all of the information about the horse you will need about she runs and your best way to direct her is through using your hands on the reins carefully, with sensitivity, responding to her. Run your hands and eyes daily over her, and you will feel and see the beginning of a problem. Look at the way she stands, look into her eyes and you will know is she is feeling poorly. Do this long enough, and your instincts develop and sharpen. Use your brain, but not too much. Training seems to amount to a heightened knowledge of not just horses in general, but of each horse in particular. Note that Hippocrates' name itself contains "horse".

Training, you might hear, if you listen to smart trainers, is about sense and sensibility. The history of thoroughbred horse racing is storied and romantic, but the work of the trainer at the office is not. It cannot be, if the trainer wishes to earn a living and see success. Wise trainers must know their horses, with their capabilities and their limitations, and choose races for them in which they have a chance to bring home a paycheck. Realistically. The best trainers are the Dennis Hoppers of the horse world, practicing realism. Let the horse surprise you pleasantly, not disappoint you bitterly by racing him against your wildest hopes for him cruelly. A crack, you will hear, if you are listening, is a horse in an hundred, like a stallion. Imagine the size of the stables required to hope reasonably for a crack somewhere in them, and sometimes where you might not be expecting to find her. If you listen to her, ride and care for her judiciously, she will tell you; I am the one.

It does not work the other way.

If Deep starts burning up the track, who knows? If he has the makings of a crack in him, Gina is as likely as any to help him express it on the racetrack. But, at 5, he is likely to prove himself to be what Gina says he already is: a racehorse.




I am about to see my first leave the yard and the training facilities at Maisons-Laffitte for a short season in Cagnes-sur-Mer before returning to her real owner in England, and I am watching and listening closely. If no two races, even with the same characters, are the same, no two owners are, either. It seems, then, to me, that the most important thing is to know yourself and your means, your own abilities and limitations going into this business, or leisure activity, or sport, or all of the above, and to be clear with not only yourself, but your fellow owners, if you have them, and with your chosen trainer. I know mine.

I know that I will be delighted to see Elbow Beach bring home a paycheck. I will be ecstatic to see her bring home a victory, and I know her other owner feels the same way. I am in this to support Gina's work and help her build the reputation of her yard, and to feel all the feelings that go along with horse racing, from the lowliest, like discovering at the betting window, ticket in hand, that in simples, only the first three places pay out, not five, like they do for the horses and their staffs, to the grandest, I can hope, while being perfectly happy to sit in the middle chair and eat my medium-warm porridge, the one that's just right: regular paychecks for expenses.

Most likely, I will not be there in person to see her do either, earn a check or win, but I will be watching on television, and probably taking pictures, anyway.
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Return to the racetrack, and a 3rd place finish for Deep

Deep Ocean and Magical Flower, canter at the piste at Maisons-Laffitte

Deep Ocean returned to the races on Friday, and what a return he made. It was his track debut in the Paris races, coming up from the yards of Belgian trainer Jean Marc Capitte in Calas, near Marseilles. His usual jockey, Gérard Pardon, made the trip up from Marseilles to run for Deep's owner and her husband, a former jockey himself.

A 5-year-old Sinndar colt, caught up at the crossroads of greater world history as a consequence of the Tunisian revolution, without great pretensions as a stallion -- unless he does his owner the tremendous pleasure of winning a listed race.

He was bred by Slim Chiboub at Aga Khan Stud. At 52, Chiboub is a former Tunisian volleyball player who eventually became president of the sports club l'Espérance sportive de Tunis. During his tenure, the club's soccer team won 15 titles, but after a defeat in the 2004 Tunisian Cup to rival Club sportif sfaxien, Chiboub was asked to step down. He went on to become involved in FIFA, served as vice-president and then president of Tunisia's Olympic Committee, and ran the breeding activities of his stud farm, Al Badr Stud in Bixerte, until he was forced to flee the country in January 2011.

Certainly unfortunately for Chiboub, his status as a favorite of former Tunisian president Ben Ali, married, as he is, to the second daughter of Ben Ali and first wife, began to slip after Ben Ali married Leïla Trabelsi, who naturally chose as her favorite her own daughter's husband, boosting the influence of the Trabelsi clan. All this, of course, in the fickleness of the intrigues of political marriage and power, merely set the stage for Chiboub to turn against the fallen president. In January 2011, with some 800 car bombs set to go off throughout Tunisia, Slim Chiboub outed Ben Ali's plans to destabilize Tunisia, thus earning himself a ticket to Dubai (rather well-known for horse racing, unless I am mistaken) rather than face whatever other significantly less clement future might have awaited him in post-revolutionary Tunisia had he not spilled the beans. A chance for a late-summer desert bloom after the Arab Spring.

Meanwhile, Deep Ocean had gone to Marseilles, where he was in training with Capitte. His bills went unpaid, Chiboub's assets in horse flesh in France were seized, and Deep, reportedly worth some 60,000 €, sold for considerably less in the fire sale of the aftermath of the Arab Spring. The beneficiary is his present owner, Madame Paule Descargues, followed by Gina Rarick of Maisons-Laffitte, where Paule and her husband decided to place Deep in training. This meant that Gina now had a son of Sinndar and a daughter of Montjeu, Deep Ocean and 2-year-old Surrey Storm, who has raced 4 times, placing in three of those outings (4 8p, 3p, 3p, 4p).

For anyone who follows European horse racing, these two names evoke one of the great duels in a recent chapter in Europe's most prestigious race, the 2000 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, now known as the Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, in which Sinndar beat Montjeu for the crown of glory at fabled Longchamp:

One giant was slain, another created here in the Bois de Boulogne yesterday. When the dust settled after the 79th Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, it was Montjeu, perhaps the best horse in the world for the last two years, who was on the floor. The hoof on his chest belonged to the new champion, Sinndar, the first horse to win the Derby, the Irish Derby and Europe's seasonal climax in Paris.

Deep caught the eye of the France Galop stewards at Deauville Friday and ran to a 3rd place finish in the Prix de Berd'Huis, to everyone's delight. And, may I tell you the thrill you feel when your horse, and I am being generous with myself here -- after all, I was with the owner, the trainer and the trainer's husband, and his lads, one apprentice and another owner, who enjoys the work of head lad on race day, in short, Deep's team --, breaks and finishes third in a field of 16?

Seeing Pardon let him go ahead in the final straightaway, no one in front of him, Gina wondered if he hadn't let him go 100 meters too early, but after the race was over, the owner's husband said no; Deep has a bonne pointe de vitesse, meaning that he can run really fast, even if not necessarily for very long, long enough, anyway, for those 100 meters to be a non-issue, even without another horse right in front of him. Deep's jockey knew him, and he knew he could let him hit that speed and see him over the finish line with a strong finish.

To watch your horse hold his own and not let half the pack pass him on his way to the post is a phenomenal feeling, even when you haven't bet a fiver or have a stake in him.

As for me, I took a bunch of great photos on the backside, and realized only afterward that I had forgotten to put the memory card back in my camera, and I lost my lens cap. Again being generous with myself, I will chalk it up to nerves. Disorganization would be the more accurate culprit. These training photos will have to do.

Finishing their canter

Now, let's see what little Milly, otherwise known as Surrey Storm outside the yards, can do at Cagnes-sur-Mer.

Meanwhile, it's Satwa Sunrise's turn again tomorrow at Deauville in the Prix du Val de Saire, a 1900 meter race for jockeys who have not won more than 15 times. She has drawn the 9th start and will be ridden by Tristan Normand.
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Deep Ocean