The decision: Elbow Beach stays to race in France

Elbow Beach finishes 4th at Cagnes-sur-Mer

Elbow Beach was one of three horses trainer Gina Rarick had entered in Cagnes-sur-Mer that Saturday, February 18, and the best hope for a win. Her other owner, Kay Minton, and I were anticipating champagne flowing in Nice that evening, and why not? With Fabien Lefebvre, who knew her as well now as Gina's training jockey, Agata Tubielewicz, back in Maisons-Laffitte, and who had as much confidence in her speed and promise to take a race, up, it seemed like we had every chance to cross the post no worse than second.

We were a nice-sized party to cheer her on: three owners, me, Kay and Mark, with his wife, Cynthia, and a friend, and I had piqued the interest of the interior decorative painter, with whom I had the pleasure to talk on the train from Paris the day before, in racing, and he brought his young daughter for her first thoroughbred horse race. They arrived just in time to meet us coming out of the presentation ring, as Fabien rode Elbow off to the track, hoping not to be tossed onto the sand on his cul like Frédéric Spanu in the last time out. But hindsight is forewarning, and Fabien knew to anticipate what she might have reserved for him. The rest of us trooped up to the owners' and trainers' deck to watch the race.

The gate opened and six horses surged forward; everyone had a 5 in 6 chance of taking a check. All that remained to be seen was who didn't and how much each of the other horses took home.

Fabien settled her behind the front runner, Athaar from Rouget and the number 2 horse, favorite Nina Candela by Gentile, and rode the pace to the final turn into the homestretch, where Athaar would drop from sight into 6th position and Nina Candela would stretch into first place, followed by Lady Ana, Maria Christa, ridden by Ioritz Mendizabal -- who had just returned from a victory at Meydan in Dubai the day before, winning the S.O.G. Handicap on 2010 Prix Villapadierna - Derby Espagnol winner Platagenet in a phenomenal finish in front of front-runner Alhaain --, and Elbow Beach.

Manuka and jockey Thierry Thulliez flirted briefly with taking fourth from Elbow, but she wasn't having any of it. She also wasn't seriously interested in making a similar bid for third.

This second time past a French post was less glorious than in our hopes and the weather and view of the Mediterranean and sail boats out past the backstretch, but there were factors to take into consideration. First, there was the quality of the turf, which was poor, rutted and dry. Second, there was the distance, which was probably 100 meters too long at 1400 meters, particularly on that terrain. We sighed, took solace in the second to last check, which would pay her training fees, oats and straw for a few more weeks, and turned our attention to watching Strictly Rhythm and Deep Ocean run. In the end, Elbow proved herself to be the best hope of the day, although at 4th place, it would have been nice to see her more seriously challenged by her yardmates.




Then, there was the argument to make to Elbow Beach's owner in England, an argumentative essay entitled "Why Elbow Beach should stay to race in France". A victory was what he wanted, at least one victory before she was to be covered and begin her career as a broodmare, and we saw the logic in keeping Elbow here to do it. We weren't far, which was a lot to say considering that this was only her second race in the 4 months since her last race in England, October 10, 2011, and since she had gone out of race training. It was premature to expect her to win in maiden races in her current form. She needed time to eat well, train well and rest well, and she needed the experience she was getting. She did not so much need, perhaps, another trip back to England via Maisons-Laffitte to digest in the middle of that preparation and racing.

For now, she'd at least have another chance in France in Deauville on Friday, March 2, with the caveat that it was a little soon, but the entry was too good to pass up. I sighed my disappointment; I'd known she'd run while I was skiing, but I would not cut my yearly and dearly anticipated ski trip with my son to Argentière short to return for it. I'd receive the news on the slopes of Les Grands Montets. The start time was 15h55 in the 5th, the Prix de Saint-Valéry with a starting field of 9 horses. By Gina's figuring, it was a field of four, including Elbow Beach, Perle Rose, Caracesca and Mephala, but by the horses' and their jockeys', Elbow was not included in that select company, and neither was Caracesca.

My cell phone rang at the bottom of a steep bowl of moguls the size of the ponies that lead the thoroughbreds to the gate in the States, and I struggled to yank off my glove, pull it from my pocket and hit the right area of the touchscreen to reply before she hung up; time is very limited in the moments after a race. I had just survived a near disaster with the help of a calm and collected stranger and had witnessed an avalanche on the face of the rock slope below les Becs Rouges across the Argentière glacier from the hors-piste near the black run, Pointe de Vue, and I was hoping all this excitement was portent for more. Elbow was running while some of this was going on, and had had her best chance of a victory yet this year. Perhaps, at worst, a second or third place; it was not unreasonable to hope, but, as Gina herself said, without the unexpected, it was not a race. I caught my breath and held it.

"Yes, Gina?"

"It was a disappointing fith. I've got to run to meet them."

"OK, thanks. We'll talk later. Go."

I let it out, and nodded to Sam.

"Fifth. Gina will fill me in later."

I am becoming a specialist in the finer points of interpretation of finish order, however, and I have learned that sometimes, perversely, or conversely to the laws of Good Sense, a fifth is better than a fourth. If there were such a time, and there is, this was one.

This time out, she was up against some stiff competition again, and her fifth place finish was by a nose only two lengths behind the winner, Perle Rose (poetic justice; I got to write that sentence), and Caracesca, ridden by Ioritz Mendizabal, did not take home a check, crossing the finish line just after Elbow. According to Gina's predictions, Mephala was in there with a third place finish, but Jabberwocky was in there, too, handing a second place check to her owner, and Miss Oury, at 43/1, had slipped in for the fourth, just nostrils ahead of Elbow's fifth with her far better 8.3/1 odds.

It was a race, and Elbow had gained ground, not lost it. The numbers don't tell all, or not certain numbers.

I was not privy to all the discussion, but the decision came, and it aligned with my way of seeing things: Elbow Beach needs a win, and, at this point, her best chance of getting it is here in France. Right now, Elbow will get a chance to catch her breath, continue her work and race again toward the end of March or early April, and I will not be anywhere but at the racecourse this time out.
....

Elbow at Cagnes, that's my baby

Maybe Today, for Elbow Beach

Elbow Beach at Cagnes-sur-Mer, February 18

This horse that seemed the cream puff, gathered and collected in her first days at Gina Rarick's yard in Maisons-Laffitte, but who turned out to be a little something else again in the saddling area prior to post time on both starts in Cagnes-sur-Mer in February, where she took fourth place in each -- I haven't written, yet, about the second race --, is set to race again today in the 5th, the Prix de Saint-Valéry, at Deauville.

She lowers her big head down to your legs and then rubs it up the length of your body to say hello, lingering a moment at our lower back.

Hello, Elbow. 

And then, one day, she moved that big, old head away, only to swing it back toward my unsuspecting nose, stuck directly in the trajectory of her swing. Agata fixed me up with some arnica, and I learned a lesson about Elbow that she hasn't failed to drive home in the saddling area before her starts. Last time it took three people, pushing with all their might, to keep her in the box to finish the job and get her saddle safely cinched for Fabien Lefebvre, who was up.

I won't, unfortunately, be there to witness the saddling or the race. I won't even be able to watch on the television. We are still in Chamonix Mont-Blanc, and even if we came down from the slopes for the race, we don't get Equidia here. I'll have to wait for the phone call to tell me how she did, and sign up to watch the video later.

Today, she has another chance for a win or a second place, but nothing's ever certain in racing, or as Gina puts it "of course, there is always the unexpected, which is what makes it a race."

There is always the unexpected, which is what makes it a race.

That, it seems to me, is one of the finest quotes from horse racing, ever.

It's a 1300 meter on fibersand for 3-year-old fillies who haven't yet won, and they will fly on the fibersand, so Elbow should be able to stretch out early, which Gina thinks is to her advantage. She has a good top speed, and Fabien Lefebvre, who knows her very well now and likes her action and speed, is up again. All good for us. Ioritz Mendizabal, who won at Cagnes in February and then flew to Dubai to take a first place there a day or two later, before returning to Cagnes to race again, will be up on Caracesca. I really wish I could be there to see this match-up.

We're hoping for the chance to keep her here in France long enough to race her on the 1400 turf on the "coude", or "elbow", at Longchamps, the track the most ideally suited, in Gina's mind, to Elbow's style of racing. Besides, how can you miss the opportunity to race Elbow on her eponymous stretch of turf?

C'mon, Elbow, do us proud today, and, please give everyone a break in the saddling box, alright?
....

Gina Rarick at Cagnes sur Mer, February 18

A Surrey Storm rolled into Cagnes-sur-Mer

Strictly Rhythm and Fabien Lefebvre
Cagnes sur Mer, Feb 2, 2012

What did you say? What's that you say?

Milly ran a good race today?

Yes, Strictly. She did. Your stablemate acquitted herself with aplomb and stuck a peg in the wall and drew herself up closer to the mark set by her illustrious lineage. Papa Montjeu aurait eu un oeil larmoyant pour sa fifille, la petite filly Milly. The Fleet Fairy (my nickname for her; she belongs to a group of three others) had made herself worthy of her eponymous paternal great grandmother, dam to her sire's father, Sadler's Wells, Fairy Bridge's pride this time, feet flying over the fiber sand.

Well, I'll be.

And so will I, Strictly. So will I.

Milly, as she's known in trainer Gina Rarick's yard in Maisons-Laffitte, drew the inside spot on the rail. She made a good break from the starting gate, and Fabien let her out, working into her stride into third and then fourth on the backstretch, along the Mediterranean seaside drive. The horses were stretched out and she was on the camera side, affording a good view of her work. She looked lovely. With nice action, fluid, she made it look easy. She was holding her own, but they would head into the far turn on this 2000 meter race, and then things would start to get serious coming out of the last turn to the backstretch. 

I was on an important phone call. I realized I had dialed at the wrong time only after my director answered. I had to continue the discussion and pretend my mind was fully on the issue, and I lost track of her between the turns. Then, there she was, in the sudden traffic jam that's the jockeying for position (now you know from where that phrase comes) for the homestretch, still near the rail, but the horses behind were surging, making their bid. I held my breath and listened to my director talk, dying to call out to Milly. 

C'mon, girl! C'mon! Don't stop; don't let up! 

I listened to my director, my eyes on the screen, my breath sucked in and held. Milly. The pack was beginning to stretch across the track, several abreast. The lead horses had a clear path to the post. Would Milly not give up only to get stuck? There was a hole, a safe hole. Fabien raised his crop and brought it down on her withers. I held my breath.

The surge around her continued; it was chaos, my director spoke, and I willed myself to concentrate better on two wholly separate and simultaneous things; Fabien brought the crop down again against her withers, and I swore I could see Milly, Surrey Storm, make a decision.

Once more, and she was clear, running, head down and stretched forward up the homestretch. I was answering my director, willing Milly, she was there with another horse, just behind the leaders, and then another horse drew up along the outside in the last 100 meters. She wasn't slowing down; she was running harder, if anything. It almost looked like she would pass the post in clear fourth position. 

Milly! I cried to the horse on the TV. I spoke to my director on the phone.

The horse on the outside, it had to have been the number 6 horse Tangoka -- I'd have known, if only I could have paid proper and full attention -- was pulling ahead and still Milly was leaning into her bit, giving up nothing, giving everything she had, and they crossed the post. I listened to my director, speaking now, and I was certain I had seen her in fourth position, just a nose ahead of Tangoka. I typed "4TH" to one of her owners in California and hit send. It was 5:30 am there. Then, Equidia posted the results: 1 - 2 - 5 - 6 FF 7.  I typed "FF" and hit send. And then the last two numbers reversed. Milly was officially fifth, a half a nostril behind Tangoka, and within two lengths of the winner, IX Elle, ridden by Ioritz Mendizabal. I typed "5TH" and hit enter and finished my conversation. 

I had a race report to write for one of her owner's, his eyes en France devant le téléviseur, when I cannot be at the track.

"Looks like we have us a race horse" came the reply.

Looks like it. It does indeed.

....

Milly with exercise jockey, Agata
Maisons-Laffitte, Nov 26, 2012

Maybe Milly, and morning work

Fabrien Lefebvre with Strictly, Cagnes-sur-Mer February 2

In about a half hour, Milly, as Montjeu filly Surrey Storm is known around trainer Gina Rarick's yard, will run again. Her first race since she decided a leisurely pace up the home stretch suited her just fine in her last time out at Cagnes. I stopped counting how many horses passed her. It was easier to count how many were still behind her, which was exceptionally exasperating, since she has magnificent papers and her music in 2011, her débutante season, was 8p 3p 3p 4p, placing in 3 of 4 starts.

Maybe Milly doesn't like France? Oh!, but this is nonsense, considering that Papa is French and won the 2000 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at Longchamps, France's, and Europe's, most prestigious race. Cela ne peut être!

Carla O'Halloran -- and don't be mistaken by her name, Carla is Spanish and Irish, but she speaks French with the best of them, and probably is --, who has been riding Milly in her morning work, will be up, and Gina is looking for her to give Milly a little lesson in how you run a race, not necessarily to win nor to place, but to work all the way to the finish line up the home stretch, and to get in a training gallop in race conditions. Information about her condition and her reactions for her future training and the races in which to enter her will come from this outing, and that is sometimes the most important thing. She'll be talking to Carla, who will be listening, closely, and Carla will be talking to her. Everyone will be happy if she makes progress, learns a little and comes back happy and hungry.

Odd that this could be necessary, really, when you recall her performances in 2011, but horses are athletes, and they have their good moments tout comme leurs coups de mou; no one is on all the time, and the trainer's work is to know how to reply and bring the horse, like the athlete, back to top form. And, like athletes, they come into their own in their own good time. Some horses are precocious, others take longer to reach their full race stride; Milly gave a glimpse of her potential and her promise in her first races, and now I'll lay a wager that she is growing up and preparing to fulfill it.

Carla on Milly, Cagnes-sur-Mer February 2

It's 10 minutes to post time. I leave you with the photos from the backside, the morning work, and jockeys Fabien Lefebvre and Carla O'Halloran at Cagnes-sur-Mer, the morning Elbow Beach placed 4th in her first race on le sol français.


....

First race, a place for Elbow Beach

Elbow Beach after the race at Cagnes, Feb 2

It has been almost a week since the first race horse in which I have a couple of legs ran her first race in France and came in 4th at Cagnes-sur-Mer in the Prix de l'Ile Sainte Marguérite. Turfoo had given her 5th place. Our trainer Gina Rarick didn't expect her to place. She was short on work. Very short on work.

Elbow had spent a week or so in mid-transport from her trainer's in England, Dr. Jon Scargill's Red House Stables in Newmarket, Suffolk, at a stud closer to the English Channel, walking and trotting in a horse walker after being off training since November and placing 10th in her last race, a 1400 meter race in Salisbury on October 10. The weather had turned bad, the seas were heavy with strong gusts of wind, and the ports were closed. Elbow would have to cool her heals and put off seeing France until things quieted.

Looking at her race history alone does not give a prospective owner, or part owner, the chair

Snow dog

Fia, a dog, a stick, and some snow

Among the joys of true, snow-covered winter is watching the dogs play in the snow. Not that it's really any different than watching them play in the grass, but the contrast of lustrous black dog on pristine white snow is certainly stronger, and snow flies up dramatically from under those powerful paws, and gets to fall again. Pure energy.

She's warming up for Argentière in the Chamonix-Mont Blanc valley in two or three weeks, a year after we placed Baccarat's ashes above the glacier on the backside of les Grands Montets and at the roots of a giant fir in the forest of the Moraine.

And, to own the truth, it's not "dogs", anymore, but "the dog", Fia, my "dark angel". One plays, the other tries to avoid her and to sit on the steps out of harm's and impact's way. At 12 in one month from today, I can understand Rapide. It's getting harder to make it back up the long middle stair of the garden, with it's 28 steps. She takes them one at a time.

One day, she'll not return, but for now, I am relieved when I see her pick her pace up into a trot as she rounds the fish-pond-in-a-(former)-fountain.

So, who wants to come play? Xander? Ramona and Hudson? I know you're all too far, and, Hudson, you'd probably rather sit on the sidelines with Rapide, although I think you'd find the climate in harmony with your ancestral memory.

Samantha? Do you want to come to France and play in the snow?



Perhaps as soon as those crazy but lovable and funny people with whom she shares her home start acting like humans and let her out the damn door. Sheesh.

Scooby Doo? Coco?

Coco, training center Maisons-Laffitte, Jan 13

Prof, you can sit on the steps with Rapide and watch the young ones romp.

Prof, "du dos", with Rapide and Fia

I'll join you two, with my camera, and then just as soon as Gina and the horses are back from Cagnes-sur-Mer, Rapide, we'll head to Maisons-Laffitte for another late afternoon play date in the Rond Poniatowski.
....

Elbow Beach is off to Cagnes

Elbow Beach and Hard Way, Maisons-Laffitte 

How many people get to say "My horse is racing next week"?

It's an extraordinary thing; in my life, anyway, and it makes as little sense, if you study the arc of my life, as one could imagine. You would have to have known me when I was very little and read about Alec Ramsay and Harry Dailey and Shêtân to begin to imagine I could find my way here. You would also have to know that I sometimes do unexpected things, irrational things, things that may or may not make sense once we can look back upon them from a comfortable vantage point years hence. Or, even next week, after Elbow Beach runs her first race in France at Cagnes-sur-Mer.

My horse is running next week in the hippodrome-on-the-sea, and it is an extraordinary thing, an exciting and thrilling thing. Anything is possible; every door is open; and, it could go anywhere. I have no idea, and that is just fine.

The word came from Agata today, "Elbow a volé aujourd'hui. Elle a trop bien bossé!!! On va s'amuser avec elle à Cagnes."

Elbow ran another gallop this morning on the piste jaune, where the fast training work is done at Maisons-Laffitte, along with the piste noire, which is no longer black since the sand was changes, but no matter, and she was stronger still than she had been in the two previous work-outs. She flew. She worked better than ever, and Gina Rarick has found a race for her next week, 1600 meters on Thursday. It's 100 meters more than she has been used to doing, but Agata, who has ridden her in most of her training, and all of her fast work, doesn't think the extra 100 meters will pose any problem for this gray dappled 3-year-old filly with the white face, and with character to spare.

The night I met her, her first at Gina's yard, she made an impression. Her box full of women and a black Labrador retriever, she showed everyone interest, moving her white head about on her long ash gray neck. Nothing escaped her attention, everything merited her curiosity. Over the next month, she won our affection and our respect. A young mare who uses her neck the way a mother uses her hands on her baby, she stroked my back and my legs with her neck, a horse's way of hugging you, running her muzzle over me. Like with Sunrise, I could stand at her box door and press mine to hers and feel her press back against me, blowing gently into my face.

And then, quite of a sudden, after her last splendid fast workout Monday morning, she swung her head and clocked me. I heard my nose crack. The sound of cartilage moving to places it should not be with respect to the attributes of one's face. My hand flew to my nose, protecting it, testing it, and I shouted at her. Had I the presence of mind I ought to have had, she'd have had a whack back, too. I chose to believe that she didn't mean it and hurried over to Agata in the barn to tell her my war story. I had been baptized.

"Ah oui!" said Agata, "Ca se voit!"

"Hé oui, et ça se sent aussi!"

She assured me it wasn't turning too blue, nor was it swelling much, yet, and I followed her to the medicine cabinet, where she soaked a square of gauze in something and handed it to me.

"C'est de l'arnica. Essuie ça partout sur ton nez." I did as instructed. It smelled sharp. "Tiens, prends-en 5." She handed me a little plastic vial, tinted light blue. "C'est de l'arnica."

I held the gauze to my nose and turned the vial about, trying to figure how to get the whatever they were out of the small hole in the top.

"Non," said Agata, taking the vial, "tu le tournes, comme ça." 5 little round white pellets dropped into my available palm.

"Je les avale, comme ça?"

"Non," she corrected me, "tu les mets sous la langue, et tu les laisses fondre, comme ça."

I slipped them under my tongue and waited for them to dissolve, hoping the bruise would never appear. It didn't, nor did the feared swelling, but the nose is still tender, however, that is nothing next to Agata's fesses, after Triple Tonic was through with her a little later in the morning, having succeeded at dumping her on a third, or so, violent turn of the hind end. Ah, them's the breaks in this business. If you hear a report of a crater discovered on one of the allées of the park at Maisons-Laffitte, Agata commented the next day on Facebook, know that it was no meteor. No. It was Agata's butt.

I think we have not one, but two horses ready to race: Elbow Beach and Triple Tonic, who has lost most of her 3-year-old season due to nagging viral infections, but who now seems ready to attack her 4-year-old season with a vengeance.

Who says fixation d'abcès is an outmoded treatment in this day of penicillin? Ask TT.




And, so, I'm off to Nice for a day or two next week. Gina has looked up cheap flights (I am not a wealthy owner, nor will I be one for long, just yet), and all that remains to be seen is making sure my dogs don't get bladder infections waiting for someone to let them out to relieve themselves in my absence. I think my husband will cover that. There is no way I want to miss my first race as an owner, even if I can't be listed as such yet by France Galop. Like Agata said, we're all -- Gina, Agata, me and her other owner for her time here in France -- looking forward to having some fun, while it lasts, and perhaps to making a bit of money, thanks to Elbow. Her other owner will be flying over from the States to see her race a little later in February,.

I have the champagne packed. All I need is the blue stuff.

Meanwhile, the yard's favorite ATM-on-four-legs, Deep Ocean, ridden by his usual jockey, Gérald Pardon, took 5th in his first race back in his native south of France, beating two horses from his old yard before he moved to Maisons-Laffitte in November. While he was believed to have difficulties running "left-handed", which Gina believed was actually due to other factors that happened to coincide with left-handed race courses, that seemed to bother him less than his starting position on the inside, and his over-trimmed feet from his new shoeing down in Cagnes. Imagine trimming your nails past the quick. He ran on that.

Which might also explain his unruliness, out of character for him, prior to entering the starting gate. He was a handful.

Oh well, nails grow and boo-boos heal.
....

Elbow Beach, January 22

Elbow Beach, "canter"

Guilain and Hard Way

When you take a terrific photograph and find one little thing missing, it's enough to ruin the photo. Sam walked by, looked at the series from this morning's visit to Gina's yard, and said, "That's a great photo. Too bad you don't see his eye; it would be perfect then." Now, all I can see is the eye you can't see behind Hard Way's mane. I keep it for its other qualities, and the fun we were having when he and Agata got back from Hard Way's and Elbow Beach's "canter", or gallop on the piste jaune at Maisons-Laffitte this morning.

Elbow was being a little silly walking up the road to the training center the other day, lost her balance and brushed her ankle against the sidewalk border, skinning herself like a little kid, which she is. Yesterday, the "canter" -- the French call canter "galop de chasse" and gallop "canter" -- that was supposed to take place and motivated me to get up out of bed and make the predawn drive to Maisons-Laffitte, my husband getting himself up out of bed and following me to make it an outing, was cancelled since she had a little inflammation from her boo-boo.

The "canter" was rescheduled for today, come what may, but instead of taking it side-by-side, race style, Agata and Gina decided to keep Elbow behind Hard Way and take it a little easy. Just in case. Having already lost one of the yard's best hopes for the winter season in Cagnes-sur-Mer, Satwa Sunrise, in a claimer on opening day, having another, Magic, down for several months (1 down and 2 or 3 to go; I can't remember. It's awful either way), seeing teeny, tiny Milly flounder on the fibersand in her first race in France, Elbow just has to get fit, avoid injury and race to win, or at least to place.

She also needs to do this because she is the horse in which I have two legs, the front or the rear, or the near or the far side; take your pick. I'll take any two, as long as they are healthy, strong and fast. Very fast. Elbow is a sprinter, running the 1200 to 1500 meter races, and she has come to France to add value to her profile as a brood mare, worthy of the better covers, by increasing her chances of adding a few more wins to her racing career by having her start her 3-year-old season early in Cagnes. Normally, she will return to England in March, unless we can negotiate an additional race or two, or three, in Saint-Cloud and Chantilly for March.

She was to arrive a week before she did, but heavy winds and rough weather closed the Channel ports, and Elbow Beech spent an extra week walking and trotting in circles in the horse walker. She lost muscle she'd need to win, and Gina made the decision to keep her in training in Maisons-Laffitte, under Chantal and Agata's watchful eyes in the yard and Agata's knees on her shoulders on the track. Soon, the call will come to bring her down, or have her loaded into the STH horse transport truck and sent.

Meanwhile, I am left to imagine any number of possibilities. Elbow could give us all a thrill, make our season and add a little extra shine and cachet to Gina's reputation. But, Elbow could disappoint us; she could come up short, even just short of that. All the elements could be there and in place, and still she might not win; or, something might still be missing, but she'll turn out to have that special something in her spirit or heart that corrects a little missing muscle or an odd turn of foot, which, aside from losing balance from time to time out walking up the street, she does not have. That you can't know until you let them go on a racetrack and see what happens, although I felt certain that I could sense it in Sunrise the first time I went with her to Deauville.

For now, it's Schrodinger's cat, which would make a great name for a horse, except that it leaves room for a little doubt.

My ownership paperwork has gone to France Galop. I have chosen my colors, and even decided on the rug and the colors for the browband of the bridle. I'm not telling. It would be nice to see my silks on the jockey's back, but mostly, though, I hope to see the horse whose training I at least help finance bring a little glory to the yard.

Agata and Elbow Beach

Today, I stood on the grass mound between the two pistes jaunes, and I waited in the quiet morning. I listened to two birds turn in the sky overhead, crying out to each other, and perhaps other birds, somewhere, and waited for the dark spots to appear in the distance. As I arrived, hooves thundering on the sand announced the arrival of another line of horses out for a "canter". I crossed the track and trained my lens on them. When they had past, blowing in cadence with their pace, I watched for them to turn and reappear, coming up the other side. They didn't, and I turned back to look back to the west and squinted.

The tractor dragging the harrow appeared on the far horizon and approached at a funereal pace. All morning the tractor pulls the harrow the length of the tracks, for walking, for trotting, for cantering, and for galloping. all morning, every day of the week. I prepared to greet the driver, when he'd eventually pass. An intentional , single nod of the head and a smile. He'd perhaps raise a hand from the wheel to say good morning back.

"Il doit en faire des kilometres, le type qui conduit le tracteur," my husband had said yesterday, watching the tractor make its way around a curve and down a track Sunday morning.

I watched him approach, and then, two horses appeared, tearing up the sand. They passed him, and kept on coming. I squinted again and thought I saw a streak of white. Elbow. I removed the lens cap and zoomed in, the horses came closer, and I could see the gray-spotted chest above the dark legs and the bright pink stars on Agata's helmet. I wanted to put the camera down and just watch them. Listen to them. It only lasts seconds before they have approached, streaked past, hooves throwing sand up behind their flying tails, and disappear into the dimness of the morning light at the end of the piste. Gone.

Agata on Elbow Beach

And then, they reappear, coming back up the far track. They have made the turn at the bottom, undistinguished by my eyes. I put my lens cap on, walk down the wood planked steps and cross the parallel stretch of piste to go and wait for them, listen for their four-beat galop de chasse come toward me. Usually, I stand there with Gina. Before Christmas, New Year's and now Cagnes, perhaps with another trainer or two, who would chat with Gina about their horses while we waited. Today, there was only I to ask how they breathed and moved, how quickly they recovered. I am no trainer, but I asked, and I was offered the graciousness of a reply.

"Comment va sa respiration?" I asked Agata, feeling a little nervous. I didn't wish to appear like I thought I was more in a position to ask than I was.

"Impéccable," said Agata. "Elle a récupéré plus rapidement aujourd'jui que la dernière fois, aussi," she added. I felt grateful for the extra information. Elbow was making progress.

"Et Hard Way," I said to Guilain, who puts up with me very sweetly, "ça serait super s'il pouvait aller à Cagnes et courir," I said.

"Il va tout seul, lui," came the reply: he goes all on his own, that one.

Not to Cagnes, of course, but on a racetrack.

The problem with Hard Way, and why he hasn't left already, is that he is a lot to handle in training, and Gina needs someone like Guilain to do the speed work with him, only there isn't certain to be someone on hand to do that work when she needs it done down there. Hard Way, Gina has explained to me, lays all his weight, all 600 or so kilos, in your hands, and you carry him. He doesn't use the bit to support himself and run, and that is exhausting. But, with Magic injured, Sunrise claimed, Milly being new to anything that's not turf, tiny and uncertain, it would be something to see Hard Way back racing, in Cagnes, and Elbow taking a victory would be a dream come true.

After they cantered back off, I looked left and then right, crossed back over the pistes, headed through the gate, look left and then right again and climbed into the car to drive back over to the yard and start Magic's box. I slipped her halter over her nose and fastened it behind her near ear and turned her on her good hind foot to attach her to the short lead at the rear wall, only she moved easily. Sometimes she moves with a pronounced limp and hop still. She stood there and worked her bit, rubbing it against the concrete wall. I went and emptied the wheelbarrow, the better to fill it again.

The sun was just beginning to light up the patches between the trees in the park when I dumped the first wheelbarrow of hay in the pit and forked it up onto the lovely, squared pile. It was rising straight in front of me through the trees at the end of the stable when I stuck my head out, sometime later, hearing their hooves clomp back into the yard. I grabbed my camera, and ended up with two series: the red series of Guilain and Hard Way and the blue series of Agata and Elbow Beach in my favorite studio, Gina Rarick's yard in Maisons-Laffitte, and some of my favorite subjects these days, Gina, the horses she trains, and the people around them.
....

Hoping for a Surrey Storm in Cagnes

Surrey Storm, "Milly", and Sunrise at "galop de chasse"

It's little Milly's turn today at Cagnes-sur-Mer in her first race in France since her arrival with Satwa Sunrise from the fall sales at Newmarket. She runs in the Prix Cheret, and at 3 years old, the daughter of Montjeu and Dansili mare Dont Dili Dali, she's the baby of the yard. In just two of those names, there are enough stories to fill several months of posts. I would hardly know where to start, or, possibly worse, where to stop.

To call Montjeu "father" is already impressive, but her trainer, Gina Rarick, places still more weight on the mare's line, and here Milly holds up to as much scrutiny of her papers as you care to give them. Over the last few years, her damsire Dansili, champion sire in France in 2006, has stepped into the shoes of his father, Danehill, as an international top stallion for Saudi Prince Khalid Abdullah's Juddmonte Farms.

Given the synthetic fibersand surface in today's race, it's interesting to note in Juddmonte's "in-depth analysis" that Dansili was a champion sire of all-weather performers in two consecutive seasons, 2005-06 and 2006-07. One hopes that Dont Dili Dali had something of this element in her to pass along to her daughter Surrey Storm, foaled in 2009.

Montjeu sire is Sadler's Wells, by Northern Dancer out of Bold Reason mare Fairy Bridge, a filly who won the only two races she ever ran prior to becoming a broodmare. Bred by a Guggenheim (Harry), Bold Reason's sire is Hail to Reason, the 1970 Leading sire in North America, who himself ran 18 races in the first nine months of his second year and won nine of them, including setting a track record in the Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga Racetrack ridden by Bobby Ussery, before he threw a shoe in a September morning exercise session and broke both his sesamoid bones in the front near foot.

Bold Reason raced in the 1971 Triple Crown series, taking third in the Kentucky Derby, fifth in the Preakness Stakes and another third place in the Belmont Stakes. Retired to stud, he was Great Britain and Ireland's top broodmare sire in 1984; his daughter Fairy Bridge produced his most important offspring, Sadler's Wells; the third stallion to carry the name, Sadler's Wells ran in 11 races for 6 victories and 4 places.

Montjeu shot to glory in his 3-year-old year with his victories in the Prix du Jockey Club at Chantilly, having already threaded the little pearls of victories in the Prix de Greffulhe at Saint-Cloud and the Prix Lupin at mythic Longchamp. After taking top honors in the Irish Derby, in the fall, he ran to victory in the Prix Niel at Longchamp, launching himself from there, to go on to race in the glorious Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, chasing down El Condor Pasa to victory and making of himself the top 3-year-old in Europe in 1999.

In 2000, we will recall, entering the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe as the favorite, Montjeu was -- sadly for some, not so sadly for others, depending on the lines of the horse you own, outpaced by the sire of Surrey Storm's yard mate Deep Ocean, Sinndar.




There's a lot of greatness in this little girl, who has run four races in her 2-year-old season in England prior to her entry today, with one fourth place finish and two 3rd places finishes, including one at storied Epsom Downs. Perhaps today she will begin a turn-around in the series of unfortunate horse racing-related events in owner Steve Collins' recent past (another horse in which he has a leg fractured her coffin bone a few weeks back, for one) and make her other owner Michael Brief's trip over to France's southernmost coast from the farthest coast of the United States worth his name being left off the program by France Galop, and help to salve the wound of the recent loss of Satwa Sunrise to trainer Patrick Monfort's yards.

I make this small gesture of mention on his behalf, from another future France Galop registered owner.
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Training jockey, Agata, with Milly, November 26, 2011

Sunrise, claimed

Annie Casteu and Sunrise at Deauville, January 2

Today, I have another lesson to learn in horse racing: how to let the horse I appreciated most leave the stables. Satwa Sunrise came from the fall sales at Newmarket in October especially for the winter season in Cagnes-sur-Mer, like Fortunateencounter for Annie before her, and, like Fortunate, she was claimed before she had a chance to run for Gina and Annie on the Côte d'Azur. However, while Fortunate was claimed right before she was to leave, Sunrise was claimed in her third race on French soil, the last claimer in which she needed a place to qualify for handicaps after a promising 9th place showing in a strange finish at Deauville on December 21, a run to a thrilling second place in Deauville again on January 2, and, then, yesterday, on the opening day of the winter season in Cagnes-sur-Mer in the Prix des Bouches du Loup, a 2400 meter claimer at 15,000 and 20,000 euros for horses 4 years old and older in which she placed a very decent 5th. 

Gina had put her in at the higher price, which put another 2 kilos on Sunrise's back, for a total of 3 more than she carried in her second place finish, the rule of thumb being a place a kilo, and she beat Dolce Bambina all over again, and outpaced some horses valued at 38 and over. 

Geny.com got it pretty right their their comment to betters: "Il a manqué de peu sa cible pour ses premiers pas sur notre sol."

Sol qui est, après tout, le sien.

Dolce Bambina, Deauville January 2

The fact that she hadn't missed her target by much in her first outings back in her native country didn't escape many eyes, including those of Senonnes trainer Patrick Monfort, who claimed her for 21,355 € yesterday. A healthy sum, when you consider that she was sold for barely 2,000 € as a "bleeder", trained in England on Lasix, and has recently brought home winnings of some 6,300 €, without the drugs. Add it all up, and Sunrise has far more than paid her two months training expenses at 55 € a day, and, suddenly, Monsieur Montfort has become a lot more interesting to me. Not because I intend for him to train any horse in which I might be so fortunate to have a participation -- no, Gina will do that -- but because he will be carrying on the training of this horse Gina felt sure could run to win, and do it in good health.

Leaving Deauville after champagne, Annie said to me, "They won't claim Sunrise from me, not after what happened the last time," the "last time" being Fortunateencounter. Unfortunately, Annie was not clairvoyant.

Fortunate has gone on to have an impressive career in steeplechase, with Gina having the rueful experience of being known as the trainer who spotted and lost this horse before she had a chance to do anything for her, and, now, Patrick Montfort and whoever her new owner are are the ones who will benefit from Gina's eye, horse sense and training with Sunrise.

Monfort has some 70 horses in training for some 35 owners at his yards, and he has just added Sunrise. I can't help wondering if it weren't Gerard Augustin-Normand, whose horse Bearheart ran to a fairly disappointing 8th place finish in the first race of the afternoon at Deauville the day Satwa Sunrise took 2nd by a nose from Dolce Bambina. Gina told  herself and me that day that Sunrise wasn't likely to be claimed. "The French," she said, looking back at me over her shoulder as we passed the rond de présentation heading from the scales room to Sunrise's box , "are cautious. They like to see how the horse will do in a third race before claiming him."

I'd say Gina were prophetic, except what she is is just plain smart.

I had that to think about while I walked with Fia back from the garagiste, where we'd just left the Fiat for a diagnosis of its many ills. It's time, once again, for the biennial contrôle technique, and, this time, it might just not be worthwhile to fix her up for another two years on the road. I hope not, though. I am a little attached to it. It makes me feel not like I am too poor to have a nicer car in which to toodle around town, but that I am young and too poor to have a nicer car in which to toodle around.

It was cold again this morning. Colder, perhaps, than even recent mornings, when the temperatures have been well below zero for the first time this particularly warm and clement winter. It happened the morning Gina climbed into her car and drove down to Nice. Again, I'd say that she is prophetic, except that what she really is is just plain smart.

Still, I love winter. I'll take frost if I cannot get snow.

Fia and I quit the roads and her leash as quickly as we could and cut across the fields up on the ridge, shimmering with frozen dew in the low morning sun. Fia surprised a hare and chased it through the tall weeds, but Fia is no Saluki, and, so, certainly no match for a hare. No sooner had I started after her up the short, low rise beyond which their two pairs of ear disappeared than I saw her reappear, bounding toward me from the bright light, her mouth, as I expected, empty of hare. We continued on our way, Fia darting about, sniffing at the trails she might follow with her sharp nose, had I not set our course for the pleasantest shortest route home, I wishing I had brought my camera. I had, instead, chosen to leave it at home, telling myself Just for once, enjoy your walk rather than photographing it.

But, I could have argued back, I enjoy my walk, photographing it, but I didn't. Instead, I walked on home, got my camera and loaded Fia into the BMW wagon to go and photograph that most wintry and loveliest part of our morning walk, and I thought about Sunrise, and how I had nearly been prophetic, stopping often at Sunrise's box the night before she left Maisons-Laffitte for Cagnes. We had our chance to say our good-byes, Sunrise pressing her nuzzle into my own, and blowing softly into my ear.

I wonder if Annie got her ride.

So, 'bye, Sunrise. I'll be following you, and don't be surprised if some heart-shaped sugar arrives for you in Montfort's yards, from Annie, or from me.

....

Cagnes interlude

Winter wisteria

Sunrise left Saturday night. Gina left this morning. The rest of the horses leave tomorrow evening, followed by the last one, Elbow Beach, in another week, or so. Annie flies down and back tomorrow to see her horse run. Agata is taking care of the horses that will stay behind, Chantal will reign over vastly emptied yards home in Maisons-Laffitte, and she and I are left to wait for Gina's business to return in late February. Me? It's time for me to return to my own yards.

I lifted my head and looked around me this morning, and what I saw did not make me happy. Dust. Dirt. Decrepitude. The house and the garden have been left to themselves. They cannot make their own projects happen. I have been left to myself. I have been incapable of making my own projects for them happen. There is only one person who can change that, and it is not in lifting my head and looking around that I will find her.

I have preferred the warm, velvet muzzles of mares in my neck, blowing softly into my ear and nibbling my hair, the smell of oats and Guinness, apples and alfalfa. A pitchfork or branch broom to a rake in my hands. Horses to plans and orders and decisions over how much to spend on what, and how. It is time to put on my own oeillères australiennes and to do my work.

Why is it so hard? I know that when I will have done it, there will be a release, the chance for a relâchement and a relancement, a stretch of time for other things, finally, without guilt, and satisfaction in spades, a heavy, heavy weight off my mind. Sometimes, it seems like procrastination is a sort of protection. But, against what? Everything that comes once the task is done, perhaps? It's not like I have not been busy. I have, but it is not as if these things that have occupied my time amount to my work being done, my home being something of which I can feel proud. My garden, too. How many times have we heard that the state of one's room, one's home is a reflection of the state of one's mind?

This is not good.

Imagine the house is finished. There will still be the housework to do. The dust that comes to lay itself in layers to dépoussiérer. The dirt that fills the corners to s'en débarrasser. The things that will continue to accumulate and not find a home in the still too limited space to ranger. The only solution is to determine the best systems of rangement and to build them. A good word, rangement, with its root rang, or to order or to arrange in nice neat lines, from the old franc work chramne or hramne, qui a ce sens dans la loi salique.

I prefer the sense of "rang" dans "rangement" à celui de "la loi salique".

Homes need their backstages. They need their stagehands, their carpenters, painters and managers. I need a staff; but I am not getting one anytime soon.

I have six weeks, six weeks measured in Cagnes until spring's work in the garden and Gina's return with the horses and the courses beginning in Chantilly and Saint-Cloud, to get my plans done and off to the builder to reserve his time in the clement months to come.
....

Frost on amaryllis bud in January

Second Place for Satwa Sunrise

Satwa Sunrise with owner, Annie Casteu

Walk around a racetrack some day with Annie Casteu, and you will see what it is to be known and appreciated by everyone, not least of all by her horse. I didn't realize it the first time, my first time at the races; I was shadowing trainer Gina Rarick closely, and Annie is not the sort to brag and drop names, to rush up to people with broad gestures and flourishes. No, they stop and offer her cheeks la bise, which Annie returns with genuine pleasure. I asked how it is that everyone knows her, a small woman, walking at a rapid pace with the imperceptible help of her cane. You notice the cane when Annie is using it to stand, which is not easy for her. Movement, however, still seems as natural to her as it is to the thoroughbreds with whom she has been in love for nearly 50 years. Annie leaned toward me, a smile dimpling her cheeks and bright, dark eyes, and said, "J'ai été jockey."

"Vous avez fait des courses à cheval?" I stopped in my tracks. She raised her eyebrows and nodded, enjoying my surprise, her smile deepening, if that were possible.

The Annie I had met when Satwa Sunrise ran her first race in France in Deauville on December 21 was a retired professional woman, a long-time employee at Schering-Plough. That's how I thought of her, anyway, until today, when I discovered that she also had a degree in law and talked the people at Schering-Plough France into hiring her and letting her race thoroughbreds on various tracks around France once a week. That was in the mid-1960s. This is not your everyday French woman, let alone woman, but I am learning not to expect the ordinary in the planetary system that orbits Gina, who is already no ordinary racehorse trainer. The racetrack is a place to be seen and to see, another of the world's great stages, but for Annie and Gina, it's all about the horses, and today, it was Sunrise's day to shine.

I expected it. I can honestly say that I did. I even predicted it. I could have been wrong, but while Gina had advertised for a partnership for Satwa Sunrise, it was other horses for whom she seemed far more interested in finding owners for a leg or two, horses not even in her yards at Maisons-Laffitte yet. Her silence after Sunrise's hampered but interesting 9th place finish last time out said more than any comment she might have made, and about the only one she allowed was that Sunrise had shown us a lot, notably that she does not appear to be as much of a bleeder as she was made out to be. It occurred to me that Gina wanted to keep those two legs, and I wouldn't blame her, but the simple truth of the matter is that it takes time to register a new owner, and Gina takes the time to let her potential new owners make certain this is what they want to do.

There are no guarantees in horse racing. Horses might look like they will run fast and have a heart as big as the harvest moon over the endless plains, or they might look like a lot less and do it anyway, but they are subject to illness and injury, tendons strung to snapping, and there are only just so many races in each of them. Like Gina says, "You don't know how many bullets you have left, so you think before you use one," and each bullet is the horse's chance to help pay her oats and her vet bills; no race, no money potentially coming in, and money going out as surely as the horse will need clean bedding and a meal the next day, and the day after, and the day after that.

For sensible owners, a win or a place is a chance to pay the bills, and the joy is the joy of a good performance and the joy of seeing the bank account replenished that much. For wealthy and ultra-wealthy owners, well, I can't say; I don't know any yet. Sunrise didn't shout that she was a winner, a "good" or "useful" horse, but she is proving herself to be just that. If Sunrise is still around the yards when my ownership status is approved by France Galop, because there is always the chance that she'll be claimed, I'll be hoping for a chance for one or two of those beautiful legs.

Today, those legs carried Sunrise to the post in second place, ridden by Tristan Normand in the Prix du Val de Saire, a race reserved for horses born in 2007 and earlier, and for jockeys who haven't yet gotten 15 wins in the last year, and in a little less than two weeks, she will travel for the winter season to the all-weather track at Cagnes-sur-Mer, the reason Gina bought Sunrise at Newmarket in October for Annie, for a mere 2,000 guineas.




The worry today was that Sunrise might have attracted a little more interest than might have been desired. The 1900 meter race she ran was a claimer at 18,000 euros. A big, strong and good looking filly, Sunrise looked even better with a second place finish, and Annie put down a modest defense. She had gotten her for Gina to take to Cagnes, and Cagnes was where she must go, for Gina and herself.

The system in Cagnes is that the boxes are allotted in groups of 3. Last year, Gina had 3 boxes and took 4 horses. You figure out where the needed box will come once you get there, if you have the courage to take the chance. This year, Gina asked for 6 boxes and got them.

Being a nice person has its advantages. So does knowing to whom one should give the bottles, and that holds true for claiming Annie Casteu's horse right before Cagnes. On ne pique pas le cheval d'Annie Casteu juste avant Cagnes.

Having 6 boxes, Gina needed 6 horses, and the line-up was Satwa Sunrise and Milly, or Surrey Storm, both purchased in Newmarket for Cagnes, Deep Ocean, Strictly Rhythm, King Driver and Magical Flower. King was out with a nagging cough, and Gina made the decision to have him skip Cagnes, bit the bullet and had him gelded. Down one horse, she started to look around, when Magic, feeling at the top of her form, had a vigorous post-work roll and crashed a rear hoof into the wall of her stall, fracturing the coffin bone. That made 6 boxes and 4 horses, but you don't give up a box that comes up vacant suddenly; you find a horse.

Enter Elbow Beach, a 2-year-old gray mare being sent down from Red House Stables in England, where she is trained by Dr. Jon Scargill, to get a win to increase her value as a brood mare. Enter my first experience as an owner in thoroughbred horse racing. It's not too big, and it's not too small, in fact, it's just right. ElB, or Elbé arrives Thursday, if the seas of the English Channel calm down a bit, and will be here for 6 weeks. One of Gina's American owners will take the other two legs. A short term commitment, and a decent chance of winnings against a limited exposure in training fees and possible veterinary costs.

I am still fretting over my colors.
....

Today's racing sheet