Anticipating race day for Fibs and Flannel

Cooling down after a "canter", May 25
followed by Hard Way

I have done this before. Four times. But this is nothing like those other times.

The race for which we hoped was today at Maisons-Laffitte, but with 69 entrants, Fibs and Flannel, a 5-year-old gelding by Tobourgg out of Kayman Cai mare Queens Jubilee, wasn't going to get in. We'd have to go for the back-up entry, the 8th, Prix du Mesnil-Villement, a claimer at 1600m (8f, a mile) tomorrow at Saint-Cloud, and if my trainer Gina Rarick told me once, she told me once per multiple daily conversation for the past week, at every possible opportunity (no chance of not getting it) that the field of 9 is a tough one: these aren't real claiming horses; they are horses who have earned themselves weighty handicaps and who are slumming it a little to get some races in. Their owners will defend them.

Tougher than the fields, for me, is following the logic sometimes. Essentially, one must argue, the cost of defending certain horses in such a race is negligible in comparison to their past and future earnings. And some people just like seeing their colors on a jockey's back from the comfort of the grandstand in front of the Owners' and Trainers' lounge or  their table at the restaurant, surrounded by duly impressed friends and clients with betting tickets and black, or at least platinum, cards in their wallets. This cannot be my case. Mine is altogether different. First of all, my dog ate my green card. Second, the Sport of Kings is slumming it letting me play, and has kindly offered the claiming system as my point of entry, as well as access to the valet parking and reserved sections of the track.

Like everyone else, I harbor fantasies and dream of standing next to my horse, its jockey and my trainer in the Winner's Circle, the most hallowed of the privileged sections of any track. This is my right; a claimer wins like any Groupe I horse. I know my place, but I struggle daily with it. Can I really afford to indulge this, my violon d'Ingres? Or, have I entirely lost my mind and all rational senses? If I can be smart and cool-headed enough, might I continue to indulge in it, or will I collapse under the weight of the stress of the worrying?

It is supposed to be fun, they say. Have fun! they say.

There must, then, be, I have discovered, a threshhold; an amount of disposable income that serves as the key in the lock to fun. There must be, perhaps, income that may be called disposable, tout court. If not, there must be a stop dollar wall, as a friend and fellow owner in Gina's yard in Maisons-Laffitte says. It's the point at which you stop and get out as soon as you hit it.

But I want my chance, and I want to see if it is at all possible to get the parts of the machine working, the horses moving through the box in the yard, the system, making modest profits or minimal losses that amount to a pleasant net gain or coming very close to breaking even and result in an experience of fun. I am not optimistic, but the individual serving as my bloodstock agent has replied in capital letters and with utmost clarity and succinctness when I express my desire to keep my horse, "NO." No, you may not. No, you must not. Do not get attached. We love them all, but the only way to be sure to make any money is to sell.

So, I must chose the horses I buy wisely, enter them judiciously, and then let them move on.

The best horse is a sold horse.

I have heard it hundreds of times now, and it doesn't sit any easier, not even once the bills start coming in (the ultimate reminder, along with your name and colors on the racing program and the jockey's back) and you know that this is absolutely true and must not be argued with. The bills do help, though. I must remember to thank my trainer's bookkeeper, and so must my bloodstock agent, who makes a little tiny fee every time I make a purchase. This is fine, too. As long as I am doing at least as well.

And so, this lovely, honest horse will be most successful for me by finding his longer-term home by the July sales in Newmarket. I will have the photos I have taken of him at which to look and by which to remember him. I can follow first his career, once he will have left the yard, and those of the others I will buy and move on. If I am lucky enough, I tell myself, I will buy him back when he is 10 and will have finished his career and be ready for a second one, carrying me on lovely trips through the forest, at a stately walk and leisurely gallops de chasse. If it won't be Fibs, finally, perhaps it will be one of the others I do not know yet.

Tomorrow Fibs will face the favorites, Settebellezze and Ocean Moon, and their dauphins, Celebrity Choice, Rey Davis and Delta Black Sheep. It is likely that he will find himself on the rang du con, the 6th place, just at the foot of the podium without a check for his efforts, yet beating Tucker's Law, Jamindar and Russian Davis. But, there is always a chance, that's why it's a race. No one knows the outcome before the race is run. Fibs has a chance. Paris-Turf writes of him, Fibs and Flannel mérite qu'on se penche sur son cas." In other words, he deserves attention and respect going into this race, and I will hold onto those words in the seemingly interminably endless hours stretching out between now and post time tomorrow, 8:10 pm.

I am hoping for one of the belles éclaircies forecast for tomorrow evening after a morning of wet skies to break out when lady jockey Carla O'Halloran is given a leg up into the saddle by Gina, fellow owner Mark at his second favorite place (after the winner's circle alongside Hard Way), the lad's, holding Fibs' lead, setting his chestnut coat on fire and lighting up my colors, golden-orange and claret, in the long June evening sun, copper radiating light like new, burnished centimes, drawing everyone's eyes to him, shining somewhere toward the front of the pack coming up the homestretch.

I want to be able to jump from my seat, arms liberated from my fists clutched at my stomach and into the air over my head, my heart to stop slamming around in my rib cage and rise along with them, watching him pull out and ahead, fighting to beat just another horse coming up to the post. The usual "I want" of the owner.

But, more than wanting a win for me, I want Fibs to shine for himself. If he is going to move on, let it be with dignity and respect for his honesty, his heart, and the good motor the good Lord gave him, and a positive number in my account with France Galop.

That'll be enough.
....

Jockey Carla O'Halloran, Cagnes-sur-Mer, February 2012

Fibs and Flannel, first canter and new colors

Fibs and Flannel, Piste Jaune at Maisons-Laffitte, May 25
In flight

If I was an owner with Elbow Beach, it's true that it was nothing like it is now that I am an Owner, officially approved by and registered with France Galop, and the owner of Fibs and Flannel, by Tobougg out of Cayman Kai mare Queens Jubilee (in the year of the Queen's Jubilee, a sign perhaps), making purchase decisions, ordering my silks, signing contracts, and, yesterday, standing on the mound of grass alongside the piste jaune, waiting for my horse to come blazing up and past us where we take stock of the horse's action, respiratory effort, relative speed and power.

It's where we realized the issue with Elbow Beach that we believed explained her lack of turn of foot in the homestretch. It's where we realized that Fibs is fast. Fast, I hope, enough.

Full reach

When he arrived in the yard in Maisons-Laffitte from Newmarket May 7, I went out to see him the next day and found a horse dripping with muscle in the shoulder and hind quarters, with a nice deep chest. Even I could see that this was a horse built for the mile, 8 furlongs, 1600 meters.

"Up to maybe 2000 here," said my friend and trainer now Gina Rarick, "But, we'll start him at a mile."

Good, consistent milers are rare enough, and it's a good length race to run well here, and he likes the turf, and runs just about as well on the fibersand. There would be plenty of options for him.

"I watched the video of his last two races in England again, and I think he was just losing interest. They are hard on them over there. I think all we have to do," said Gina "is make him happy."

This is the yard to do that, and it's the part that makes it the hardest if you're in the clamining races, with the chance of losing the horse to someone willing to bid higher than the price at which you are willing (or able) to defend. King Driver has a blue plastic soccer ball in a net that can be hung from the wall of his box or held by Agata in a game of tug-of-war, her hand and arm to his teeth and neck.

Everyone gets pets (except the stallion) and company, music during evening stable and individually adapted meals, according to the horses' needs and tastes. The boxes are squeaky clean and fresh, the straw plentiful, the hay tasty, and both are free of dust to bother the throat and lungs.

Owners wield pitchforks and walk their and others' horses, take the news of the yard, show up for each other's races, bring carrots and photos. The gate is always open, except when it is time for the afternoon nap and peace and quiet reign.

The other bit of work was to develop his back muscles and help him heal a sore spot along his spine, just before the croup, from where the saddles in England bothered him. He ran with his head up and his back hollow. Here, he would strengthen his back and learn to run with his head down while carrying a jockey.

Fibs did not move into the yard as the fanciest horse, nor as the most expensive horse, the horse in whom anyone could have the highest hopes and expectations. He arrived from the spring Breeze Up & Horses In Training Sale, Lot N° 35, not the best sale with the best horses. That's in July. But, the sale was taking place, Sebastien was going and returning with horses, and with the departure of Elbow Beach, I was without a horse. I could see what Sebastien had shipped over and if Gina thought anything was worth training, or I could just wait until July.

His race history was good enough; his paper was alright; but, he could be up for sale at the Tattersall's spring sale because there was something developing, something wrong, or not right enough, or because the barn needed to make room for younger, more promising horses that hadn't reached their ceilings yet. Racing is relative; he could be useful in the claimers and handicaps, but only seeing him, watching him move, going over his legs and feeling who is is would tell.

Gina gave the nod; Fibs was a horse who might well do what we hoped, and, so, he stayed in the yard under my patronage as the possibly useful horse, a horse who might bring in more in a claimer than was paid in Newmarket, and his papers and shipping.  A horse who might help me acquire a better horse still, or who would at least work and pay his bills in exchange for good care and the chance to run.

Yesterday, the yard's regard for him climbed a notch the second he passed us, standing alongside the piste jaune.

"He's good," said Gina, sounding, just possibly, agreeably surprised. "He's straight, and he has a large stride." I definitely heard satisfaction.

He'd cantered, what the French call galloping, the speed work, with Hard Way, and Gina turned to Hard Way's two other owners, she herself being the third, as well as his breeder, and pronounced him ready for Longchamp June 11. At that moment, I hope I might be forgiven my selfishness, I only had ears for what she had to say about Fibs, eyes for Fibs. Hard Way, as much as I adore him and am enchanted by his story, seemed a million miles away, somewhere out in Fibs' orbit.

We made our way over the other side of the piste jaune to the trail alongside, the place where Gina asks her questions and finds out what the exercise riders have to say about the horses' performance, while they turn in lazy circles around her, and Ludovic on Hard Way and Agata on Fibs trotted peaceably up toward us, where we waited.

"Il est bon," said Agata, and I got lost behind my camera lens, watching them turn about Gina, half-hearing the conversations around me, and the words He's good. He's good. He's good. Il est bon, il est bon, il est bon turned around and around in my ears.

Later, Agata came up to me in the yard and said, "Il avait encore a donner. Il aurait pu prendre Hard Way à la fin là et vient avec Hard Way devant. Il est bon."

Il est bon, il est bon, il est bon.


You don't let them actually race in speed work, though. Hard Way was the one set to gallop out front, and Agata's job was to gallop Fibs, staying back. Let one get along side another, and you've got a horse race, not a morning speed session.

My silks were ready at Petitspas on the main street in Maisons-Laffitte, making and selling everything you need to train and race a horse, and we headed off to pick them up, my heart a little bit in my throat. I could always change them if I hated them. I had had such a hard time making up my mind, but I didn't want to have to go through that, show myself as anything but decided and knowing my mind, at least for the choice of my colors.

Monsieur greeted us like he always does, and we followed him through the workshop, smelling of leather and full of scales, tools and an assortment of different machines for sewing everything from fabric to leather, where his assistant looked up from where he was working at the long bench along the windows of the courtyard and smiled toward us, to his office, from which he emerged with a smile and a clear plastic bag in his hand. Neatly folded inside were my racing silks. My colors.

I imagined them up on the wall at Deauville or Longchamp. I have no right to, but no one does not imagine this. I saw satiny golden orange and a color like a deep claret wine, so close to "win", shining through. I hardly dared form an opinion, but it seemed generally favorable around me. We drove back to the yard, and Gina pulled into her place in front of the gate.

"Do you want to take the silks home?" she asked.

"You usually keep them, don't you?" It occurred to me she thought I might want to show them to my husband. "Keep them here with all the silks."

"OK, I'll keep them with the others," she said, drawing back her hand and the silks shining in the sunshine through their plastic packaging. We started to cross the street.

"That way there can't be any problem; everything is here and ready."

The trainer brings the silks to the race in the little pouchshe has just for that purpose, leaves them in the cubby near the jockeys' locker room, and brings them back to launder them after the race. We turned to cross the street.

"You don't want to take them into the house?" I said.

"No! Let's take them over to the yard; we always show new silks off to the yard," she added, laughing.

It's true. It is a big moment. New colors coming into a trainer's yard means new business: a new owner, another horse, more racing opportunities and business. There are endless moments to mark and to celebrate in racing, even the sorrier ones, like a race that doesn't go according to expectations, when a jockey doesn't follow his orders or a horse has a bad day against tough competition, and none is to be missed. Ever.

Gina walked down to the barn and ripped open the plastic, turning to hold up the casaque in the bright noon sunshine for everyone's inspection. I watched from the safety of my camera lens. Agata voiced her approval and her surprise at finding that she approved.

"C'est beaucoup mieux en vrai que sur papier!" she pronounced, a huge smile across her face, "Le satin brille et ça change tout!"

I realized she had carefully hidden her fear that the silks would be hideous from me, but because they were shiny, and not just muddy ink on heavy ivory paper, or what it looked like on the simulator on the France Galop site, whichever she had seen, they had saved themselved from being awful, and even pleased.

"J'avais vu les échantillons des tissues chez Petitpas," I offered, by way of hopeful explanation, "alors je savais que ça donnait autre chose que sur l'écran de l'ordi ou papier." I had seen the cloth samples at Petitpas, I explained, so I knew what they would look like. Sort of.

"Et, je voulais que ça brille au soleil, que se soit des couleurs heureuses qui se voient."

She nodded, still smiling, and went to take the silks from Gina and pulled them over her head. I turned to Mark and added, "And I have the horse, as it happens, to go with them." He raised an eyebrow and smiled, nodding Yeah.

It was true; he shines like burnished copper, a bright, shiny centime in the sun, and the colors are perfect for him. It is just another coincidence.

Watching Agata pull the silks into place, I thought, I even have an enthusiastic and beautiful exercise jockey to model them for me, and got back behind the lens. She went to shut Milly's box door against the strong sunshine and heat and mugged for me, laughing and celebrating new colors.

"Il fallait oser le faire, mais c'est bon," she concluded, folding them back into their clear plastic bag and setting it on the bench alongside everything else one needs to care for race horses in Gina's barn. "C'est vraiment bien."

"C'est ça qui compte le plus," I told her, "que tout le monde les apprécie car l'on travaille tous ensemble." The whole yard wears the owners' colors, so it's best, I think, if everyone likes and is proud of them.

I feel like I might be a little bit crazy. I am not the person of whom you think when you think of a thoroughbred race horse owner; I am far from from it, possessing some of the qualities, but lacking the main one, the wealth, but there's something driving me. I don't make a lot of impulsive decisions; I can't afford to, but I am doing this for the experience, for the pleasure of being around these animals and everyone who is also compelled to be around them, for whatever lessons I will learn, and for whatever stories I will have to tell.

Because, you can't know the stories until you live them, and you can't tell what you haven't lived.
....

Fibs

Hard Way adds a chapter to his story, and a victory to his record

Hard way and jockey Christophe Lemaire enter the winner's circle

Hard Way's back at the racetrack, and things will never be the same again.

I used to trip off to the races in the wake of throughbred racing trainer Gina Rarick and her retinue, a kaleidoscopic cast of support staff, clients and friends, camera in hand, with a sense of interested detachment. Even when I knew the horses running and their owners. Even when I was the owner of the horse running, which has been the case 4 times on a two-leg share in Elbow Beach. Even when the horse did well. But that's all changed now. Racing, for me, will never be the same again because Hard Way returned, and Hard Way won. And Hard Way is not just any horse.

He made it look easy. He made it look like the race was being run in slow-motion, and at his bidding. It was his race. His and jockey Christophe Lemaire's race to run, and to win.

He made it look like he'd known all along, all those months in the cold dark mornings and tucked in after a manger full of oats, apples and Guinness in Agata's company, listening to the radio, for the long dark winter nights. Like he'd been waiting for this, through those early spring lengthening days.

He knew he had come back to the yard in Maisons-Laffitte for a purpose, taking up the priveleged stall next to the sellerie, Gina's office in the barn, where the only phone is in her pocket and there's no desk. A trainer's work is in the boxes. In the training center and the forest. At the racetrack. Gina's office is for old photos of horses, including Hard Way at Deauville in his younger days, white boards for communicating who needs what and how to contact someone who knows what to do in an emergency, a cupboard with a supply of benign verterinary first aid supplies, for when you can take care of it yourself, shelves of wool saddle blankets from England and racks of racing saddles, counters covered with pots of leather grease and pallets with sacks of grain and racehorse mixes, crates of practically give-away price apples from the market in Maisons-Laffitte.

And he knew, like he knew everything else a racehorse needs to know, that this purpose was to race again, even if Gina herself didn't know it yet when she brought him back in the truck.

Saturday, May 5, the wait was over. The long months of conditioning from early retirement to race form were accomplished. His shaggy winter coat and leg feathering gone since his last preparation race at Lisieux on April 15, a new Hard Way -- one, who of everyone, only I had never seen -- emerged from his box on the backside like a butterfly from its cocoon, transformed into a shining, sleek being tuned to race. It was enough to take your breath away, if you hadn't happened to be paying attention recently.

He looked at us, glanced around the walking circle, where a few of the others who would run against him in the fifth were turning, under a storm gathering overhead, and one would swear that Hard Way sighed with satisfaction.

I'm back, and it's good. I'm ready. He nodded to Agata, Gina's assistant in the yard, and they set off to walk around and around.

This horse is the special horse in the yard. The horse with the story and the love of his trainer, who is also his breeder and holds a share in him, and everyone around her racing stables. Hard Way, the horse you'd be tempted to say was dealt the "hard knocks", asked to take the "hard way" in life, but you'd know no such thing from being around him and having the pleasure of his gaze return your own. The horse who loved to lay his head on Gina's shoulder during evening stable and let her lean into his big chest. This is a horse who knows grace. A lovely state.

Orphaned when his dam, Nicosia, a German bay with 1 win and 7 places in her 28 starts, the last 8 of them for Gina, died, he was raised by a wet nurse, a solid, working plowshare mare on the other side of the farm from the thoroughbreds, who he could see, but didn't particularly care to join. He grew up apart and a little fearful of those bold thoroughbred colts who ran together. Even of the fillies who nudged each other like their dams, and whispered, he almost certainly thought, about him. He was afraid, Gina told me, telling me her favorite story -- his -- again, of the other horses. He didn't like to run with them, or even get too close to them. He didn't, really, see himself as one of them, and that didn't change when he got to the yard, and eventually to the racetrack.

Hard Way didn't care for breaking from the starting gate and finding all those horses running behind him. Hard Way preferred, if possible, to get away from them, and winning was a particularly good way to do this.

And then Gina noticed in early August of 2010 that something had changed in Hard Way's stride. Even at a trot. His last couple of races at Saint-Cloud and Clairefontaine with Lemaire and Olivier Peslier on board, his performance hadn't been the same.

The vet said nothing was wrong; he was running fine, but Gina knew him better. She'd ridden him long enough to know something was wrong. The scan showed a crushed Atlas, the first vertebra, just at the base of a horse's skull. Hard Way's racing career was over. Early in the fall of 2010, Gina drove him in the van to Normandy to let him enjoy the pure, damp breezes that blow from the channel and eat all the lush green Normandy grass that humidity bestows on France's horse country his long life of leisure before him would afford.

But, Hard Way languished in his emerald pastures. He cooled his heels and despaired. He watched the other horses and kept his distance, I am sure. He kept his head down, nosing through the long wet grass, lifting it to look to the southeast, toward Paris, and he thought, I am equally sure, about Gina, and Maisons-Laffitte, and racing.

And one day, Gina decided to bring him back. He might as well keep her company in the yard for all he was enjoying his early retirement. And she rode him, and he seemed -- better.

Gina had another scan done, and this time it showed an intact, repaired Atlas; it had calcified. Gina thought about training him again, and the vet said, Pourquoi pas? Fais-le courir et on vera bien, and that was how it was that Hard Way was back in training by the time I set foot in the yard for the first time around Thanksgiving, just 5 months before his comeback race.

That Saturday, there was more electricity in the air than the gathering thunderstorm, unless Gina's nerves brought it on. The other races went on; we trooped up to the Owners' and Trainers' lounge to occupy a table, eat plates of desserts or fromages from the buffet and drink champagne to calm Gina's nerves and pass the time. People circulated, exchanging greetings and bits of coversation, squeezes of the shoulder or elbow and half-knowing smiles, like couples in a ballroom, bits of business to facilitate, racehorse or social. It was there that Sebastien and I saw Esles blow past the competition and the post and grabbed the Tattersalls catalog for the upcoming Guineas Breeze Up and Horses in Training Sale Sebastien wasn't missing, suddenly motivated by a colt in the pages liberally peppered with black type, another by Motivator, and way out of our range, as it turned out.

Then it was time to saddle Hard Way. The relief of something to do. The way time passes on the backside, in its own raceday rituals and rhythms.

Jean-Paul Gallorini had a horse in the box next door -- they'd raced earlier in the day in the Group 2 race, le Prix de Greffhule -- and he came by to wish Gina and Hard Way well. Laying his hand on the white stripe down the middle of Hard Way's forehead, it looked for all the world as though he was receiving the blessing of one of Gina's own mentors and friends, one of the best trainers in France.

And then it was time to lead Hard Way out to the presentation circle. Last this time. Last in, and, necessarily, last out. The presentation ring is where Hard Way evacuates whatever emotions gather in him before a race. In these moments, he is best ridden by a jockey with bronco experience, and his grooms had best love him, or they'll not forgive the minor wounds.

Finally, there is the moment when the horse and his rider pass onto the track, to trot and then canter toward the gates, when the trainer, the owner, and the grooms retreat to their vantage posts to watch the race and await the outcome. When last bets, including mine that day, with the last 5 euros bill I had in my wallet, 2 to win and 2 to place, are made, before everyone gathers in front of the television screens or presses their binoculars to their eyes. The horses circle as one by one, more or less readily, they walk or are pushed into their gates, green metal doors clanging shut behind them to wait the last horse in, and then the steward gives the signal, the bell clangs, and everyone thinks "They're off," like several hundred silumtaneous and silent prayers.

Hard Way broke at the front of the field of 20, and then, before disappearing from sight, Christophe Lemaire settled him back a bit, letting the others overtake them until Hard Way was on the hind end of the fourth horse. I had chosen a place on the rail in the grandstand just below the plate glass windows of the Owners' and Trainer's Lounge, where most everyone else was watching on the television screens to watch every move the horses and their jockeys made, and then they were coming round the final turn. The announcer said "Hard Way". I listened. He was closed on the rail, near the horse out front. I was trying to listen and to watch, what was happening on the track and in front of the screens up behind me all at once. I turned and missed the moment Christophe and Hard Way found their opening, skipping past the horse that stumbled right in front of them, watching Mark and Steve, Steve's daughter and Graham, and his wife see it. I turned, and there was deep blue and yellow out in front on a dark horse.

Hard Way. Hard Way is out front!

I snapped photos in rapid-fire succession, holding my breath, watching Christophe and Hard Way pull away on the sodden turf, looking for all the world like they were out for a morning galop de chase in the Rond Poniatowski, followed by a bunch of school boys and girls who were far outclassed. And then Christophe sent a message up the reins to Hard Way. If Christophe were American, like Gina Rarick, it might have been "Whoah, boy, easy now. You don't have to win this one by much. Let 'em look good, too. Atta boy" that he was telegraphing up those orange rubber reins for the others had gained ground by the time they crossed the post, but not by enough to catch Hard Way who won by nearly 2 lengths. Christophe had given him the perfect ride.

I turned to look through my camera lens back up at the doors, from which Hard Way's fans were bursting into the stands with shouts and smiles, hugs and wet eyes everywhere. Pandemonioum. This was not your average victoire à Saint-Cloud, and neither were the photos with the horse in the winner's circle or the fête pour arroser la victoire after. There was nothing blasé nor every day about it. Hard Way had gone into retirement broken and emerged again healed to win. Not for a moment had his owners lost a shred of confidence in him; if Hard Way were back to train and run again, they were there to make it happen.

And that is how it is that I will never return to the racetrack with the same detachment I once had. How I am not even sure my own horse's victory one day might rival the way we all felt when Hard Way entered the winner's circle, head held high, Christophe Lemaire looking almost goofy with pleasure up on his sweat-soaked back, the dark print left by a hand laid in congratulations on his damp haunch. Lisa beaming at his far side, and Agata radiating the purest joy on his near, and Hard Way found himself at the center of a training and racing enterprise built on the best horse sense and friendship, love for the horses and the sport, and everyone was gathered here, around him, to celebrate it on this day.

Today, Hard Way runs again. This time at Maisons-Laffitte. Christophe Lemaire was to have been on board once more, but fate dealt another hard blow and there will be a different jockey for another day; one more lesson that racing teaches: no one ever knows what is coming next or gets to write the story before it happens, and that is exactly as it should be. The interest is in the journey, the day-to-day, and, win or lose, a story will be lived and live in the telling.

Here's to Hard Way, all that is good in racing.


Merci.
....

Hard way out front in the homestretch

For the RaceDay photos, click here.

For Hard Way and Elbow Beach, it's back to the racetrack

Prix René Couétil, Lisieux April 15
Tania des Ongrais

Perhaps it was the stiff, cold wind blowing across Normandy from the north. The horses were nervous before the race. We knew Hard Way was a handful -- Lisa got permission to have his gentleman rider mount before entering the presentation circle and get him out again before he had completed a full turn, and still he bounded out and put Guilain Bertrand through a rodeo to remember --, but they nearly all were.

Twisting, turning, rearing and rocking, determined to rid themselves of their riders, or just let something out, something to do with the excitement before the race, the wind, and the smells carried on it, but it only lasts a moment, and then everything is in perfect order. A warm-up followed by the orderly procession of 14 obedient and civil horses to the tape start, and they're off.

Hard Way got a good start and then sat out near the front in second or third position for most of the race with a steady race pace. Guilain moved him into the rail coming into the last turn, and they came out and into the homestretch in front, but the most experienced gentlemen riders were just behind, and made their bids. Maxime Denuault up on Sandinnar, the Aga Khan Stud mare and half-sister to Deep Ocean, saw the hole to thread between Guilain and the rail, while Florent Guy up on Quadriller, trained by Jehan Bertran de Balanda, squeezed him on the outside while the winner, Sabletory, ridden by Jean-Philippe Boisgontier, came up strong on the outside with the Gérard Augustin-Normand horse, Saint Aubin ridden by Mathieu Brasme threatening from behind.

Cire du Fray thought about it, but Hard Way wasn't going to let another horse past him and finished 5th, 4 3/4 lengths behind the winner, Sabletory, followed by Saint Aubin, with a nice showing, coming on strong from behind and overtaking the leaders through the homestretch, Quadriller, and Sandinnar.

It was Guilain's second race ever. A chance to gain race experience, while for Hard Way, it was a training session in his preparation to hit the Paris racetracks after 18 months in a retirement he decided he didn't want. Seeing him in his box at Gina Rarick's yard in Maisons-Laffitte, or in the training center of a morning, I didn't get it, but watching Hard Way spring out of the presentation circle and race was a revelation: the cream puff turned into sound and fury, a whirling dervish only to settle right back into his lovable, affectionate self off the racetrack again.

A crushed vertebra wasn't enough to stop Hard Way. He'd encased it in calcium and set it aside, making it clear to his trainer that he wanted to be in his old box in the stables on the rue Champaubert, and, preferably, on the nearest Paris racetrack.

He'll have his chance in about three weeks at Longchamp.

For now, I have to get in the car and go see another horse race. One Elbow Beach in whom I have a half share. Elbow is running her first sprint since her arrival in January from England, and today will tell if she is what her pedigree says, a sprinter at 1100 meters, or if she is the exception to her family's rule and a miler. She'll start in the third race at Maisons-Laffitte with one of the best values, but variably rated, depending on whether you're consulting Geny.com and Paris-turf.com, which have her at 11:1 odds, or ZEturf.fr, which has her at 26.3. Geny gives her an outside chance. I'd be delighted with a great and safe race, and a place.

We'll be running, like yesterday, against horses -- the two top favorites Gandalak and Dampierre -- owned by His Highness the Aga Khan and Gérard Augustin-Normand, respectively. Jockey Fabien Lefebvre, who knows her well, will be on board. I  have butterflies in my stomach.

There was question of lunch at the racetrack before the race, but this is the most nervous I have been before a race, and I think I'll scratch that and hope for reason for a little champagne after.

For the photos from around the racetrack at Lisieux yesterday, click here.
For the battle up the homestretch in Hard Way's race at Lisieux, click here.
....

Hard Way and Agata, after the race

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.
....