Deep Ocean wins one

Trainer Gina Rarick on Deep Ocean,
Maisons-Laffitte, December 22, 2011

I nearly opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate, but, since I am alone, I decided to opt for Hard Way's nutritional supplement of choice, a Guinness in honor of the son of Sinndar, Deep Ocean's victory today at Lyon Carré de Soie in the 8th, the Prix Président Buffaud. And not just any victory: a victory by four lengths.

If you're going to win, you might as well do it in style. 

Deep's usual jockey Gérald Pardon was on board and stayed warm and safe just behind the front runners until the final turn, when he asked Deep to step on the gas on the outside, and Deep made it look like a romp in the park, accelerating easily and overtaking, little by little, everyone in front of him, like a stealth bomber, until there was no one between him and Gérald and the post and room for three good-sized horses between him and everyone else. 

He looked like Usain Bolt in the last few meters, and if he were a man and not a horse, I swear he'd have looked over his shoulder and pumped his fist on his well-muscled chest as he loped over the finish line. 

It was Deep's day, and whether Paris-Turf keeps up with all the horses or just the several solid favorites, we in and around trainer Gina Rarick's yard at Maisons-Laffitte knew that it was but a matter of time before the four-legged and feisty ATM carried the day and brought home the biggest check. 

Let's take a look, though, at Paris-Turf's prognostics. 

In a field of 15 runners, 7 were given favorite. In order of finish, they were: Caroz, trained by Jean-Pierre Gauvin; Le Falgoux by Cédric Boutin; El Mulino by Thierry Larrivière; Successful by Bernard Goudot; the venerable El Vettorio, a 9-year-old German gelding trained by Cédric Boutin; the nearly as venerable L'Impressioniste, both in terms of age and prize money won, by Fabrice Chappet; and the equally venerable Théorique by Mathieu Boutin.

And, what did Paris-Turf have to say, quite precisely? I translate:

Caroz has had a chance to rest up since his last race and seems capable of fighting for the victory. Le Falgoux, who's back on a race track on which he has never disappointed, the regular El Mulino, and and Successful, capable of good things on his best days, can get in his way, barring his success. The eldest, El Vettorio, L'Impressioniste and Théorique, also deserve credit. Blamar and Poletto are not to be neglected.

And Deep Ocean? Where is Deep in all this? 

Deep, as it concerns him, was mentioned as a "regular chance". He and I snort in their general direction because Deep, as it concerns him, did indeed leave them all in his dust.

And, Paris-Turf, what did they have to say about this, once everyone had a chance to taste Deep's dust? 

For Caroz, favorite for the win, and who didn't class: "Among the front runners until just after the last turn, conceded midway up the homestretch and was clearly dominated."

Le Falgoux, in 9th place: "After waiting in the middle of the pack, didn't finish badly on the inside, just behind the leaders."

El Mulino, who did not class: "Front runner after the first turn, maintained his lead until the last 400 meters and then fell back."

And, Successful? He finished 2nd: "After waiting in the middle of the pack, on the rail, had some difficulty breaking out in the homestretch, and then finished fast, but well behind the winner Deep Ocean."

As for El Vettorio, L'Impressioniste and Théorique, they finished 3rd, 8th and 6th, respectively.

Reserved for Deep, the winner: "Coming up on the outside line, in Livia Noire's wake, took the lead just coming into the homestretch and flew to the post, winning brilliantly."

Deep Ocean and jockey Gérard Pardon pass the post

So, do not, I say, forget this fils de Sinndar, Sinndar, qui, portant les couleurs de l'Aga Khan, a été vainquer de l'Arc de Triomphe 2000, beating the favorite Montjeu and denying him his chance at back-to-back Arc victories. 

My partner in Elbow Beach, for her time racing with us in France, pointed out that Sinndar is racing under the number 5 in the Arc, like Deep Ocean and three other of the horses who won in the nine races yesterday at Lyon Carré de Soie.

I can recognize that there are many horses out there racing, many horses with excellent papers, some who have exploded onto the scene, others who have more quietly taken their place, racking up the places without lighting up the boards with victories like so many diamonds in a rivière, who have, nonetheless been oh so thoughtfully paying their bills and making a little extra to slip under the straw bedding, but, now, Paris-Turf, and everyone else, take notice: Deep Ocean, on the right track -- ideally, right-handed --, in good form (which he is, make no mistake, trained by Gina Rarick) and ridden by Gérald Pardon is no "regular chance"; he is a favorite.

Still, this is a horse who, at 5  years old and in 2 years and a month or two, has run 20 races, won 3 and placed in 10, which means he has won or placed in 13 of 20 starts for a 15% win percentage, 50% place and has a 65% chance overall to bring home his oats, straw and trainer's fees.

Enjoy his dust. 

In the story of thoroughbred racing, it's royal dust. Pure gold.

....

Maybe Milly today: Surrey Storm races in Fontainebleau

Surrey Storm, "Milly", leaving Cagnes, February 17

This afternoon, the Fleet Fairy, Montjeu filly little Milly, or Surrey Storm as she's known on the racetrack, gets another start.

She'll be wearing the number 4 and has drawn the second place off the rail in the Prix de Samoreau, the 5th race at Fontainebleau, a 2200 meter race for 3-year-old fillies who have never won. Like like the last time she raced, three weeks ago in Cagnes-sur-Mer in the Prix des Glycines, jockey Fabien Lefebvre will be up. She'll be facing Night Tango filly Tangoka by trainer Mathieu Boutin, who passed the post just nostril hairs ahead of her in their last race, and One Cool Cat filly Coolita, who finished ahead of her in the sixth spot in her previous start, the February 8 Prix du Bord de Mer. Neither of these fillies' papers can hold a candle to Milly's, with all her promise as a racehorse.

Then again, not many thoroughbred horses' can.

Milly's last start was a breakthrough for this dainty little girl, the beginning of the Surrey Storm that's been expected to break over a racetrack. Coming out of the last turn and onto the homestretch, Fabien asked her to decide to race, and she did. She returned to her home, trainer Gina Rarick's yard in Maisons-Laffitte, two days after that race, and this time she had a luxury spot on the STH transport truck and received the consideration of not being unloaded last of all.

Right now, she is walking, warming up for post time in less than an hour. She knows why she's in Fontainebleau, and she understands what the other horses walking around and around the warm-up ring are there to do, too.

As for Fabien, his dance card is nearly as full as Ioritz Mendizabal's, racing in 5 of the 8 races. Mendizabal will be up in the 5th, as well, on Policy Maker filly Joly Berengere, who finished fifth and third in her first two races in Lyon in 2011, but finished "non classée" in Cagnes in January.

As for I, I will neither be taking nor making any phone calls from here until the race is over. I plan on rooting loudly for our Fleet Fairy from in front of the television.

As one of her owner's would say, Inshallah.
....

The STH transport to Maisons-Laffitte leaves with Milly

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

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.
....

Training jockey, Agata, with Milly, November 26, 2011

Return to the racetrack, and a 3rd place finish for Deep

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finishing their canter

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

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

Deep Ocean

Riding racehorses

On Strictly Rhythm

Saturday morning at Gina's yards in Maisons-Laffitte was one of those moments when you stop and realize not how far you have to go still, but how far you have come. In so many ways. But it is like that, when everything is a way to everything else.

Two years ago last July, my stepdaughter got on a pony for the first time, a Shetland, like all the kids do to start. Saturday, she mounted Strictly Rhythm, a 3-year-old thoroughbred racehorse, a filly by Hawk Wing and Esteemed Lady out of Mark of Esteem, who has placed in 7 of her 13 races over these two years. For the last year and more, she has been riding double ponies and jumping 60-70cm, although she has jumped more on occasion. In her two and a half years riding, she has gone from beginner to working toward her Galop 5. There are 9 altogether. To give you an idea, at Galop 5, you can join the mounted division of the gendarmes or the police. At Galop 7, you may qualify to teach, if I am not mistaken.

For anyone who doesn't ride and who may be excused for not realizing this, she has already progressed very rapidly, but to go from a double pony in a pony club, even a really good one, to a thoroughbred racehorse is like going from a Deux Chevaux to a Ferrari; you don't just show up at a trainer's yards and hop up into the saddle, and it's not for everyone. Nor do you earn your opportunity by mucking stables and greasing tack; you have to find a way to show the trainer that there is an excellent chance you can handle the horse, and yourself. First, there's the danger to you. Then, and very possibly more important to the trainer, there's the possibility of injury for the horse, a horse who earns money running, not recovering in its box.

For my stepdaughter, or ma belle-fille (it's so much nicer in French), the wait was relatively painlessly short and the way smoothed by a bit of good fortune. Gina was going to the farm in Normandy, the farm where Strictly Rhythm was vacationing, to hand a horse she was retiring over to her new owner, and we just happen to live a few kilometers from the highway to Orbec. Gina and I made an appointment to meet near the exit ramp of the highway, and we headed to la ferme de Madame Guibert, stopping along the way for Gina's usual "service station lunch".

It was only when we arrived near the farm at precisely the appointed hour and Gina called the girl to guide her the rest of the way, figuring she had to be nearly there and about to get lost, that we discovered that they were nowhere near. Her parents had hired a horse transport service, she and the driver had driven across half la France, and the driver had just stopped well over an hour away in Gaillon, at the appointed hour to meet in Orbec, for lunch, or to casser la croute.

"Je vais juste casser la croute," he said to Gina, perfectly nonplussed, "et puis on reprendra la route."

This is France. Nothing gets in the way of lunch, at lunchtime.

Just casser la croute and drive more than an hour and a half? It was 1 pm. They wouldn't be there for another 2 or 3 hours, and Gina was due back at 5:30 pm for evening stable. Seven horses would be waiting for her, so what the hell did he think he was doing, stopping for lunch an hour and a half away at the very hour they were supposed to be there? But there was more. The girl said that truck wasn't equipped for a horse. It was a stock transport truck.
"Stock?" Gina said. "Mais on parle d'un pur sang qui vient de terminer son entrainement de course!" A thoroughbred racehorse, who had just come off training. "Je ne peux pas le mettre dans un camion de stock."

The girl was in tears, stuck heaven's knew where for lunch with a driver who had just learned his empty truck would be turning around and driving back across France to somewhere nearly in Germany. I was imagining her sitting next to him in that cab for seven hours. Seven alternately silent and grumbling hours.

"Don't worry too much," said Gina, "kids today know better than ever before how to distance themselves. They all have iPods."

I imagined her slumped against the passenger door, pretending to sleep, music in her ears. It would have taken a lot more than an iPod for me to survive that at 18, even at well over 18, but we went to see Strictly Rhythm in her box and then out to see Clare, who is in foal, and we got back well ahead of time for me to go get my belle-fille from the pony club. Time enough, it turned out, for Gina to come up with me and see the place and say she'd like to see her ride right as Julie, the director, was walking by, said "Bien sur", and told my belle-fille to go get a helmet from the tack room. There was a lesson in the covered manege, and she could get on any of the ponies.

Well, you'd have thought she'd have jumped, squealing for joy, at the occasion, but that wasn't quite the way it went. I was ready to tan her hide; Julie ordered her; and, the girls in the lesson started to call to her to get herself in there and on a pony tout de suite. Here she wanted, hoped to ride for Gina, and she was dragging her heels. I was puzzled. I was vexed. Gina and I stood in the tribune next to Julie, and there she was trudging across the manege as though to the gallows, when a friend jumped off a pony and handed her the reins. She mounted. Gina watched, and she and Julie exchanged observations.

"Elle n'a pas la force de monter un pur sang cheval de course," said Julie. She doesn't have the strength to ride a thoroughbred racehorse.

"Il ne faux pas de la force, mais la main douce." You don't need strength, said Gina, but soft hands.

"Elle a la main vraiment douce," allowed Julie. She has very soft hands.

"Une plume comme cela pourrait être très utile," said Gina, watching all 38 kg of my feather of a belle-fille ride around the manege. "Ca va! C'est bien," she called out to her.

She'd ride for Gina, eventually, but it couldn't have turned out more perfectly. Alexandra might not have had her new mare in the truck on the way back across France, but my belle-fille had gotten a serendipitous audition.

Alone, later that evening, she looked at me and said, "Tu sais, j'ai monté le poney le plus facile."

"C'est pas grave, mais pourquoi tu as fais ça?"

"Parce qu'Alice avait besoin de faire pipi, alors j'ai pris Gladys. Et elle m'a dit que je suis folle; elle aurait sauté sur l'occasion de monter pour quelqu'un comme Gina pour la chance de montrer ce qu'elle sait faire."

I shook my head. Alice has more sense in hers. She probably made up the excuse of needing to run to the bathroom to get my belle-fille up on a pony as fast as humanly possible, and, was she crazy? She, she told my belle-fille, would have jumped at the chance to ride for someone like Gina and show her what she could do, all for a chance to ride thoroughbreds.

But, if soft hands are enough, it also takes assurance, maturity and confidence, but one way to develop all of that, and in spades, is to get up on that horse with blood and ride it, and Gina decided last week that Saturday would be the day. She asked me not to tell her, and we all kept the secret, the happiest of secrets to keep. My husband, too. I hoped it wouldn't give it away, asking her if she had her helmet and chaps leaving the house, but, I reminded myself, I have asked her the past three Saturday pre-dawn mornings.

At breakfast, she was willing to eat a scrambled egg with her cereal without milk.

"J'ai fais un rêve ce matin," she said.

"Un mauvais ou un bon?"

She had been in a miserable mood when I woke her up, smothered in the heat from the electric heater she'd turned up and left on full-blast, and she'd fallen back to sleep and then brought me up short for "interrogating" her upon awakening, for the second time in a half hour, when I asked her a question. Chastised, I had left her room again, hoping for the best on the morning she was to ride for the first time. I suspected a bad dream.

"Mauvais à la fin, mais j'ai rêvé que Gina m'a tendu Hard Way, et j'ai été sur lui, et il y avait beaucoup de monde. Lisa était là sur Vedette."

I smiled. She had dreamed that Gina handed her Hard Way, her favorite in Gina's yards, to ride, and there were many people there watching. Lisa, her friend from the pony club, was on Vedette, the Welsh pony she has begun to ride in competition. She didn't mention the bad end.

"C'est drôle les rêves," I replied, "Quelques fois on rêve le futur, son destin, l'où on va et ce qu'on veut. Toi, tu vas vers les purs sangs de courses, et tes amies sont toujours montées en poney."

She returned to her eggs and orange juice, and we headed out the door to her future, come as quickly as she could dream it. We cleaned boxes like every Saturday, and she brushed horses and greased hooves to get them ready to saddle; spread fresh straw; fetched hay and clean water, and then Gina came up to us where we stood near Hard Way, about to go out for his exercise.

"Ce matin, j'ai besoin de ton aide. Tu vas monter. Pas Hard Way. Il met son poids dans les mains, mais tu monteras Strictly Rhythm. Elle est gentille. Ca te vas?"

My eyes didn't leave my belle-fille's face. I wanted for all the world to have my camera in hand the moment Gina told her, but it would have been a dead give-away. Instead, I watched her. Her eyes opened wide and softened, she continued breathing, but a smile started to trace its way across her left cheek. She nodded.

"Tu as tes chaps et ta bombe, oui?" She nodded again. "OK, vas te préparer."

She headed into the tack room for her stuff, and I heard her call out to me, "Tu le savais, n'est-ce pas?" You knew, didn't you?

"Ahhhhh...!"

"Tu mens super mal!"

Gina looked at me over Hard Way and raised an eyebrow.

"Je n'ai pas menti! Comment j'ai pu mentir quand je n'ai rien dit?"

But, she didn't mean that I had lied before, of course. She meant I couldn't lie right then, about not having known, when there was no way I could hide the pleasure I took in being caught out, or the pleasure I took in watching her step up into the saddle.

"Tu es fière d'elle," I heard Thierry, one of the owners who lends a hand around the yard, say. Looking over, I saw him smiling from ear to ear. He's a father. I turned and glanced at the young woman from the International Racing Board, who had come out to see Maisons-Laffitte, and who had been riding her parents' race horses in England -- in her Wellies, no less -- "forever".

"Je suis heureuse," I said, turning to Thierry, and returning his smile, watching his eyes turn back to Capucine across the yards, "Heureuse qu'elle ait eu cette chance."

The young woman smiled, and we all turned back to watch her ride away out beyond the stables and out the gate with Gina.

"It went well, I think," said Gina while we were finishing up.

Later, in the car, I interrogated her for real, and she cooperated this time.

"Alors, qu'est-ce que vous avez fait?"

We rode into the park at a walk, and we trotted, and then Strictly Rhythm broke into a little canter, and Gina said she was trying to wake me up, and then we cantered, and she got away from me.

I knew that. She had already told me. When I asked her if she had gotten her back under control, she'd flipped at me, cool as a cucumber, "Well, I wouldn't be here if I hadn't, would I?" Cheek. So, it was good for her.

"Alors, dis-moi. Comment l'as-tu rattrapée?"

I pulled my shoulders back and stuck my feet out forward, toes straight up, like Gina told me, and I remembered, just in time, to lower the reins to the neck, like Gina always says you must. Never raise the reins, they'll go faster! Gina laughed. 

Phew, I thought.

I didn't ask if she wanted to ride again. That wasn't necessary to ask, but next Saturday, it might be off to the races at Deauville to see 2-year-old Surrey Storm, a Montjeu filly, run her first race in France, if she doesn't get eliminated. She has run four times in England and placed in three of those outings, two third places and a fourth, finishing at worst in eighth place. I might even put a fiver on her if she goes.


....