A place to start

Fibs finds freedom, September 3, 2012

For some reason, the veins standing out against the muscle on his hindquarters and legs, just under the deep copper coat, like tracery in Gothic church windows, make me think about his story and about how destiny works, and whether it exists. He was foaled in North Yorkshire, pretrained in North Yorkshire, and lived the first few years there, as well, before going to Newmarket, to Maisons-Laffitte and finally to "la boucle". He raced, and then he stopped racing. He knew people, and they knew him, but how well? Had he friends? Did he miss anyone, and did they miss him?

"He's grumpy," I was told, the implication was that others were not, or were less so, and possibly better prospects, but I was not prospecting. My name was already on his certificate of ownership. I was his owner. If I weren't, I wouldn't be propsecting.

Or, I would have been, since I wouldn't yet have learned my lesson, that I am decidedly not remotely close to prepared to be a race horse owner. Sadly. I would like to have the sort of disposable income that makes risk fun, exhilarating, and be able to take the losses and the setbacks in stride. Really. Fibs taught me that I do not by teaching me what racing is. Had it not been he who taught me that, it would nearly certainly have been another horse in his place, and the story would have been the story of me and another horse who was not Fibs, a less grumpy horse, perhaps.

In ordinary life, the one I led right up until I heard about Fibs and Flannel and thought breaking even was the worst that could happen to a hapless and unfortunate owner of a single race horse -- I apparently have an amazing ability to hear what suits me and a frightening lack of imagination, which was a surprise to me and has led me to consider the difference between concepts like "spontaneity", "romance", "determination", and "risky" --, I was not looking for a horse. I have a husband, who works, and a child and stepchildren, and we are the sort of people who do not have Great Means, and who see to their children before themselves. In that life, my stepdaughter was riding, at my behest and with my encouragement, and I was not. When she was 12, I took her to the big sports clothing and equipment store and purchased the essentials after her trial lesson at the pony club: helmet, boots, chaps, breeches, and a crop. She was ready to mount. One day, she brought a crop to the house for me.

"Tiens. Maintenant peut-être tu monteras avec moi," she said. Here, perhaps now you will ride with me.

"Ah, c'est gentil, mais non, ce n'est pas pour moi." It is not for me.

The crop sat in a corner, next to the backgammon and chess cases that had travelled from the States, getting a headstart on the thick accumulation of dust the crop would eventually attain. I dust too infrequently.

To be truthful, it was not for me, either, that we had wound up in a trainer's yard in Maisons-Laffitte. First lessons had led to three or four "galops" (like the snowflakes in ski lessons) acquired, and we had also become acquainted with the pricetag of a taste for riding and ambition in it along the way, and I was looking for ways people who cannot afford quite a number of thousands of euros a year can satisfy the desire to ride, bigger, better, faster.

I had noticed that my stepdaughter always smiled in competition and that speed did not seem to alarm her, and reading the racing blog in the New York Times around the Breeders' Cup, nearly two years ago, I came across the story of an American journalist in Paris, who had given up reporting to train race horses full time, Gina Rarick. I went to her website, read about the horses available, including a share in Satwa Sunrise, clicked on the links for the training center in Maisons-Laffitte and watched the France Galop video describing its wonders. The little girl who remembered the Walter Farley books joined me and imagined Alec and Henry and the great Black Stallion and Flame on those exercise tracks in the early morning Parisian mist.

I opened my email, typed a message of introduction and asked if we could visit. I had a young teenage girl who might find a future as a stable slave and exercise rider there.

Two weeks later, the answer came. In true Gina style, it was brief, cheerful and frank, "Sure!"

Instead, it was the little girl who had read The Black Stallion, and every other book about horses she could find, who found her future there, and the husband of her older self who would learn who he had married. I was an architect. A woman who earned her living and keep, from the earliest time in her life, who had provided for her son, and knew what $5 had to buy all the way through college, and who didn't forget later in life. Now, from considering a leg or two in Satwa Sunrise, to having two in Elbow Beach, 6 months later, I owned Fibs and Flannel, and another 4 months later, he was stepping off a van and into my immediate life. Cinderella had found her Prince Charming, and the Wellies he brought fit. Perfectly. He wasn't black, either, like my literary dream stallion; he was red, like Flame, his arch enemy, and he was a gelding. At least that much.

And, he was "grumpy".

So was my husband. And so, I would learn, and already suspected, would we all be. The wrong person in this story had the horse.

Also, he was a little skinny. Nothing some groceries and a little Phosphalugel to protect his tummy couldn't remedy.

I was learning already. The initiation begun at Gina's, where I listened to every word uttered by her, by her assistant, Agata, and by the vet, Jérôme, had just shifted gears. This concerned the horse in my direct care, boarded near my home. The vet was on the other end of the phone line with the owners of this private owners' stable, listening and asking questions. Fibs would need the Phosphalugel for a week, two would be good, unlimited access to hay, and a gradual increase in the grains as he adjusted to being fed regularly again and put weight back on. By my friend's eye, he had lost some 35kg in the 3 or 4 weeks since he had last raced in late July. I took the paper held out to me and headed off to the pharmacy for the bottle of thick, white liquid he, my horse, would be ingesting morning and evening to coat his tummy and protect against colic and ulcers.

I was full of hope, and a little worried: not about my horse, but about how we were going to work out everything around this horse, and what his presence in our lives meant. A former race horse  in a stable is, I suspected (rightly), a lot like an elephant in the room, the one everyone is avoiding discussing. Yes, that one. I suspected that we weren't all on the same page, because we had never been, because we were a "recomposed family" of ill-fitting and missing pieces in a difficult environment, and because just getting a dog a few years before had been "challenging" and nearly led us to divorce court, exposing the insecurities of certain ones with respect to the goodwill of others.

This would be the beginning of trying to hope, while taking things day by day and suspecting that things could go all wrong, beacuse of all the things left imagined and unsaid; of seeing and hearing without knowing what it all meant and why; of taking delight, while not feeling free to do so; for the simple fact reigned and governed everything: the wrong person had the horse.

If the garden had been the place where I could take refuge and reflect, make things happen and find some satisfaction and a little solace in the life and the stepfamily we had undertaken, my consolation prize for the professional life I had left behind, the horse would be the thing that cleaved and laid the bones of our situation bare.

This, I knew, is also a place to start. His story before, I also knew, was going to be nothing next to mine from here on out.
....

It's just a jump to the left

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

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

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

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

Elbow Beach is here

There's no place like home, away from home

Elbow Beach has arrived at Gina's yards, and, may I say, I think she finds it quite to her liking. What is not to like, for this 3-year-old gray filly, on the cusp of being a mare? As Chantal pointed out, she is among women, if you don't count Vlad.

I missed her moment of arrival. I was dragging; a morning spent recovering from the agonies of step issues, into which I have stepped not lightly, and those of committing to my color choices (three, prioritized); even the man at Petitpas tack shop in Maisons-Laffitte said it is something you only do once in life. I sent off a message to Gina, suggesting we take the dogs for a walk in the training center, fretting about the loss of the best light in which to photograph the newest arrival, a loner horse.

Her trainer in England plans to breed her. She has an good paper, a filly of Australian stallion Choisir out of Impulsive Decision (and she has been mine); all that she needs is a win to increase her value as a stud mare, and she has come to France to get a jump on her 3-year-old season, racing the winter in Cagnes-sur-Mer.

Not just the English, but their horses, too, descend on the lovely Côte d'Azur in the bleakness of January and February. Or to the Alps, but that is less advantageous to thoroughbreds.

"Your horse," said Gina, "is over there, in the 'quarantine' area."

My horse. It could make your head turn, just a little. Over there, across the yard, in one of the usually empty stalls, was Elbow Beach. The whole yard was in darkness, lit by the barn lights where Hard Way and Triple Tonic have their boxes, and by a subtle moon. It was a quiet, peaceful January evening, just cool. The winds that had delayed her arrival by several days had left perfect calm in their wake.

I didn't hasten across; there were my old friends to visit in their boxes first. I began with Satwa Sunrise, spotting the dark form of Alexandra, returning from the manure pile with the wheelbarrow, coming toward me. It seemed almost indecent to break the quiet. I walked over and spoke softly to Sunrise, who raised her head from her hay, and moved toward me for a greeting. And then Magical Flower, still recovering from her fractured foot, Deep Ocean, Strictly Rhythm, Triple Tonic and Hard Way, Milly, or Surrey Storm, and then I made my way over to Elbow Beach.

Whether Gina knew that I had finished my rounds, or whether it was a coincidence, she called out to me, and we all headed over to see Elbow Beach, Gina, Lisa, Chantal, Vlad and I. Elbow, or Elbé as I had begun to think of her, made room for us all.

She had traveled all night, arriving from the stud where she had waited out the storm by truck and ferry. This evening, she stood in her box, content, wrapped in her blanket, standing in clean shavings, a pile of fresh hay in the corner. Gina went for clean water and then took her blanket off to show us her form and her musculature. Chantal and Lisa trained their keen eyes on her.

I wouldn't have noticed the lack of "top muscle", along her back, but my eye could see that she had hollowed out between the barrel and the loin. Gina nodded, her hand had already moved there. Lisa  spent some time checking out her forelegs; Gina found them a little straight. All in all, she concluded, she's not too bad for having come off training in December and spending a week in the horse walker at a walk and a trot. Elbow Beach is a sprinter, 1300 and 1500 meters. Gina thinks she'll build back up to race form fast enough.





What we all noticed was her curiosity. Nothing went unexplored, from her blanket, let dropped to the floor of her box, to Vlad, the stable lab, and to each of us. She pressed her muzzle into my hand and my shoulder, as though she had returned to me after a regretted absence. We had never met. She looked each of us over, nuzzled us, and found us to her liking, and returned to nibbling on her shavings.

"Elle va bien dans la tête," said Chantal, nodding.

"Le monde lui va," I agreed.

We left to prepare the pails of feed for the evening, and Alexandra picked up two, Gina two more, and I reached for a couple.

"Laisse la prendre le sceau pour Elbow Beach, son cheval," said Gina, in French for Alexandra.

"Je lui donnerai la moitié de ma part et l'autre moitié de la part de Kay," I said over my shoulder, heading out past Hard Way and TT, but the words "son cheval" did not displease me. I decided to go ahead and savor them for as long as they will last, until the end of February and the winter season at Cagnes, or perhaps after a race or two in March at Saint-Cloud or Chantilly, and headed over to feed Milly first, and then Elbow.

She had left her carrots, apple quarters and the corners of her manger full of oats. I called across to Gina. I thought I had heard her tell Alexandra to clean out what she had left from today when she fed her in the morning, but I wanted to be sure. I stuck my head out the box door and called across the yard in the quiet, early evening January darkness, broken clouds partly covering the moon. Figures moved about, here and there. My voice rang out in English, and the sound of Gina's, returning through the dark, seemed almost a comfort. Leave them, leave them until tomorrow.

Leaving for our errands and evenings with our families, Gina hurried to catch the garbage truck, due to pass, and took advantage to say once more to me, "Could you close your horse's box door?"

Of course. Of course I can.

This time, I hurried across the grass in the center of the yard, and when I went to pass the hook in the lower door through the eye in the upper door, I could hear the sounds of her eating her first dinner in France, her large, dark form against the side wall of the box. I slid the hook into the eye, and hurried to join the others.

Tomorrow, Deep runs again at Deauville.
....

Elbow Beach gazes at her new home

My kingdom for a horse

A horse and a woman

It's incredible to me that I was able to write an entry about Satwa Sunrise without spilling ink going on about the way I feel about this horse. Feelings I trust because I discovered them slowly, watching Sunrise closely and waiting to see what I thought about her.

My first encounter with her wasn't like it was with any of the other 6 horses in Gina's yards. I had contacted Gina Rarick in part for my stepdaughter, and in part to inquire about her announcement of a partnership developing for this horse. I knew that going to Maisons-Laffitte I wasn't just introducing my stepdaughter to a possible position as "stable slave", and I wasn't going just to maybe make a great friend, I was going to -- eventually, at the right moment -- talk about ownership, although how I ever got the idea that such a thing might be possible for myself, I have no idea. I was following a hunch, and I tend to trust my instincts, fallible as they have been proven to be.

So, it was with particular interest that I heard that Satwa Sunrise was in that box over there, the first of Gina's out on the courtyard, after the 4 belonging to the neighbor. Next to her was Magical Flower, a younger filly, followed by the two colts, and then Triple Tonic and Gina's baby, Hard Way, in the barn. Last was the other Newmarket acquisition for Cagnes-sur-Mer, 2-year-old Surrey Storm, over by the yard owners' front door. I didn't make a beeline for Satwa Sunrise's box. It was only in the course of the morning, when Gina was getting her ready to ride out for her work, that I first approached her.

She was a big filly, or so she seemed to me. Gina confirmed it. She was easy to approach, calm. I walked around her and looked her over, ran my hand down her muzzle. Later, when she was back and the sun was fully out, warming the box doors on the northeast side of the stables, she and Magic stood there with their heads out, like sunflowers, eating their hay. It was harder to photograph Sunrise. Magic had better light, possibly better features, just a knot of white hair on her brow to Sunrise's flame. She wasn't a favorite. Not yet.

As the weeks went by, and I developed a little competence at basic yard duties, I came to have reason to go into each box and interact with the horses, delivering hay, topping up the water, cleaning out manure. Gina and I still hadn't talked more than passingly of ownership, and never of owning Sunrise's remaining two available legs. I was prepared to be patient. The horses and the other owners trusted Gina, and I liked her and her way of working; I figured I could trust to her methods in developing owners, too. Still, I talked to Sunrise a little differently, trying on what it might feel like to have a particular interest in her. She didn't come after me. She stood there and accepted my awkward embrace.

Okay, I thought, stepping back, feeling a little silly, I did that. I felt like a young teenage boy just after his first kiss, possibly wearing braces and glasses. Sunrise looked about as nonplussed as the object of such a young boy's interest probably felt. She might as well have readjusted her own glasses on her nose. She stood there and looked at me, not unkindly.

I found a nickname for her.

Good morning, Sunshine, I said. Other times I tried it this way: Hello, Little Miss Sunshine. She didn't seem to care what I called her. I knew it was for me.

I was still watching her. I didn't know her yet, but I was pretty certain I had reason to like her. It amounted to her presence, her way of going about her life in the yards and her work. She hadn't done anything really to distinguish herself, but I thought I was seeing something in her. If there were horses coughing, it wasn't her. If there was fever, she had none. She was said to be a bleeder, but she never so much as cleared her throat after a work-out, that I know of. She posed, in short, no problems, no real worries.

It was the first time I accompanied her to Deauville with Gina and Mark that I knew for certain, as much as anyone who actually knows as little as I do can know. It was watching her stride off at Mark's side to her box on the backside that I had my first hint; this is a racehorse. It was watching her walk around the exercise ring in the middle of our Maisons-Laffitte courtyard of stables that I saw her look at and see her world, including the people who are part of it, and I thought, She is intelligent. She is interested. She knows where she is, and why she is here, and it is good with her.

She held her head high and looked all around her. She stepped lightly at an athletic, wide-awake pace. And each time she came around to her corner of the courtyard, she turned her head and looked at her people: Gina, Sebastien, Annie, Annie's friend Denise. Me.

Yes, me. After all, I had known her nearly since she had arrived from Newmarket. I had helped to feed her, give her fresh water, and I had cleaned her box and talked to her, hugged her and offered her caresses, exchanged regards. I had admired her size and her strength, and her quiet, calm demeanor.

I noticed how everyone kisses and leaves a lingering hand on Sunrise. Mark while she was with the vet. Annie, when she offered her encouragement before heading to the owners' and trainers' section of the grandstand to watch her race. I noticed how gently she accepts her saddling, and how smartly she stepped out to the track.

"J'aime beaucoup ce cheval," I said to Sebastien, who has been around Gina's yards for years. "Je pense qu'elle peux vraiment faire quelque chose."

Sebastien had picked Satwa Sunrise out with Gina at Newmarket, but before the deal was sealed, he had found a thing or two to pick at about her. I couldn't find anything. Then, she ran a great race and acted afterwards like it was nothing. She'd only finished 9th out of a field of 16, but it wasn't her fault. Where were the problems? I was sure she was going to do something, if the next jockey let her thread the first hole that presented itself coming out of the last turn and fly.

She runs like a light bulb operated by a switch. Off, she is calm, gracious, alert. On, she runs like the southerly wind of which she was made. There is no fuss. Nothing lost. Everything with Satwa Sunrise is easy and easy going. If I had wanted two legs before that day, I had no idea until then what it was to want them.

We took her to Deauville again yesterday, and I fell hard for this horse. I fell for her watching Annie love her. I fell for her watching her let Alexandra walk her. I fell for her watching her nuzzle Alexandra's neck while she received her breast plate, race blanket and saddle. She watched everything; she watched everyone; and then, she walked out to race and ran from the southerly wind.

She found her eye in the needle this time, and Tristan Normand let her thread it, coming out of the last turn. He had kept her on the rail, and then the front runner on the rail began to fall back as she surged forward, and she tried to catch the number 10 horse, Counterbid, followed hard by three horses, nose to nose. The number 11 horse, Dolce Bambina, and her jockey made their bid, but were beaten by a nose by Sunrise for the second spot.

We were delirious, jumping up and down, yelling, Annie clutching her cane and beaming from Sunrise at the post to Gina and the rest of us. We hugged and kissed and trooped down the staircase, bathed in the sunlight that came out at post time after the early afternoon deluge. Unlike last time, when I had hoped for it, Sunrise made the sun come out, and Tristan's silks the color of sun and sky shone in it. Annie walked alongside Gina and Mark, and Alexandra leading him, still up on Sunrise, into the winners' enclosure.

"Qui l'aurait pensé? Ma Sunrise dans l'enclos?" said Annie, turning to me to share seeing the wish she'd made at lunch fulfilled, and I wanted those two long legs more than ever, but joked to Gina, "I knew you didn't want to give up your two legs, and I knew why last time." She laughed.

I didn't feel jealous, not even of the ones who had found their way to the guichet to place their bets for the win and the place on Sunrise. I knew they'd be turning their tickets in for more money than they'd handed over the counter just 10 minutes before. I wasn't sure how I felt about betting on the horse I accompanied to the racetrack.

Later, over champagne just before leaving the racetrack and heading home, I wondered aloud if it was silly only to want to feel the joy of them doing well and not having anything to else to gain, aside from the prize money eventually. After all, betting is allowed. It  brings money into the coffers of countries around the world, and it helps to pay the prize money. It keeps the sport fast turning big -- very big -- business going.

"No," said Mark, "it's a good attitude."

I wondered, and I snapped photographs of Annie beaming, Gina gratified. Genevieve, a breeder and friend of theirs, satisfied. Mark, well, Mark I remember his goofy grin, walking Sunrise around the exercise circle after her shower. Now I knew what Mark looks like when he is very happy with a horse, when his horse does well. I remembered Sunrise turning as Annie approached her, reaching into the pockets of her powder-blue wool coat, light blue and yellow colors in honor of her husband's city and happier days still, for the heart-shaped sugar she always remembers to bring for Sunrise, "I'm old-fashioned," she said, "I do things the old way."

Gina called out to Mark, who stopped and let Sunrise turn to Annie, leading her off the circle. Sunrise lowered her big head and turned her gaze to Annie's hands at her pocket, took her heart-shaped sugar and pressed her muzzle against Annie's palm. They stood there like that, and looked at one another.

"Elle les aurait pris de votre poche," I said to Annie as we walked away.

"C'est vrai! Elle le fait" she replied, nodding, and Mark walked back onto the circle, his hand on Sunrise's flank, a smile surely still on his face, the taste of heart-shaped sugar, near victory and steel in her mouth.
....

Mark and Sunrise, after her race

"When God created the horse, he said to the magnificent creature: I have made thee as no other. All the treasures of the earth shall lie between thy eyes. Thou shalt cast thy enemies between thy hooves, but thou shalt carry my friends upon thy back. Thy saddle shall be the seat of prayers to me. And though fly without any wings, and conquer without any sword." 

-The Koran Horse Prayer

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

Off to the races, again

Satwa Sunrise, on her way to the rond de présentation

With Christmas in the middle, there has hardly been time to write about the last race, and thinking about the next race, I could barely concentrate on Christmas. The tree finally got decorated, after sitting in the house for a week, on Christmas Eve. My husband's right; I do live life as a series of passions. Only, he is also a little bit wrong; some of them stick.

The race on December 21, the winter solstice, was my first time ever at the racetrack. Before last Wednesday, my experience of the races was limited to books, like The Black Stallion series, and to television for the major race events, like Goldikova's final race in the 2011 Breeders' Cup at Churchill Downs. It's a strange thing when you tiptoe up to your long held fascinations, preparing to see them for the first time, and horse racing and the tracks are among the strangest, for me.

The "Sport of Kings", you hear, and, yet, there is a slice of every aspect of life at the racecourses. The entire court, as it were, from the scullery maids and lowliest of the stable lads to the kings and sheiks themselves, sweeping up the currents of the noblesse de robe -- the nouveau riche -- and the old money and privilege from around the world along the way to the backside and the grandstand, the private dining rooms and the owners' and trainers' salle. Everyone finds his or her place at the races.

The grandstand, however, this December day, was empty. A far cry from the photos of Deauville in July and August, full of parisiens and vacationers, arms and faces and long legs glowing in hues of bronze and gold, trees in full leaf blowing in the gentle breezes off the English Channel. There were more pigeons than spectators, but the total money placed on the races has only risen, if the numbers at the racecourses around the world are dropping, as a general rule. With television channels like France's Equidia, providing the prognostics, horse by horse, and broadcasting nearly every race in the year, information immediately available on the Internet, and the PMU on the street corner, where you can lean your elbows on the zinc and have an easy drink with friends, why would you show up at the races if you can spare yourself the prix du carburant and the tolls, unless you own or train a horse, and know those from the backside privileged to gain access to the private rooms of the tribune?

I thought about all this as I followed Gina Rarick through the racing procedure, and benefited from her network of professional connections, receiving a warm smile and a nod, being, as I was, in her wake. Had I come on my own, I'd not only have had to figure out where to park and enter the hippodrome, I would have had to discover if an entry fee is required, and I would have been limited to the grandstand seats facing the track, pigeons wading in winter puddles between the spur and the outer turf track, or inside the all-weather track. I would have been very nearly alone. I might have visited the restaurant on the top floor, and wandered to discover a bar, where coffee or drinks are offered, along with the company of strangers. I might have dared to see if a pass were required to walk along between the boxes, organized around exercise circles, camera in hand, perhaps being taken for an habituée. A smile and a nod at others, who do not recognize you, always helps.

I watched Sunrise walk around the exercise circle in her blanket, GR on the lower back corner, and I thought, "She won't embarrass anyone today, this filly."

She looked right at home, after a two-month break from racing in which she traveled from the racetracks of England and the sales at Newmarket to her new home in France, a Meshaheer fille de France returned to race in her native country, complete with the bonus for French-bred horses. Stepping down from the van and walking briskly alongside Mark to her box, you could tell she knew where she was, and why she was there. A professional, with her 7 races under her belt. Her music wasn't bad, 3p Ap 3p 6p 8p 9p 7p. She had shown a steady progression and placed in 2 of 7. No, she didn't shamble, like some of the others, who looked a little like they'd have rather stayed at home. She held her head high and looked with a keen eye all around her, particularly each time she passed anyone from her yards; she knew her people.

There was one other horse, walking around the exercise circle, who caught my eye.

"That's the favorite," Gina told me, "with his trainer. He's good."

I wondered if she meant the horse or the trainer. Both looked intense.

Lucky Harry is a 4-year-old Equerry gelding, and looked as professional, alert, proud and thoroughly at home at Deauville as Sunrise. No wonder he's the favorite, I thought. He has won twice, and Equerry is owned by Godolphin, and if in real estate the golden rule is "location, location, location", in thoroughbred racing, it's "papers, papers, papers".

After her visit to the track vet, since this was her first race in France, her walk, rest, carrots, and getting dressed up in her owner Annie Casteu's colors, and another walk, it was nearly a half hour to post time. We'd been there for 3 hours. She returned to her box for a last quiet moment, received her racing blanket and Mark led her to the rond de présentation.

Annie had already gone to the owners' area of the grandstand with her friend to await the start of the race. I hurried along after Sunrise, Mark, Sebastien, and Gina, clicking photographs and making note of the events around me. The jockeys were there. Fabien materialized in the inside of the presentation ring, and he received information on Sunrise and directions from Gina. Only, being the first time Gina had raced Sunrise, there was not a lot of certainty in the directions. We were all here to learn. Fabien exited the inner area to mount Sunrise, Mark led them off to the track, and Gina and I headed up to the owners' and trainers' area to find Annie and watch the race.

Gina and Satwa Sunrise

A race, I learned, is over in the blink of an eye. Everything is possible in the training center, the van, the box and the presentation ring, but in the end, everything is decided by the events of a particular race: the track condition, the field of horses and how the jockey rides the horse. My eyes are still inexperienced. I can lose the horse I am following in the pack of horses straining to get ahead, for the lead. I hear the murmurs around me, the gasps, the encouragements, and the criticisms. We watched on the screen, and I saw when Sunrise was fully visible just behind and between two horses.

But, why wasn't she going? Was Fabien asking her to go? And then they were coming out of the last turn and into the straight, and the field broke into two distinct ranks, stretching the full breadth of the track. Eyes glued to the screen, I realized the consequences of what I was seeing; Sunrise was shouldered out of the front line and relegated to the second. Gina sucked in a breath and then groaned; her horse was stuck in the second line of horses with no eye to thread until just several lengths before the post. The only horses with a real chance came from the front line, although she was still passing horses on her way to and past the finish, and didn't hardly break a sweat.

Neither Sunrise nor Lucky Harry won, nor placed. I am learning that more often than not (at least it seems), the favorite doesn't win, and the finish to this race was a bit of a mess. Approaching the final straight, Sunrise's jockey, Fabien Lefebvre, pulled her up; she had been clipped in the rear hoof by another horse, and then the field of horses formed rank and closed her out.

Coming off the track

Sunrise finished 9th, classing, and Lucky Harry, at 7.2/1, finished 14th. It was clear that she could have done better. Should Fabien have checked himself from checking her? She wanted to go; she was pulling for it; and the hole was there, right in front of her. She raced in a country where you go from the start, like the States, and might not have understood that she'd have another chance to go for it, that she'd be asked to. Only this time, the only real opportunity closed in front of her and Fabien. And, what about the whip? I have heard the great woman jockey, Patty Barton, say in the PBS documentary Thoroughbred: Born to Run that mares don't like to be told what to do; show them the crop, but don't use it on them or they'll refuse. I have to make a mental note to ask Gina her opinion before Sunrise races again in a claimer Monday.

The claim that she was a bleeder didn't seem to hold much truth, either, as she didn't so much as clear her throat after the race, let alone cough, while her neighbor appeared to be practically drowning afterwards. A bleeder for sure. You wanted desperately to help the poor thing clear her lungs out. She couldn't even drink.

Still, like Gina said, Sunrise showed everyone a lot. She classed; she ran easily and well; and she recovered fast. I still like her. A lot.

In the meantime, we'll see what Deep will do tomorrow. He'll be running at 3:50 pm in the 6th, the Prix de Berd'huis, a 2400 meter handicap against a field of 4-year-olds and older. Deep's used to running in Marseille, so the competition will be stiffer than he has seen, but he's pretty full of it right now with some energy to spend.
....

A Brown Christmas and Sunrise on the Solstice

It almost felt like Christmas

Frost. There was frost on the field, on the fallen and unraked leaves, and on the tips of the Cape May Daisies that are still blossoming on the eve of the winter solstice. I meant to write about the discovery of the amaryllis blooming in the first week of December, but I never made the time. But, there is no more frost, just rain and sodden ground that squishes under your waterproof boots. The songs on the CD player sing of snow falling and Christmas "in the air", and I am remembering when this was true and Christmas felt snug and warm, anticipating the , last minute shopping and a hasty trip to FedEx before it closed, wrapping presents and midnight mass (not necessarily in that order) and the sand bag lanterns along the driveways and suburban cul de sacs to guide Santa's reindeer, flying through the night skies to land on the roofs of the houses, covered thickly in new-fallen snow.

This is not helping to get the tree decorated.

...

...

Nor, either, is having my mind on Sunrise on the Solstice, tomorrow at Deauville, helping get the tree decorated. Tomorrow will be my first race, ever, in person, and not only my first race ever, but I'll be "backstage" with the trainers and the owners. And, not only will I be "backstage", I will be riding up in the horse van with Satwa Sunrise and her trainer, Gina Rarick. Sunrise will run in the seventh race, a claimer, The Prix des Perrets at 4:20 pm, and she'll be ridden by Fabien Lefebvre, who has ridden for Gina before. I have checked on the dress code; no trainers -- "or what we Americans used to call tennis shoes", not horse trainers (of which there will be lots), and no blue jeans. Black jeans are alright. I fear I am going to have to dress up, though, despite the weather forecast, which means the required rain gear would hide the color of everyone's jeans, since all my jeans are blue.

We'll have to see if my stepdaughter's stomach virus will have passed so that she can come, too, as planned. It's either the candy or the fish at her friend's house the other evening. If not, she needs to recover for the end of the week, because once Sunrise will have gotten some of her oats out on the track tomorrow, she's on to ride her in exercise.

Looking at the photo again, I realize I need to add one more thing to my list of things to do: rake. Christmas, and I am facing a carpet of wet, dead leaves. If the frost returns, it will have to do.

....