The story I have not told, Fibs and Me

Fibs unloads from Maisons-Laffitte, September 3, 2012

A year and one month ago, Fibs, who raced under the name Fibs and Flannel, a 2007 foaled chestnut gelding by Tobougg out of Cayman Kai mare Queens Jubilee, stepped down off a horse transport truck onto the courtyard of a private owners stable, almost in Normandy. This was not of consequence to him. He had travelled much in his young life, from the farm where he was bred and cavorted next to his mother in Yorkshire.  A rather fortunate young man, he was in good hands and had only a short hop to make to his trainer Tim Easterby's yards at Habton Farms, Malton, North Yorkshire, and he would go on to travel to England's racetracks, Newcastle and Ripon, Haydock, Beverley and Hamilton, Warwick, Catterick, Doncaster, Carlisle, Musselburgh, Southwell, Kempton, Lingfield and Wolverhampton.

His maiden race was Monday, May 4, 2009 in Newcastle at a mile on good to soft conditions. There were 8 2-year-olds entered. I try to imagine him then, when he hadn't yet travelled 20-something times to the racetrack and won a few. Was he nervous? Did he try to bite the groom? Swivel his head around on his neck, ears just a little too far back, whites showing as he fixed his eye on that soul? Did he object to the tight girthing of his tiny little racing saddle? Was he eager to join the pounding hooves in the distance, his ears pricked and trained on their efforts? What did he think of the grandstand sounds that he could hear, while everyone else was concerned with the cleanliness of his nostrils, the shine of his coat and whether his vet papers were in order? Did he prance, stepping out to walk with his hot walker? Or did he walk with his head down and relaxed, already a professional, a little bit bored? What we know is that he ran.

"Dwelt, towards rear, pushed along and headway halfway, ridden and no impression final 2f"

I think I saw something like that 3 years later in France. He finished 5th. 

In July, in Haydock, he finished 4th of 6 horses, beaten by one of his father's other sons, Petougg, out of Soviet Star mare Piroshka, foaled just 8 days after Fibs. Petougg never won again. In fact, he only raced two more times. One wonders what happened in that third race, on September 25, 2009. Nothing catastrophic. He "raced towards centre, tracked leader, joined leader halfway, ridden and every chance 2f out, weakeded inside final furlong". Nothing to explain why he never raced again, unless there was something in a tendon, an accident in his box, a sudden colic, something that would endanger his further training or end his life. Such is the life of some horses, their owners and trainers. So many of them.

It was as a 3-year-old that Fibs and Flannel would come into his own and earn a little something of his training fees, hay and oats, breaking his maiden on April 22, 2010 in a class 5, 7 furlongs 100 yards race on good to firm track conditions, a length and a quarter in front of the second place finisher, Ginger Grey. If I understood betting outside France, where everything is a sum "contre un", I could tell you that his morning price was 11/4 to Ginger Grey's 8/1 with some idea of that that meant. It doesn't seem that it was a complete surprise that Fibs won that day, certainly not after his first appearance as a 3-year-old a week earlier, when he placed second on the same track.

Perhaps Fibs was at his peak then, when he went on to win his next race on May 2 at Hamilton in the Totepool handicap,  having "Tracked leaders, smooth headway to joing leaders 2f out, shaken up to lead inside final furlong, pushed out, readily opened". Looking over his life performance makes me smile a little bit, although I wasn't smiling so much when I was his next-to-last owner of his career. From that 2nd place and the two wins right on its heels, Fibs faded. He went on to run 12 more races under his training, never doing better than 3 4th places and 2 5ths, and 4th and 5th don't bring home a check in the UK.

He changed hands, going on to race three times for trainer Tony Coyle at Zeebrivia Stables, also in Malton. Maybe he thought he knew what to do to get the zing back out of Fibs. Having had Fibs for a year, I think I know that this was somewhat illusory. Fibs decides for Fibs. He has a certain arrogance that makes the sweetness sweeter.

In the Rocket Ron Rapley 70th Birthday Handicap on November 15, 2011, a class 5 mile race for 3 yos on the fibersand, Fibs finished 12 in a field of 14, in which he "Chased leaders, led after 3f, headed over 4f out, ridden and weakened over 1f out". How, exactly, do you finish 12th in the last furlong? Pride goeth before a fall. C'mon, Fibs.

Then, three weeks later came the Play The Big Money totejackpot Today Hanidcap, a 6 furlong race for 3 yos on the fibersand on December 6. There was modest progress. Had anyone inquired if the young man wished to race? He drew the 9th and finished 9th (he's witty that way), "Outpaced, always behind". He had dropped from opening at 9/1 to 33/1.

Tony Coyle entered him in the Southwell Racecourse Selling Handicap for 4 yos on January 3, and Fibs must have smelled something in the air, woken on the right side of his box, finished his alfalfa; Fibs finished first in a field of 6 at 7 furlongs on the fibersand, and he went home to Saville House Stables with Willie Musson.

"Chased leaders, went 2nd 3f out, led 2f out, strongly pressed closing stages, kept on well"

He opened at 9/4.

Sadly for Mr. Musson and his new owners, this would be his last win. He did not, however, run poorly for Musson, with  three 3rd place finishes, a 4th and a 5th in 7 races in a mere 2 1/2 months. It was enough to attract the attention of a bloodstock agent friend in Maisons-Laffitte, who had travelled to Newmarket for the Tattersalls Guineas Breeze Up & Horses in Training Sale 2012 looking for likely prospects for the summer season in France. Until that day, I had never heard of his existence, but after that day, my life changed forever, and my blog, as anyone who has followed will have noticed, languished.

I had no business buying a race horse. My husband will be the first to tell you that, although he wasn't quite the first to know. He was, but not quite with full conscience and say-so. I don't know what got into me. I didn't know that when I get an idea into my head, I carry it out. I also didn't know that I was so fanciful in my interpretations of "possible" and "likely" as far as outcomes go. I further had no idea of what risk really means. 

It all seemed so rational, but risk by definition is anything but rational as I was brought to recognize. Talk of papers and past performances, the prospects of UK horses in France, where the prize money actually pays something of the training costs, and why so many UK horses come to race here, making them stars in the claiming races. I had put a toe into racing as an owner registered with France Galop with Elbow Beach, although she raced under owner Kay Minton's colors and we made the decision to send her back to her owners in England when a respiratory problem was suspected. It was time for her to return, anyway. She later went on to get her hoped-for win in a class 5 handicap, The Follow Mecca Swansea on Facebook, in August of the year, improving her desirability as a broodmare.

I had done all the paperwork, gone to Nanterre for my interview with the racing and gambling police, and chosen my colors, which I had stitched up at Petitpas in Maisons-Laffitte, and which Agata modelled for us on May 25, 2 weeks after Fibs and Flannel, Tattersalls hip number 35, arrived in the yard at Gina Rarick's training facility, on the morning of his first equivalent of a breeze in France. I had already made my decision in the days just after his arrival. I would buy Fibs and hope for his success, which we thought quite likely, despite the drawback of his not being eligible for the French bred premium, for which some UK horses are. Two months, we figured. The French like to see the horse run a few times before making a bid in the claimers.

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

Shortly after, my cell phone rang and Gina's name appeared on the screen.

"Hi, Gina," I chirped.

"This is the 'Houston, we have a problem' call," she greeted me. My heart sunk. Before he'd even been entered, Gina had seen signs of EIPH, or bleeding, after fast morning work. It was 45 minutes later, and when he lowered his head to eat his hay, but it was a trickle of blood from the nostril. In the USA, Lasix is administered, and it's training and racing as usual. In France, and anywhere else in the racing world, it's close to a catastrophe; horses are neither trained nor raced on Lasix. They show signs of pulmonary haemorrhage after strenuous effort, and some herbal remedies, a bit of rest and a change in training is tried, but mostly a future other career is envisioned.

Gina would enter him anyway at Saint Cloud for June 2, but his training would be lightened. Hopes were nothing what they were. I was left to consider my luck, which was decidedly bad. "He's good" and "Il est bon" swam in my head along with "Houston, we have a problem" and "bleeder".

He ran at Saint Cloud in the Prix du Mesnil-Villement, a one mile Course E claimer for female jockeys. He looked good before the race, and he got an appalling ride. Coming out of the final turn and into the homestretch, Carla O'Halloran up, Fibs suddenly veered from the rail, cutting all the way out past the horses following to the very outside, like a satellite broken from its orbit. It was hard to fathom. No point in making any further effort, she pulled him up, and he jogged over the finish line. Somehow, he did not finish last. We said the things you say to each other in those situations. Given 33/1, "la note de course" resumed his race "n'a joué aucun rôle". 

"Je ne sais pas ce qui c'est passé," said Carla, "mais il a un bon moteur."

Later, while he was grazing in the grass on the backside, a trickle of blood made its slow way down his left nostril.

Gina entered him in a conditioning race in Compiègne July 2, and hoped for the best. My insides were in too many knots to make the trip. I watched from home as Fibs took to an early lead with Yannick Mergirie up. My heart had sunk a little. Hadn't Gina wanted him held back in the pack as was his wont? Here he was flying out front, a gorgeous streak of golden red with my colors flashing orange and claret in the bright sun, the pack hard on his heels. Could he hold it? I prayed, fervently, my head in my hands and my heart in my throat. I knew not to let myself hope for it. They hardly ever do, not without gaining any lead with a turn of foot coming out of the last turn. His lead never increased, and halfway up the backstretch, he was overtaken by all the ten other horses in the pack, Two for Two, Art of Dance, Saglawiyah Asil -- I watched the names I had studied when I did his paper, determining his greatest threats, pass him, followed by Bernenez, Don Salsa, Lucky Jon and Hi Shinko, a horse Gina had trained, and then the horses who had seemed to have much less chance of winning than he did, Alexiana, Echappée Belle and Manamo du Fray leave him to shine crossing the finish line last.

My phone rang. Gina's name flashed on the screen. Yes, he had finished last; no, it wasn't that big a problem that he had gone out front, he had wanted to; Mergerie was hugely impressed with his motor. Maybe, maybe we should enter him in a lady amateur jockey race in Dieppe later in July with his exercise rider up. They hadn't seen any recent evidence of bleeding, and he had just shown something we suspected, that we had reason to know was in him. I heard hope.

"No," I said. "I have an offer for a leasing contract on him. I have to accept."

...

This was not, in hindsight, the best decision to have made at all. It was the decision I felt I had to make, given everything, including my own panic. I had misunderstood risk. I had failed to understand that risk in racing depends entirely on the depth of the pockets of the owner, and given that mine were actually sewn shut, I had had no business imagining that because breaking even is about the best anyone can hope -- and what should make any owner of race horses happy, but far, in fact, from what happens in the vast majority of individual cases, in which money is lost, --  it was what would happen for me. Breaking even is facilitated by owning several horses and diversifying one's risk exposure; I owned one single horse, and there was something going on with him.

On July 12, I signed the contract, and Fibs went to the yard of trainer Jérôme Clais. I researched every horse he had raced in the last 3 years, and I knew I had no reason to hope to see any return on my 15% interest. But, it was worse than that. He ran once in Deauville in late July, and then every entry was scratched. Three of them. I called my contact and said, "There's something wrong, either with Jérôme or with the horse."

"I'll go right over this evening and see what's up."

What was up was that Jérôme was out of money, which happened oftener than could be hoped. There were some 10 horses in his yard, not all of whom were being fed and exercised. Fibs had fallen into the unhappier lot. He was standing in his box, the lights out. The contract, I said, is broken. We're getting him out. Fibs is retired.

...

I still watch the races and imagine Fibs on the turf or the fibersand. I watch him in the field, and I see him standing on the grass on the backside at Saint Cloud, his head high in the air, his ears pricked toward the hooves pounding their way to the last turn, I see him walking proudly in the presentation ring, accepting his jockey like the Queen of England accepts the adulation of her people, and I see the photo in the newspaper of him crossing the line first at Beverley, April 22, 2010.  I wish that for him again because I believe Fibs was suited to it. He was not a graded winner, his victories were not at Ascot and Longchamp, but when he wanted to, he could turn it on, stretch out his legs in a magnificently huge stride and fly over the sand, his feet touching earth only an instant before taking off again.

Fibs and Flannel wins at Beverley, April 22, 2010

I did not know that I was saying that Fibs would come home to me, out here on the edge of Normandy. It took some days, conversations with my husband, and phone calls, but on September 3, 2012, Fibs and Flannel stepped off a horse van from a racing yard one last time and settled into the fields of the "boucle de la Seine", not very far from Giverny and Vernon,  and La Roche-Guyon. And all because of my name on his certificate of ownership with les Haras Nationaux and a barely audible and formed promise to look out for him made when things started to look not so good. In my heart, I always knew I'd want to keep him, but in my mind I knew it would take more than what was in my heart, or maybe just that alone.

Our story since then is the one I have not told.

....

Fibs and Flannel, first canter and new colors

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

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

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

Full reach

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fibs

For Surrey Storm, the handicap might be her size

Surrey Storm's lovely backside, Cagnes

She's a lovely 3-year-old with papers to make one dream, justifiably, but she's small, and that changes how you have to pilot her through the field.

I haven't been following this closely enough long enough to know just how much this is going to figure in the trajectory of her racing career, but it doesn't seem to be irrelevant. On the other hand, I have been following this just closely enough long enough to realize that first impressions have to be analyzed and parsed far more minutely for the information that really matters.

You didn't win, and you didn't place, well, it feels like a loss, even if you weren't the very last one past the post. You placed when you really thought you had a chance to win, and it feels the same way. You placed, but less well than you expected, yeah, the same. It's a horse race. It wouldn't be a race if the outcome were certain before the gate opened, otherwise, you could all just save everyone a lot of time and travel and just stay home, have the check deposited into your account with France Galop. In a race, things happen; what's important is what happened, and how that compares to the past and your expectations, and how you will develop the game-plan to get everything possible out of the horse.

Today, Milly, the yard name for Montjeu filly Surrey Storm, ran against some horses she has met on the racetrack here in France before, and she met some new ones. She did not better her performance against her old friends, Coolita and Tangoka; but, on the bright side, neither set the track on fire, either. Coolita finished some two lengths ahead of Milly and one out in front of Tangoka, but three and change behind the winner, Joly Berengere with Ioritz Mendizabal up for trainer Maxime Cesandri. By no means shaming to Milly.

Incidentally, it was Joly Berengere who delayed the course by several minutes when she broke from her stall before the gates opened, following the track employee who ducked away before the start. Cesandri's explanation of his filly's behavior was amusing: it's a bit of a family trait, not "méchant", or "bad", just a little, he shrugged, "bébête, "silly".

So what happened in this race? What does it signify for the next decisions to be made in training and in racing for the sometimes Fleet Fairy? Not having it from the proverbial horse's mouth, I can only hazard my own semi-educated guesses, but I'll take a stab.

I watched the video, stopping it and moving it backwards periodically to look at details again to try to get a sense of what was happening throughout the race. One drawback with camera angles is their tendency to flatten depth of field at critical moments; it's very difficult to judge distances and see the details, since un cheval en cache un autre, rather like, we are warned at train crossings here in France, trains; one horse hides another and her jockey. It's clear enough from the grandstand to the backstretch, and then when they switch cameras to a side or slightly to the rear angle in a turn, and once again when they are closing on the post, but a lot can get lost in that analysis.

Breaking from the gate, Milly ran easily enough with a nice action, overtaking several horses. Jockey Fabien Lefevbre settled her in behind the front runner and favorite, Zoe, flanked by Shiny Dream on the inside, with Distant Symphony a nose ahead on her outside in 3rd, followed right behind by Aponi in 5th. Coming out of the first turn, she's still in 4th place running alongside Distant Symphony, in "good position", as the announcer says, and a half length in front of Aponi.

The announcer remarks on the relatively easy-going pace of the race with Coolita showing a "brilliant" early effort, and Lady Ohara sitting patient on the outside at the rear of the pack. Joly Berengere begins to make her bid, overtaking Coolita and coming up on Zoe, who is still out in front, followed by Aponi in her wake. Right behind Joly Berengere is Distant Symphony, followed by Milly.

Just before the middle of the race, though, things begin to change, right about the moment that Fabien Lefebvre turns around in the saddle to look over his right shoulder at the horses behind him. There appears to be a jockeying for position. Held against the rail, it looks like Fabien is looking to see if he can move toward the outside without interfering with the horses just behind him and on the outside. It looks like there's a little contact and shuffling with Distant Symphony, whose jockey is looking for a way out, as well. Finally, he holds his place, and Milly drops back to the 8th or the 9th position, tight against the rail, where she stays, unfortunately, out maneuvered by the horses and their jockeys on the outside.

Where, in fact, she is pinned, until it's a moot point, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Coming into the backstretch, it's still Zoe in the lead by two lengths ahead of Coolita followed by Joly Berengere with Shiny Dream on her inside, followed closely by Aponi and Lady Ohara on her outside and Distant Symphony a half length behind. Then come La Jeremiah with Milly on her inside another length back, with Tangoka putting the pressure on them a half length behind.

The field is stretching out, and when the pace picks up 350 meters from the finish line, it's Coolita who makes a bid to outrun Zoe, with Joly Berengere and Lady Ohara on the far outside coming on strong. With 200 meters to go, it's three battling for the lead: Zoe, Coolita and Joly Berengere, followed tightly by Distant Symphony on the inside, Aponi in the middle and Lady Ohara coming up fast on the outside. Milly's still there, just behind Aponi.

Coming down to the post, the leaders continue their drive to the finish and gain ground on the rest of the entries. Milly loses some to Tangoka and Distant Symphony, some five lengths behind Zoe out in front, and then Fabien raises the whip twice as Joly Berengere takes the lead, followed by Lady Ohara on the outside, a nose ahead of Zoe on the inside, Aponi's a half length back, followed by another two lengths by Coolita a length ahead of Shiny Dream on the inside and Tangoka on the outside, just ahead of Milly, Surrey Storm in 8th place. She holds her pace, continues to stretch, and while she didn't overtake any horses, she wasn't passed, either. She simply didn't have it to pose a serious threat to the five crossing the finish line first, while Tangoka still looked to be within her reach. The question is why, because she wasn't exhausted.

The draw of the second position from the rail might have played into it, but she drew the number 1 spot last start and finished fifth, but it was with a smaller, more stretched-out field, in a race in which she was never seriously blocked against the rail and could have made a move to the outside at almost any moment, and did when the hole presented itself in the homestretch. It was an entirely different geometry. The only serious possibility of attack in this race came from the outside, as Lady Ohara demonstrated, and Milly couldn't get there.

The surface might have played a role, as well. Her last race was on the fibersand, whereas today was on a turf track judged soft by France Galop, and, then, there was the distance at 200 meters longer.

And, finally, or perhaps not finally -- I might have missed some things --, weight could be a factor. Little Milly carried an additional kg, equivalent to one place, over the distance, moving up from 56kg to 57kg, the weight most of the entrants was carrying. Only Aponi and Zoe were carrying less, at 54.5kg and 53.5kg, respectively.

The good points to take away were that she didn't give up, she held her own in the final stretch, and she was in the race, and Milly's 3-year-old season is young. She might suddenly become a big, strong filly, but she'll get stronger and she'll draw luckier places in the larger fields, and with each race, her trainer Gina Rarick will know better what to ask of her, and of her jockey, given the way the dice have fallen on race day.

Being the Fleet Fairy that she is, Surrey Storm requires a smaller hole to thread than a larger horse, and can perhaps do it more quickly, even she doesn't get "shuffled back" first.
....

Another day at the office for Deep Ocean

After the race, a shower

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

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

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

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

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

Nerve-wracking.

Listen, though, to Gina, and learn something.

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

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

It does not work the other way.

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




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

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

Most likely, I will not be there in person to see her do either, earn a check or win, but I will be watching on television, and probably taking pictures, anyway.
....

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.
....

Colors

Deep, Magic and Milly

It is time to choose my colors. I know nothing about how this works in other countries, including my country of origin, but I am learning how it works here, how one goes about becoming an owner in the France Galop system. Like all things about which one starts by knowing nothing, it is not pour autant a secret. The site tells one how to go about it, in both French and English.

You do not need to be a resident of France, nor do you need to know anything about horse racing, although that is probably helpful, if you would like to recuperate any portion of your expenditure. 

You do need an income or assets, not necessarily wealth, although that is always definitely helpful (and appreciated), to pay the horse's keep and racing costs, or a part of them if you are an associé, or part owner with a leg, or two or three. 

You must also be a person of some moral decency, which will, in the course of things, be determined by the police and the Ministry of the Interior. 

You do not need taste, when it comes to picking out your colors, but it's always nice for everyone else, and your horse and his or her trainer.

And, you do, of course, need a trainer, but that's how I got myself into this, after all.

The colors and the patterns

France Galop offers you a palette of authorized colors from which to chose, as well as a tool to select different combinations of principal and accent colors and motifs. You are limited to two colors, but you may have three, exceptionnellement. Nothing, however, tells you anywhere what constitutes the grounds of the exception allowed. Perhaps you simply submit your choice and see what they say. If they are in a good mood, you get the exception granted.

This is la France, après tout.

As you work with the color tool, selecting various combinations, the system will tell you if the combination has already been attributed to an owner, and if so, who owns it and from what date. It will also tell you if the colors have been subject to a succession, if such is the case. I found that the combinations of red and black that remain available are severely limited. On the other hand, any combination of orange and grenat, or garnet, is. My chosen trainer is not partial to orange, however, whereas I am, and even painted an entire (small) guest room in  it, with the exception of one wall, and I would do it again. I do want my trainer happy, though, and I am left to suppose that she is not the only one in France who is left cold by the color orange.

I'll have to give Gina the other guest room, if ever she leaves Maisons-Laffitte to stay in MSX. For the moment, it is occupied by my stepson, anyway.

I believe I have made my choice, however, although I will not share it until the silks are made up, and my first jockey is riding out on my first horse -- or leg or two of one -- in them. My wish was for them to be simple, elegant, visible and to go with the coat of any horse I might ever be privileged to race and possibly see win, or place. I discovered, playing with the tool, that you know the right, or next best (you must submit three possibilities to France Galop), combination when you see it, and you can't help secretly hoping that those silks might one day be made famous by a horse of exception, which is extremely unlikely, although since the part of chance is always present in thoroughbred racing, never out of the question Like when the seventy-something-year-old retired high school principal Tom McCarthy's $17,000 horse General Quarters ran in the 2009 Kentucky Derby and came in 10th to Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum of Godolphin Racing's $2.1 million horse, Desert Party, who finished 14th in a 19-horse field. 

A note: Sheik Mohammed spends upwards of $45 million a year on horses. Tom McCarthy has precisely 1 horse in his stables on a 13-acre farm in suburban Louisville.

Gina is more along the lines of Tom McCarthy, a small outfit in a major training center. Her's is a "boutique" stable of fewer than 10 horses at the moment, focusing on the owners' experience and making the world of horse racing accessible to the biggest dreamers with not always with wallets to match, who came to their passion like nearly anyone with a taste for reading born after 1941, through The Black Stallion series. Talking the other morning with my stepdaughter and another pitchfork wielding owner at the yards, I listened to how he came to horse racing, and I was hearing my own story, separated by only a handful of years and an ocean. A little boy, growing up in France just before this little girl did in the United States, read about Alec Ramsay and Henry Dailey, come out of retirement to train a horse he knows is exceptional. 

A warning: Be careful what you read when you are a child, you might just live some aspect of it one day. Like my fairy tales, I married my French prince (désargenté, hélas), live in the French countryside with our black labs, and have frogs in a basin in front of the living room French door. I threaten regularly to kiss them. 


L'on peut toujours rêver de plus.

I wouldn't necessarily bet on a horse, but I will support a yard and a trainer's work, learning until I might (or might not) have the means to participate in the choice of the horse whose jockey will wear my colors and no one else's and win in them. For now, Gina goes to Newmarket and returns with 2, 3 and 4-year-olds, who, while they won't be candidates for the Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp, can win and place regularly enough in smaller stakes races, and in order to do that, a trainer needs the support of owners who believe in the quality of her work and dedication to her horses and their owners, who get to simultaneously live their secret ambitions to be a first groom, or at least a lad, and take care of theirs and the other owners' horses.

It's a little scary, though. I know the value of money, the money I have earned, as well as the money anyone else earns, and I am learning about the risks of the thoroughbred stables: colic, viruses, and cracked foot bones that will put a horse out of racing for a race, several weeks, or even several months. If it's the "other owner's" horse, you feel sympathy for him, or her, or them, and for the trainer. If it's your horse, you take a big breath. There goes several weeks' or months' of fees, without any possibility to earn them back on the track, and maybe make a little something for your next horse, vacation or the entry addition to the house.

With all the best of intentions and practices, someone's horse won't be racing for some period of time at nearly any given time. There are no magic solutions or incantations, no silver bullets against illness or injury. One day, a given horse is fine, and you are looking to race her the next week at Deauville. The next day, you walk into her stable, and she is standing on 3 legs. When you move, you notice she hops on all three to shift position and you realize, "Oh shit, she can't put that fourth hoof on the floor," and you call the vet. An earnest roller after a work-out, she has slammed her hoof into the concrete block wall and fractured the third bone. A clean fracture the length of the bone without any displacement, anyway; she'll run again, and sooner than later, but she's out 4 months. That's Magic's story.


Time to open a Baskin 'n Robbins in Maisons-Laffitte.

It wouldn't matter if you had padded the walls; she'd likely have shredded the padding and hurt herself worse, possibly on a metal support beyond, like Hi Shinko did. It wouldn't matter if you have made the stables of rubber, which was the case when another horse, waking from the anesthesia after its gelding, somehow died in his box. Like Gina says, for such strong creatures, horses are fragile, "they will be walking and trip and break something, or walk into a tree and break something." A curious combination not only of strength and fragility, but of intelligence and silliness. 

If you are going to send your owner's application into France Galop, you have to be ready to take it all on, and know your limits. It's a little scary, but how will you ever know where you could have gone if you never begin?
....

Maisons-Laffitte, la piste noire