The Toe Grab Rule

Well, yesterday was not intolerable, but I only got on seven horses; there’s a 50-50 chance of no training this morning, on account of it having snowed yet more, a fairly wet snow, meaning a fair amount of large clods of ice over the surface of the track. We’ll see…

The other day I had surfed on over (on my computer) to the female jockeys website of Chris Forbes’. I forget what I had originally been looking for, but I nearly always stop and check the interviews. So I was scrolling through them and noticed that Vicki Baze had one. I had never see it before, and the preamble said that she has her own business since retiring. I’m like, “oh, what business?” the name was Bon Chance Horse Shoes. First I thought maybe she was manufacturing horseshoes, but I went to the web site and what she's doing is creating decorated horse shoes.

These are really nice, and I suggest you check it out. The economy being what it is, these would make great wedding gifts, Graduations, and all-around notions to get for people when you just want to wish them luck. The stuff used to decorate them is quality stuff- beads and ribbons; as I said, you ought to check it out. (BTW, She didn't request that I place this link here, but I don't think she'd mind that I have.)

So getting back to what I was doing.. when I saw all the shoes, my first thought was Ed Burkle, my asshole boss! Because, if I haven’t already said something about it, there is a new rule in place that has affected us, as well as other tracks aross the country. Here at Mountaineer (as of Dec. 1st) horsemen are prohibited from using toe grabs that are over 2 mm. high on the front shoes.

This means that here at Burkle's Turf Supply we have a lot of obsolete shoes laying around right now. Ed keeps saying to me "one of these days we’re gonna spend a few hours grinding the toe grabs off of these.” (You know; with a bench grinder.)

I’m not enamored of doing this, mainly because I think it is a waste of time and probably something we’ll never get around to doing anyway. So when I saw all those fancy horseshoes at Vicki’s store, all I could think was “holy crap…There’s our ace! We’ll get rid of all these shoes by selling ‘em to Vicki!”

My mind even flashed to the blocks, stickers, jar caulks and other odd and barbarian-looking designs, some of which have been gracing the shop for a couple of decades. (Ed gets stuck with merchandise that goes out of favor after a trend passes. Like those freaking cowboy boots….) It’s like being in a museum sometimes.

I quickly penned Vicki an email, introducing myself and asking her about the shoes. She got back to me quicker than I thought. But the news was not the win-win situation I was hoping for;


“….I did just the same thing to help… (Northwest Horseshoe in Seattle)... They sold me at cost all of the toe-grab horseshoes. And although I don't usually use those ones, I found that I could use them in one particular design that I use the turquoise beading. I just bought a 100 pair and also stocked up last week. My main horseshoe that I use is the Victory Elite double 00 and I use thorobred's sidewinder……saddlehorse and barrel racing horseshoes.

Gosh, if I could have known earlier...”


Burkle said it was at least a nice gesture on my part. So it looks like we’re still on for the grab-grinding, unless I can think of something else.