The Far Turn

The Snubby Days of Autumn

2009-11-16T03:21:00.000-08:00

I suppose it’s true that the economy has hit us all, but here at the track the impact is articulated as the newest handy excuse for low pay, slow pay, and no pay. At the same time; a gal like me can handle it; I’ve got a man to lean on, a savings to go through, a house to sell, and other talents to trade. But nothing smarts like disrespect, and for a gal in my shoes this is articulated as low pay, slow pay and no pay.

If one of my clients has more than one gallop girl, and one of those gallop girls is a man, the man gets paid, on time, and in full. The girl (that would be me) gets the excuse. Sometimes she doesn’t even get that unless she asks.

If the man gallops the 2-year old that’s never seen the track, compensation is assumed to be $20. You don’t snub a guy with $10. And that’s the whole ball of wax, right there; you don’t snub the guy with $10. That’s an insult. And you don’t say you didn’t get to the ATM machine yet, and you don’t say (as the rider prepares to bounce off to the next horse with only minutes to spare before the track closes) “got change for a hundred?” or “I have a check in my truck. Got a pen?”

Everyone knows riders don’t carry pens or anything resembling pens, pencils or long narrow sharp objects with them. If no one ever impaled themself with a pen, it’s still unlucky and everyone knows this. Just like not using tape over support bandages; why tempt fate?

So after the rider put his ass on the line for you, you snub him. You might as well ask for a fistfight.

That’s what all bar fights are about: disrespect. You flirt with a guy’s girlfriend; you say something emasculating about a guy; you say something emasculating about something a guy identifies with, like his politics or his sports team, and it’s on, so there’s no debating the fact that men are very sensitive creatures who don’t like to be crossed. I don't even have to be a guy to know this; but people seem to be unaware of the fact that sunbbery isn't lost on us women.

I may not have as much testosterone, but I never miss a snub. My days have been very snubby lately, and it’s really pissing me off.

I’m considering not coming to work in the hope that some of my snubbers will capitulate, but I hate to make them suffer for the misdeeds of others.

SHOULDA, WOULDA, COULDA... Maybe Next Time.

2009-10-17T01:47:00.000-07:00

Well, here’s another great bet I missed out on:

For any of you Facebook friends who have been reading this; my trainer buddy Jessie Pizzuro had been sent a 2-year-old horse to get him OK’d to start. She has a photo of the horse in question among her pages (though I don't know if you would get to see it). The thing about Mountaineer Park is that it’s a great place to do this because every Saturday morning we have a schooling race. This takes place at 8:30 and is one of those things I would, if I happened to be in Marketing or Media Relations, highly recommend and advertise for people to watch. But if I were in media relations, I would make spectators aware of every little nuance in the sport before during and after a race. What do I know, though? I’m only a spectator who got too close.

Anyway, Little Chestnut (our nickname for him, for he’s a small red coated horse) was sent to her by a trainer at Charles Town to get OK’d in the schooling race. The first time he went, he was fractious and broke poorly. Although he had done lots of gate work at a training center, we learned that he was mentally unprepared to handle his new surroundings. But other than that, he was a good mannered and willing youngster…with some shining early talent!

In horse racing there’s more than one kind of fast. Little Chestnut’s kind of fast is that he doesn’t cut blistering fractions, but has a ground-covering stride (for a little guy) coupled with exceptional endurance. He’s kind of horse that has enough speed to place himself at a strategic advantage early and enough stamina to wear down any rivals in the final stretch.

The first thing we noticed was that he didn’t get tired, ever. He could gallop two miles and not take a deep breath, and could be hard to pull up after only one mile. He also had a nicely balanced body and a smooth way of going. Everybody liked him, and physically he was precocious enough to overcome both emotional immaturity and bad racing luck. All we had to do was get him OK’d. He was very smart, if just a tad high strung.

We spent the next week or two returning him to the Mountaineer Park gate and getting him used to the environment and procedure. The repetition was agreeable to him; he got the OK, but he didn't get to run at Mountaineer. He returned to the training center. I kept meaning to put him in my Virtual Stable. *

So you know the rest of the story, don't you? I never put him in my virtual stable. The first time I got the news that he ran, I asked:
“Did he win?”
Reply: No. (He ran 6th or something).
Whew, still time. Gotta do that. Put him in my stable...Then he ran again:
“Did he win?”
Reply: He ran third.
By now any savvy horse-playing gallop girl SHOULDA gotten their ass on top of the matter. But Me? I have one excuse; I WOULDA, but I’m not a horseplayer.

I COULDA, but I’m a bloody idiot.

Did you view the chart? In case you don’t read these well, he paid $35 bucks. If I bet just $10 to win on him, I make $115. Never mind wheeling an exacta with him on top; that would have cost me $18 and I would have netted $432.

And the thing about it is that these are the once in a lifetime chances. He’ll never have a chance to be that kind of overlay again. In fact I’m a bit surprised that he went off at such a price, but that’s why it’s so special. I don’t even have to be near him to know that his last start, where he finished third, was no accident at all. Most people don’t like to bet maidens, but when you get on them every day you get to knowing when you’re sitting on one that has the ability, the will and the education to run a winning race.

Yes, it’s truly a thrill when you think to yourself; “and I got that horse ready”, or “I helped get that horse ready” when you see that it won. And nothing adds to that thrill more than; “yup. I blew it again. SHOULDA, WOULDA, COULDA. Maybe next time...”
....which then you have to wait until another one comes around like that. Honest to God. $35!

*I know I have readers who aren’t familiar with horse racing, so for those people - the Virtual Stable is the Fantasy Horseracing counterpart to fantasy football; you get notified when your selected performers will be performing. If you’re interested, here’s a bit about the Virtual Stable offered by Equibase.

Becoming a Rider Who............

2009-10-08T23:53:00.000-07:00

My computer was in the crapper for a couple of days. After attempting to fix it I handed it off to my tech guy who said the OS could not be repaird so he had to do a clean install. Cost me $40 but I'm glad to have given him the business. He lost his job and has a big nut to hang onto, although his wife is a nurse and that helps with the bills and the two kids and three massive Bull Terriers they rescued.

My young friend Erin chose not to return to college this fall, and is hoping to find a job in Florida for the winter, preferably with racehorses. I can see that she wants to gallop, and I know that she wants to learn about breaking and training horses, although from there it's anyone's guess what she might get into. The one big strike she's had from the beginning is that like me, she lacks background. Don't get me wrong; she has done many other things and is good at them, and that doesn't hurt - tobe educated never hurts. The bad part is that kids with absolutely no other talents or interestes have spent a lot more time in their lives riding their horses. That they have had more hours in the saddle shows.

I'm going to digress for a moment about author Malcolm Gladwell's most recent work, called Outliers. Not gonna explain what the name means, but in the first chapter he demonstrates a phenomenon about the top Canadian hockey players; all of the big stars were born in the first three months of the year (with maybe one or two exceptions). The relative maturity and potential opportunity level of these players compared to their younger counterparts translates, he argues, to their success.

The reason is that when the skills evaluations come for these players they are not classified according to their chronological age. They are evaluated at their school's class level. The older one is at the time of evaluation, the more developed the skills are likely to be. In addition to having the advantage in the test scenario, these older boys have generally had more time on the ice, which has improved their skills over their younger classmates. This happens from year to year as they are evaluated at every grade level. Since the older ones at age 7 and 8 are visibly superior, they wind up with more ice time from then on, right through their senior high school years.

One of the conclusions from the book is that there is a magic number for developing skills in anything. That number is about 10,000 hours. For the average person, this would be roughly ten years. Obviously, for the student Hockey player born in July, ten years could take longer if he spent more time on the bench than the ice.

With racehorses, everyone knows that June foals don't make promising derby prospects; everyone wants to be born on January 1st, becaue all thoroughbred birthdays are dated January 1st; even the ones that are only five or six months old. You can't be ready to run in a race for three-year-olds when you are only two-and-a-half, much less win it.

But the brain doesn't forget anything, although neural pathways can become rusty with time; two hours here and two hours there still mean something provided the brain isn't damaged by age or injury. Can she ever be perfect, or does that mean she'll even be as good or as talented as anybody else, because she's starting out with a disadvantage?

I'm not done digressing; Gladwell also presents evidence for another case in his book; Your IQ may measure your intelligence and prove you smarter than the next guy, but for all practical purposes (at least in our current culture) the last ten or twenty points doesn't reward the owner of the genius brain. The bottom line, for my purposes, is; you don't have to actually be the best; you only have to be "good enough" in Gladwell's own words.

These things I'm talking about can be argued somewhere else; all I am saying is that there is evidence to support the points I want to make; if it works for you I'm glad. It definitely works for me.

The point I am going to make here is this, and now I am gonna bring us back to my living room and my friend Erin:

Give Erin more hours in the saddle and she will ride good enough to enjoy the rest of her career in riding.The same will hold true for other areas of learning that she will be undertaking as she goes out into the cruel world of work, where at some time or another she will be evaluated as incompetent, incapable, unguideable, or all three.

At Erin"s current level of riding, she is going to find a lot more work on the ground than in the saddle. Once she passes a critical point, she'll get more opportunities, but she'll find it frustrating I'm sure. I came around the same way. I had a limited amount of hours in the saddle and it was difficult to find learning opportunitied once I got out into the real world. I remember after my stint at the Ranch, my first job was as a show groom. I worked for Ellin Dixon, a member of the Widener family, at their Estate just north of Philadelphia County, in Flourtown. I had always wanted to work there but the job wasn't a riding one. I spent a month working as an Au Pair girl for a family near Kennett Square, but although I got to ride, it wasn't nearly as much as I had hoped it would be. The greatest thing that hapd for me while I was there was that I bought my Caliente helmet, and I have had it ever since.

I went to Lavery Farm, in Ocala, and my very first job when I pulled into the farm was to wash the dogs, Mickey Minnie and Sean (Airdales). But I did get to ride there. I spent my summer as a groom at Finger Lakes Racetrack near Rochester, NY. My second year there I broke my knee and Mrs. Lavery said I would never ride at her farm again so I thought I was useless and should give up. So after I recovered I went back to Philadelphia, and did several meaningless jobs; Worked at resturants; Bain's, La Conversacion, Fratelli's, in various positions. I spent three months actually trying to sell Encyclopedias, but I was so afraid of people and had so little self-confidence I never sold any - at least, not to anyone who's credit passed the inspection. I took a two weekend course on how to do TV commercials, given by one of the original TyD Bowl men (forget his name). Cost $90. I was so broke by the time I went back to College at Alfred that I couldn't pay attention.

During school, I found a job and a place to stay with a local farmer named Harry - who happened to have racehorses. Between academic seasons I went back to Finger Lakes for a summer job. You can really make a lot of cash at the track. When you're a kid, you have nothing but time - no responsibilities, nobody to answer to. You can freelance all day long and make a ton. I bought a car and insurance. When I left college, I finally managed to get a gallop license at Finger Lakes, thanks mostly to Harry, who let me gallop his horses whenever we shipped up there. I was breaking them on the farm, so I fit them well at the track. So what did I do but go to California to see the west coast and amke six bucks a gallop instead of three.

GOing to CA was like starting all over again. I found myself on the ground. I tlooked like my only chance at getting my license at Golden Gate was gonna be if I slept with the Outrider, whose offer I declined. Unfortunately I couln't stay way from men. They were like flies, everywhere and they never stopped asking me, if not for a lay, then for a date, at least...Then this fellow Scott Simmons finally managed to wrap himself around me. Men are wonderful, but if you want to pursue a career you have to be with one who supports you in yor dreams; not demands your attention. Scott could've been worse, but he altered my focus from what I really wanted. The upside however, was no more harassment from anybody; including Outrider Ben.

I got into a car accident and after 8 months was awarded a settlement thagt I used to live on until I could finally support myself galloping. I had a car, a 1950 plymouth that I drove all the way to San Mateo every day, where that outrider let me have a license (without the vulgar gratuity attached) and I jogged horses (really still coudln't gallop yet, not very well). Finally one day when the San Mateo County fair was running, a quarter horse man asked me if I wanted to go to TX. Austin, to be exact. There, at Manor downs, hesaid, there wa snot a single gallop person, and I could gallop probably for everyone there.

Off I went to TX in the 1950 Plymouth. And it was there that this family, the MacArthurs, put me through the gymnastics that finally made a rider out of me. They put me in the round pen on the pony with no bridle and chased me around in circles. "Lean back", they kept saying; "LEAN BACK!" Aftera couple of days I coudl actually lean back till my head almost touched th epony's rump. Two other gallop people showed up and I still had to take less opportunities than I had hoped for, but finally, one day;

I was galloping one of the fillies that was sceduled for an upcoming futurity trial (not one of the outfits favorites, so I got to ride her). I was feeling a little tired and I stretched my legs out and almost locked my knees. My toes turned in and my feet went forward. Two old fellows went past me on a pair of colts and they both exclaimed in unison, and I will never forget this as long as I live; "She dit it! She got it!"

So I finally had my seat. I began trying in 1979, and here it was 1988. Probably one of the slowest career development of all time. That wasn't my call; if I had been born to a racing family I would have been doing it since I was ten. But it took me ten years to get about half the hours I needed to really be adequate. Anyway, I returned to Finger Lakes in the Fall of 1988, and after two more years (roughly) I was what I would call capable. All along the way, people said I wouldn't beable to. Harry said it; Mrs. Lavery said it; Outrider Ben said it; the MacArthur's shook their heads, God bless 'em....and al that time there was only one thing that kept me clinging to my hopes: I was more afraid of my unwillingness to do anythign else than I was of my inability to ride a horse.

Even now I have a hard time imagining doing a J.O.B.. I'm afraid I'd call in sick fivedays in a row and then just tell whoever hired me the truth; I really just don;t want to do it...

If I can help Erin avoid the time and trouble I could not, I will have made a difference in my life.

And now I'm gonna get some shuteye before I have to go to work. I have 3 hours!

The ROAP Video Exam; Better Late Than Never, I guess

2009-10-08T03:10:00.000-07:00

Finally I hear we are going to get to take the review test for the video portion of the ROAP exam. The whole thing has been nonsense from the beginning. Still, I am not placing blame on anybody. The course is still taught largely bro-bono by experts in the various areas of racing, so;

a) The people who know how to watch a video are also the people that made the video.

b) These people know how to watch a video, but not how to make one.

SO, for their sake I am going to explain how to do this.

Making a Video of 8 Races:

1) Make sure all of your footage is in the same video format; if you are a video idio(t), you just get out your trust-y file conversion software (AVS4YOU is a good one, and only about $50 for more functions than you will ever need). Follow the simple instructions. It's easier than bakin' a cake.

2) Once you have all your converted files (properly labeled, of course. You know how to label a file). For our purposes, let's say you have them in Windows format. That's a popular format (WMA, WMV)

3) Place the clip you plan to use first in your trust-y movie-making software (such as the popular Windows Movie Maker).

4) Add text to your movie clip: Let's assume you have three views of each race; the Pan, the Head on, and Mountaineer would be the 3/8 Pole. SO you put the cursor at the beginning and click on "add text", And when the application pops up, Put your text in; "Race #1; Pan Shot. Then, at the junction between the Pan and the Head on, place your cursor and click Add text. At this point, you want to see if you can let maybe twenty or thirty seconds to pass, and that's easy enough, although I can't tell you exactly how to do it. But it's all in english and it's intuitive design; it'll be right there.

Then, once you're done with that, do the same thing for the 3/8 Shot.

And that wraps up video # 1.

5) do this will all 8 or 12 clips, making sure to label and run some blank time in between each view.

6) Place them all together in the same folder, and make sure that you have them labeled so that they fall naturally in order whenever you open it. To do so , you might have to label them so: 0001, 0002, or you might not. Just make sure they are in the order you want them so that they fall in the same order as your programs on the paper portion of the test.

7) take that folder and put it on a CD. If there is too much data, put it on a memory stick with sufficient memory to store all the videos.

8) be smart: make sure you have a copy of the program on the same storage module.

9) Now, check it out; when you place it on your computer, all you have to do is highlight all ofthe video files and load them into your media player (presumably Windows). You should, if you have the information viewable (on the right side) see each race; race #1, Race#2 and so on, queued in order. You can watch each video separately, one at a time. That way, if the person viewing needs to back up, they will not accidentally back past the point they want to see, which in the original video form has meant as far as a race or two prior.

That's the complaint; you can't review, because it's what I would call a Jumbalaya. Everything' s in there, but none of it is identifiable for what it is. It's a single hour-long video. One can't slide a slider that infinitesimal distance to find a review point, causing people to run over time and fail the exam.

10) be proud of your students because now they can all pass the freakin' test.

The Thoroughbred Stimulus Program

2009-10-03T19:49:00.000-07:00

I meant to say that with regard to Casey’s Girl, the filly that won last week, was bred by one of my Facebook (and originally a Mountaineer person), Jennifer Brooks. This means that all the money Casey has earned so far this year (about 12,000) PLUS any other dough she racks up will be awarded to Jen next February.

Due to the tireless efforts of the West Virginia Breeders Association to fatten the wallet of the WV Thoroughbred Development Fund, we now have lotsa Government $$ to compete for.

And not only that, but Lori also gets money in February just for being the current owner. This is not the actual money she earned, the purse money has been paid out already. This is the equivalent of a matching fund! There’s nothing better then knowing that if you can just make it to the second month of the year, you’ll be able to buy oats for your horses and shoes for your kids.

Last spring, Lori had surgery done on both of her home-breds. One had a slab fracture of the knee and one had a fractured cannon bone. Believe it or not, they both apparently won their respective races with these injuries; a testament especially to Mercy, the little chestnut and older sister.

She would go out to train twice a week, and although she would be falling down sore, the vet couldn’t see anything on his x-rays, so she had to keep going. This is a true dilemma for a horseman (woman). You have spent four months getting your young horse fit enough to run, you’ve run it several times and now it’s fit enough to win. It also has clearly understood the nature of the game and what’s at stake.

Everything’s ready; you’re on “go”, and suddenly the horse is limping.

You’ve spent a thousand dollars just on exercise bills (just on me – that’s my job; Exercise). 14 weeks of feed – about 14 bags at 15 bucks a pop, so that’s $210, plus at least 4 bales of straw for bedding a week at 3 bucks, $170, hay 2 bales a week at 5.00, $140, and of course there are the supplements; You’ve got your 30 days of vitamins; roughly $50 so that’s bit over $150, plus you hafta have an iron supplement ($16 x 3), a glucosamine / msm source ($12.95 x 3), and some B1 if he or she is nervous, or some other supplement the vet says your trainee could be lacking.

Then, you have 3 visits from the farrier, $300, one visit from the tooth fairy (dentist) $50, and visits from (or to) the horsie doc for snotty nose, cough, a touch of colic or bouts of tying up syndrome (sever muscle cramps that can nearly immobilize a horse and cause it to drop to the ground if not kept moving or given pain relief). And don’t forget to add the cost of prescriptions: Sulfa, Penicillin, Bute, Banamine, Electrolytes, DMSO, Tagamet, Clenbuterol, Lasix (I’m surprised the French haven’t accused Uncle Sam of biological warfare).

Cha-ching! Total: about $2500. In the meantime, you have nothing coming in, because your job is training the horse, so you hafta pay all your other bills, too. Plus the horse doesn’t win right away; it’s still learning and by the time it’s ready to win it may have raced several times, adding two more months of expenses PLUS the costs of race day medication, and someone to assist you for the event (that’s if it can win because maybe it can’t but you don’t know ‘til you’ve tested it).

You’ve emptied your checking account and maxed-out your credit, and your horse is ready to bail you out with a tremendous performance in which it must best nine others like itself backed by nine others like you, and now the horse is lame.

You have a choice: to scratch the horse and feed it for another two weeks and hope that’s all it will be laid up for, then work another week to get it back to where you want it before you can enter again (except you can’t afford to buy the straw, the hay and the shoes for another three weeks), or run the horse. So unless the vet can tell you not to, you run.

That’s a way of life for a lot of horseman, and especially true for horsemen here at Mountaineer Park; unless they have really strong backing from owners that have tons of dough and no place to spend it. In fact, a favorite saying of racehorse people is that you can build a small fortune in this business - provided you begin with a large one. There are very few people who can afford to do that.

Asking why we do what we do is like asking why anyone would be trying to climb the Corporate ladder…We like working with horses, dressing casual every day, telling dirty jokes at the top of our lungs and harassing each other needlessly. And if you leave the track and go to the farms and keep going to all the places that have a few racehorses, you discover why this industry is so important. It employs a lot of people.

And I’m sure if you ask a horseman about their animals, their replies would demonstrate that most of them do love their horses, and love the seven days a week with no sick days or holidays. The reason I do it is that I have to have my work be my play, or else I’m just doing a job. And I had to cover my social life while working because when I’m done then I want to go home and be by myself, which I also love. And it saves money if you never have to go out at night ‘cuz out’s where you go when you leave the house every morning. So I have it all. All except money and power.

But I digress; while the whole point of the Thoroughbred Development fund is to improve the breed in the state of West Virginia, and whether it does actually do that remains to be seen, the one thing I can say with certainty is that February is Christmas for the horsemen of the Northern Panhandle. Without it I don't know what we'd do right now, as bad as the economy has been.

The Girl Loves Horses

2009-09-29T01:52:00.000-07:00

Much has happened since I last posted.

I had a really bad couple of days at work.

I thought I was gonna have a meltdown on account of trying to get things going faster and then suddenly not having anything to do, but that has been reconciled.

My friend and protégé Erin is having her share of difficulties getting started at the racetrack – nobody wants to use her until she has some experience and she can’t get any experience unless someone uses her – and I have suddenly been too busy to help her. The bad horses I was getting made me believe I was causing them; by just agreeing to help the wrong people, or by being inattentive and preoccupied.

I was having trouble communicating my desire to get paid for my work. That issue resolved itself into having even more trouble getting paid, but less trouble communicating about it.

Finally everything broke through and I feel like things couldn’t be better and to top it off, people are thanking me for all kinds of stuff. The money is still slow, but the economy has hit us, too.

It has been cloudy and rainy for a few days and began to rain just as things were winding down Friday morning. My clients are not quite fast enough to enable me to get on 10 or 11 a day, but that has been my choice. I love the people I work for, and feel that it’s somehow wrong to bark out “rush rush rush” all the time.

It can’t be all about money for me at work. It has to be about the horse. I want to ride them to the track and back to the barn and I don’t like people having to lead them down there for me and switch off at the bottom of the hill. If, to do it consciously and without getting all flustered means taking those few extra minutes helping tack up or riding back and forth, I’m happy with that when the people I work with have done what they can to have everything go smoothly.

I’m not getting on six before the break every day as I wished. But I’m satisfied because I let go of my own self-pity long enough to say what I needed. The extra effort to make things go smoothly for me makes me feel appreciated, and I think that is all any of us really want, more than money.

So YESTERDAY…NO, THE DAY BEFORE yesterday, I went out galloping with Erin, who had asked me to help her get a summer job at the track and is now attempting to get up to galloping. She’s too big to be a jock, but loves the track and racehorses - at least so far, better than anything else. She’s galloping a horse we call Captain that is a little too green for her. He isn’t bad, but he won’t go forward. Looks to be that although he's been gelded, his testosterone is still elevated, and especially with male colts you really have to get behind the engine and get them to scoot forward.

The thing about us humans is we like to use our hands to hang on, and most of us, to do this, must lean forward to have a grasp of some part of the horse. It doesn’t come naturally to lean back. Still, it makes more sense to do this when on horseback. That is, if you are short of the level of impulsion that you desire.

If a panther jumps on the horse’s shoulder, the horse will duck away, either left, right, or backwards. Thousands of generations of horses have learned this at the cellular level; it’s a reflex just like jumping when frightened. Lots of weight on the shoulders begs that reflex.

On the other hand, if the panther jumps on the horse’s ass, the horse goes forward.

So it makes sense to get back on the horse’s ass to get it to go forward, except that our instinct is to reach for the closest thing. So we reflexively lean forward and grasp the horse’s mane. In doing so, most people allow their entire body to shift forward – from the hips. But that reflex actually threatens to trigger the horse’s reflex. Or worse, it does trigger that reflex and the horse winds up running free and unhindered probably somewhere in the direction from whence the two of you came.

Older horses who have learned “all about riders” are incidentally kind enough to overlook the mistake, opting instead to go faster. (Actually, that's a sort of tounge-in-cheek joke; because half the reason so many novice gallop people get run off with, only to hang on more tightly, only to get run off with even worse, and on and on... )

It’s difficult to resist the impulse to hang on in that fashion, and it takes a certain amount of inner thigh muscle development. You have to be able to sit with your ass back and your feet forward. That’s at least part of why you can tell someone what to do, but they will look like they aren’t listening; they think they’re doing it, or they’re trying to do it, but it’s just not there yet.

So Erin is riding a bit too far forward and horse is confused. As soon as she gets her center of balance farther back on Captain he’ll go forward instinctively, then he’ll have learned something, too! Then she can stop clucking and tickling him with her stick; right now he has no idea why she is doing this.

After she gets it down pat, she probably won’t remember how to do it the wrong way, but until she does, the horse cannot learn what she wants.

Bear in mind, he also probably wants to play and maybe be mischievous, because after all, he’s a young horse and that’s what’s fun about being a young horse; telling jokes and being spontaneous. In fact what's happening with Erin is that Captain thinks she's playing a game and he's honestly trying to accomodate her. He has no concept of the reality of racing looming in the near future.

I shoudn't digress so far, but I want to add that when you change the scenario it changes the dynamic; place Captain beside anther horse for a week, and his attention will focus on the other horse as playmate, and allow the rider to play a more dominant role as coach.

Cassie has the same problem when she rides him, although she has more hours in the saddle and is a little farther along than Erin. Nobody wants to let the horse’s head go but it's awfully hard to steer when they get behind the bit, which is what Captain is doing. Learning to play with the rider instead of gallop can be counter-productive. Nobody wants a racehorse that tells jokes and is spontaneous when the objective is winning a race.

Poor John Holder needs Junior to pay for his oats in five months, not plod around bobbing his head and kicking the air!

Which reminds me that Captain is a beautiful gelding. I took a video of him with Erin aboard.

And that brings me to the next exciting event of late; that this young woman actually came to visit when I invited her over. I wanted to tell her about my career and how it sucked. No, no, actually it didn’t suck; it was fantastic and I’m so glad to have had it. But my career was about experiencing life and learning to ride any horse, as opposed to getting somewhere or becoming someone – which I still managed to do in my own little way. Oh, yeah, and having something to write about (which I haven’t even begun to do!)

So, Erin comes over on, um, Friday. A nineteen year old person might actually be my audience. It’s one thing to talk to a group, but another entirely to hang out one-on-one, at least for me. I’ve always been nervous and self-conscious about that; still she managed to put up twith me. She stayed couple of hours and I showed her all my photos and tols her about my career. After she left I realized I never said a word about being a jockey and never showed her a win photo.

The last thing I said as she was leaving was; “if you got nothing else out me jabbering at you for two hours, just know two things: first, when things suck or something bad happens, you are not alone. Whatever has happened to you has undoubtedly happened to someone else, somewhere else, at some other time. Second: when it’s good, it’s really good.”

So the next day (Saturday) she agreed to take a horse to the gate for someone she didn’t know, from the receiving barn. Everything bad that could happen happened, except for she didn’t get injured.

It was schooling race time, so he had to tell the trainer she couldn’t jog him to the gate (I guess the horse was gonna be too tough and he didn’t want her to gallop it) then she got on the track and the horse was wheeling or something and she asked Barb to help her, and Barb (the Outrider) freaked out and sent her back, after a tongue-lashing about not picking up receiving barn horses with a provisional license and anyway she (Barb) used to have the horse and it was a flipper, and what the hell was she going to the gate for?

Naturally word spread like an oil spill to poison half the back side with; “what the hell was that girl thinking?” and now she gets to carry that stigma – of having done something stupid.

Nobody seems to remember when they were just starting out and they were the stupid one. Either that or else our "village" uses strong language and sound reprimands to "raise the child". Still, I honestly think there’s an element of satisfaction whenever somebody new blows it; people have only one way of thinking, and that is, if one does something wrong, it’s bad. So when somebody new does something wrong, everyone else is happy to point it out to mitigate the seriousness of their own past offenses (which nobody remembers but them anyway).

As far as I’m concerned there is no wrong, when you are starting out. Or if there is, there's at least no bad. And there’s no right, either. There’s only trying to do whatever you can, and that is all positive, as in; it’s a three-dimensional event. Erin’s acting on her dreams and that’s a good thing. When you start with no prior experience of how to go about something, you have to make mistakes, and almost invariably that’s the first thing you do.

You have to keep going out there with the willingness to bounce left and right if you want to find the center, and bouncing left and right is bound to put you in out of bounds territory. There’s no such thing, in my opinion, as shame in making any glaring mistake. You can do wrong but it doesn’t make you bad. And you can do right and wrong at the same time, even if you are the only one who sees the right part (and you probably will be).

Anyone who does everything right the first time without introduction is lucky. If they never miss they’ve never learned. And I suppose it’s true, too, that they may have never needed to learn, but then so is it that they are lucky. They are the Lucky Few; they don’t even figure in the bell curve. The rest of us could lighten up.

I couldn’t wait to tell Erin how pumped I was that she took the initiative, but she left after that and I never found her till the next day. I told Barb I was helping her and that I was glad that she tried to do something even if it was wrong. It tells me how committed she is, that she could take that bold of a step (for readers who have no sense of what galloping out on a racetrack is like that was one scary thing to try. Some veteran gallop people will not seek work out of the receiving barn).

She doesn’t have any direction yet, though. If she’s anything like me she’ll probably go back to school later when her idea gets a little clearer and she knows what’s out there.

Anyway, I saw her the next day (Sunday) and told her. And in the meantime, Lori’s horse Casey’s Girl won, which is really great because Casey’s education was very incomplete. She was mainly conditioned on the equiciser at the farm. She was very fit but not very educated; not even to do what she would naturally do when placed beside another horse, which is test her speed against it. We put some time into teaching her and encouraging her competitive spirit, and it paid off.

And now Lori can afford to pay me off. We counted roughly thirty gallops since the last time they wrote me a check. So that’s another $300 in my accounts receivable column…

While Erin was visiting, I took her down to the house I bought in ’07. She said it was “awesome”. This morning she asked me if she could show it to Walter, so she really did like it. I told her I was gonna have a bonfire over there, and they could come. Maybe Wednesday if the weather is OK. I have tons of brush and tree limbs that have I have to get rid of. Come to think of it, I better sharpen up my axe and get out the saws and so on…Maybe I can get a little help moving and chopping brush!

It’s been very rainy the last two days, but I’ve been still working. The track surface is holding up unbelievably well; very few wash-outs. The only thing I’m not happy with is that a very small filly that Danny has working with (whom I call “Butterball”) seems to be sore somewhere. I’m hoping it’s only her feet, but she stumbled all over the place yesterday. She needs some shoes, and she needs him to take the warning seriously. I can’t let her get sour – he already has one young horse that has really sore feet. I got on her one day and I thought “she could flip over, and I wouldn’t blame her”. I don’t want to try to make a horse go if it doesn’t want to. I only like making horses go that want to.

Well, speaking of going, I’m gonna sign off. I’m tired and I want to sleep an hour before I go to work. But it’s been good lately. Really good.

The Post That the Post About the Post Was About..

2009-09-20T03:27:00.001-07:00

It's two days later....

I can always tell when I am stressed beyond normal; I don’t sleep much but I don’t feel tired (good) an dI have a host of other physical symptoms. I’ve noticed this since I was a kid. I just have too much going on. There’s a lot of noise in my head.

Money is #1 right now. The hardest thing to handle (at least for me) is not being able to keep my clients aware of how badly I need every spare second.

This is the story of free-lance galloping in a nutshell, so any novices might want to listen up – because you’ll be facing this as surely as you will face serious injury or death once in a while, and a lot more often.

The track opens at 7 a.m.

But if you are there, it opens at 6:54 or 6:55. That’s five minutes earlier than 7. If you get there in time to set foot on the surface at the actual opening time, that puts you returning from your gallop at ten past, or quarter past if you are higher up on the hill (farther from the gap). If you get your second horse ate quarter past, you can be on your third at 7:30. It’s not hard at all to finish four horses within the space of an hour. Seven before the break is easy; hell, I’ve gotten seven AFTER the break. That’s seven in an hour and twenty minutes. Surely I could get seven before the break.

But the way tings are currently going is; my first two horses are two-mile joggers; or my first horse goes with the pony and can’t go any faster than the pony. Thankfully this only slows the walking to and from part of the gallop. I’m not one to race my horse to and from the track; still, if I have the opportunity to walk the horse freely I can encourage it move purposefully, so for the most part, at least in my mind, the pony is a costly accommodation

It’s good for the horse to have a pony if the horse is in an unfamiliar place, if it’s balky or nervous or any number of reasons. But personally I’m familiar with the Mountaineer routine of getting thrown up, turned loose and tie on while on the move, so I don’t treasure the pony by any means. I tell myself I do when I have one, but unless the horse is bad I’m always lying to myself. On the one hand, you’re safe, but on the other hand, you’d better be because he won’t help you pay for your workman’s compensation. It’s an expensive trade-off with no guarantee.

It’s great for the trainer. With a pony they have a ride to the track and more control over the expensive investment they are charged with protecting and conditioning, so I know why a trainer would like a pony. Then again, most trainers who have ponies and use them daily also have expensive gallop people and offer workers comp. What I’m working under is slow ponies, no expensive salary and no workers comp.

That’s the great bonus about West Virginia; they have this great new Workers’ Compensation system that has matched the other states in comparable premiums, but they don’t require employers to actually have a policy. If you ask me they cut their own throats. Because if they had left things the way they were, with the low premiums they used to have, they’d have more people actually obtaining it. I had to let it go after I had been injured and earned nothing, and my premiums doubled. I gotta remember to send the Governor a video of me explaining this.

The bottom premium rate is based on twice as much as I earn, and four times as much as it used to be: Instead of 7-8K, the rate is based on a minimum payroll of $32K. And here’s the part that makes the wealthy laugh and the un-wealthy cry: my wage compensation is not based on a payroll of 32K; it’s based on my actual payroll of 15-25 K (15 when I get injured, 25 if I work all year without taking any time off for anything.) I’ve been priced right out of my range of affordability. Religious symbolist will love what I got every two weeks during my most recent disability period; $666.66.

And the pony isn’t helping me. Since everything moves slower when we factor in the pony and/ or the two mile joggers, and/or the not yet mentioned “we need to throw the same tack on the next horse”, “we’re waiting for the smaller girth – it’s on the one that the jockey is breezing”, “we need to clean the poultice off the legs yet”, “we gotta switch tack – this one has a loose shoe, and so on, and so forth, we’re talking about losing three fo the five minues we gained when we got to the track at 6:55.
What’s three minures, you might ask? Nothing. Three minutes is nothing. Six minutes is something; the track closes at 9 to be renovated (re-harrowed), but the reality is, it’s 8:55 when they stop allowing people through th egap. Anytime you create a cut-off; anytime you draw the final line and say noboy else can cross now, then six seconds is too late; never mind six minutes.
Here’s a word problem for math lovers:

On a normal day six horses go to the track in two hours. The first two take twenty minutes each, and the third has to jog two miles so it takes twenty-seven minutes. The first horse goes on at 6:55. The last one is finished at 8:02. The fourth horse is in another barn and it takes three minutes to get to that barn and get on the horse, and twenty minutes for the horse. That one is returned to the barn at 8:25. Same for the fifth horse (are you counting with me?). We’re on the sixth and last horse at 8:48, seven minutes before the cutoff. Plenty of time to get to the track and gallop around without holding up the harrows.

If we have to fuzzle around for three minutes with just two of these horses, we’ve shut down our window of opportunity for getting the sixth horse out. We’d only have one minute of grace to beat the clock.

Theoretically we make it, but in practice it’s a bit messy.

Three minutes becomes four minutes, five minutes and so on. Sometimes I’m waiting for a second rider so we can take a set (go together). Sometimes the horse has to go two miles the wrong direction at a jog and doesn’t want to jog, so I have to keep pulling it down from a nervous, hobbyhorse canter back into a proper trot. Most of the horses need some kind of warm-up whether the trainer says so or not. Sometimes the horse hasn’t been out for a number of days and I jog a mile before taking up a faster pace. I may or may not be asked, but I will do it simply because in my judgment (for any one of several reasons) it’s best.
Sometimes I have to pee. If I have time for the real bathroom I might go (cuz they have toilet paper) but if I’m short on time I find an empty stall and do like the men, only squatting. But most of all I find the things that stall me are those that happen within an outfit. The girth is too long and needs to be changed; the horse needs rundown bandages. Some other rider came and took the tack that was gonna go on my horse and we’re waiting for it to come back; one of the grooms or hotwalkers didn’t show up and now there aren’t enough people to do the work so I have to tack my own horse.
“We gotta get the poultice off before we send him out”
“She spread a shoe so we’re changin’ the tack to Bubba and you can get her later” (later WHEN?)
“I just have to get this horse in the (ice) tub and I’ll be right with you…”

I try not to get excited because it casts a pall on an outfit and everyone becomes either frantic when they see me or resentful of having been spoken to with a raised voice as in; ”hurry the fuck up! I got four more to get before the break!”

I’m not done with this post by any stretch of the imagination, and as soon as I get time again (like when it rains) I’ll finish it. But I was going to end it with:

You can bet that if I charged by the hour, it would be 40 bucks per hour. And I’ll give you ten-to-one that suddenly all my problems are solved.

But nothing’s that simple.
I have to try to get some work done on my house before Monday or Tuesday when it rains, so I might not write again till after.

The Post About the Post

2009-09-18T02:58:00.001-07:00

My posting is almost as bad as my record of visiting with friends. It's as if there's never a good time. Right now I'm writing a post about time, and as soon as I find time, I will post it.

Saturday!

2009-09-12T03:07:00.000-07:00

I get up at 4 a.m. and don't get to writing until 5:20. That's not so good.
Oops, I got tied up writing to a friend. Now it's 6 a.m. Looks like the morning is coming up fast and furious.
By the way, I want to thank my friend Charles Sage for championing my writing . I met Charles through this very BLOG, which he came across while searching for Jerry Norwood. It's very inspiring, first to know that there is actually at least one person reading this, and second just to hear that it makes a difference that I print a page.
So if you are out there, Charles, thanks cuz you've made a difference for me.
Also, I'm taking my Norwood article in to the man himself. Properly edited for disparaging content, heh heh. No, seriously....
I'll have to write my "great revelation" later. I had a great revelation about Mountaineer Park, but don't have time to reveal it right now.

Sleepy Bones and Downsizing at Mountaineer Park

2009-09-11T03:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was so busy I crashed like a 747 when I got home. Used to be able to gallop 13 head without it taking so much out of me in a morning. Today I got 10 and my even my bones were sleepy.

Maybe it was just that I wasn’t concentrating on so many other things; I mean, I would just come home and nap, then take the bird for a walk, then read or play a computer game or my fiddle, or something. But over the last 5 years that has all changed since I figure if I want to retire from galloping before I get catastrophically injured I have to have something else that’s making money to retire to (because people like me never really retire; if we did our nest eggs wouldn’t last two years).

Chas and I had some discussion about it Wednesday. Since he and I are at opposite ends of the political spectrum, my way of going about things runs counter to his style. At one point I was going to get a certificate to be a Physical Therapy Assistant but changed my mind on account of I already paid 12k for my B.A. so what do I need to spend 15 more for to get a certificate? (That’s what it cost).

Forgive me if I mislabel so many Republicans, but most of my conservative friends outside the track always say “you gotta have a job”, for they are the Party of entrepreneurship as a rule. But Charles believes in having a job as in; you trade your time for money and make so much every week, and They (capital T), take care of you (little y).
Can you tell where I’m goin’ with this? I won’t waste our time; I’ll just say counting on someone else for your security is more and more like gambling every day, and I’m not gonna do it. I’m gonna count on me producing whatever I need to produce on my wits and ingenuity alone so I don’t have to have a fixed income and an employer whose employer’s employer says “this sector isn’t producing. Downsize immediately”.

So for the last 5 years or so I have been putting my hands into everything that I think I can enjoy doing to see what takes off. This is very time-consuming and also requires me to maintain a higher level of mental concentration than I’m accustomed to mustering after a hard day beguiling my animals into thinking I might have better ideas than they.
Most of the stuff I am putting together is Internet-based. Someday maybe this BLOG will make me enough dollars to support my website; that’s been up (though not populated or advertised yet) since ’05. Also, hopefully, to put back the roughly 10k that I’ve spent on “tools” and “learning experiences”.

I know, I digress, but this is a hint, like “hint, hint”…. Someday please populate my website and buy stuff that’s advertised in the margins so I can pay my bills, finance my crazy inventions and also do something good for the racing industry, especially retired race horses and disabled jocks. Oh yeah, and not have have moneymoneymoney on my mind 24-7.

And now for the heart of the matter; what I had intended to relate since I began this post.

Oops; looks like I no longer have time to relate that, because I have to get ready for work. I meant to remark about the utterly perpendicular downsizing here at Mountaineer Park. I’ll have to get back to this after I get home today; that is if I don’t have to work for Ed (we’ve got something like 500 St. Croix horseshoes coming in today, maybe. If they do get here, well, I’ll catch up mañana. But anyway -- cuts are flying so fast it feels like we might crash, like a 747, and not just for a 2 hour nap!

Later.

And They Think the Reality Show, "Jockeys" is Exciting...

2009-09-07T03:17:00.000-07:00

I think I’m through for a bit on the no-pay owners, but the story probably won’t end anytime soon. In the meantime, I misplaced my billing records and couldn’t bill anybody. Now that I have recovered them I won’t have time to write statements and a post, but I’m gonna try.

The day before yesterday I took out one of my two-year-olds that Chas says that at my age I should stay off of. He hadn’t been out for a week on account of sore feet. I expected him to be a little hawky and sure enough he was ready for action, so we only backed up to the three-eighths pole. (If you have checked out my website, The Far Turn, that photo on the home page was taken at the three-eighths pole. The gap, or chute where you com eon to the track is just past the quarter pole, obscured by the huge maintenance shack in the right-portion. If you haven’t been to my website, maybe you would consider doing so now, hint hint…)

He seemed to be traveling fairly well and there was no question in my mind that we were gonna gallop, because I wasn’t going to gamble on my chances of staying aboard for anything less strenuous, and anyway, he wasn’t going to do anything less strenuous no matter which direction or what gait we went. And the gallop began smoother that I expected except for a little stiffness in the left front. I was determining that to be perhaps the slightly more sore foot when my equine buddy was energized by a horse on the inside fence breezing past.

We’ve nicknamed the colt Tommy, after his owner. Tommy took up the chase behind the breezer. WE discovered though, that Tommy’s left front, though sound enough to gallop on, was still painful enough to cause Tommy to thrust his bulk to the right at the same time in effort to bear more weight on the right side. I was already on one line (the left, with the right one dangling around Tommy’s knees) as we bolted out of the turn in a straight path to the outside fence. I jammed all my weight into the left iron in a panic to brace myself against the only time I can think of that he didn’t rubberneck on me.

Then the saddle slipped to the left. I remembered how the billets were torn just below where I wanted to snug the girth (there is a nylon strip that prevents them from breaking, but unfortunately this keeps people using them long after they would if they were only made of leather). On the way to the track I gave up trying to get to the hole above with the off hand summation; “I don’t need to cut him in half, anyway. They should be fine.”

There we were; him flying across the chute and me listing perilously acey-ducey thinking nothing but ****ing billets”, when he suddenly changed his mind and altered his course back to straight (dynamite!) only faster (****!). He ducked back inside slower traveling horses ahead of us, and took off. I really wanted to bail but the last 20 years have taught me that letting go is the easy part; safely hitting the ground is something we avoid practicing.

Thanks to many a day on Harry Hurd’s farm, where one learns never to take any situation too seriously, and turning a catastrophe into an opportunity is only a thought away; “If it slips to the left, it slips to the right”. Sure enough a thick hunk of mane and a few pumps on the right stirrup put us back in the middle and looking none the worse. By this time Tommy had either loosened up the soreness or else forgotten about it and was traveling at a medium clip, so after ascertaining my security I tried to feel him out.

A little caution on his part still, it seemed to me. I just sat quietly to see if he would tell me more, and down the backside he began to slow down. “ Maybe I’ll pull him up then, and jog back from here. Enough to take the edge off without too much pounding.”

Another breezer interrupted us and we finished strong at the wire.

So today when I took him out, he was again, just a bit sore, but feeling way too high to leave in the barn. At this point I have to scribble some statements out and go hit all my buddies up for money.

Happy trails to me!

Instead of Doing My Statements this Morning...

2009-09-05T03:16:00.000-07:00

I related the story about the trainer whose owner had not paid the vet bill and the retributive (or compensatory depending on whose eyes you’re looking through) action taken by the vet. The first reply I got was “well, ya know what just happened to me? I made two installment payments of one-fourth of my personal vet bill, then I received a statement saying, essentially, that I only made one. So I asked the vet, and he checked his records. He told me; “Well, you’re owner didn’t pay his bill and it was about the same as your second installment, so I applied it to that.”

The vet paid the owner’s bill with the trainer’s money.

When the owner gives the trainer the money to pay the bill with, that’s fine and dandy. But where else in the world would someone solve the matter of an unpaid bill using someone else’s payment? That’s not only ludicrous; it’s probably illegal.

The second reply I got was -- and this was without my unsolicited prompting, which I realize is often not my nature to resist -- “Well, the owner is the one who should’ve paid up; because (note) the horse is the one that suffers. He just should’ve paid.” Actually, when the woman said “the horse” I synchronously offered that it was ‘the guy betting on the horse’ that ultimately suffers. I tend ot agree with her out of my gut, but since the horse cannot call for justice, I said the bettor, and I am informing you of this for a reason I will talk about further down the page.

So I rest my case so far on dealing with unpaid bills. If the name on the bill is Joe Schmoe, that’s who is responsible for seeing to it that the bill is paid, not Joe Schmee, Schmeye or Schmum. IF Joe Schmum is the Siamese Twin of Joe Schmoe, it’s still Schmoe’s bill to pay. No vet has the right to pay one person’s bill with another’s money.

We all know why the vet did what he or she did; because the trainer is there looking at the vet every day, and it is the avenue of least resistance to promote action of the bill-paying sort. If the vet has to collect from the owner, it’s just more work and more phone calls and more time out if his busy day collecting, and there isn’t a person who would want to deal with that. Better to simply be a physical reminder to the trainer to do the collecting. “No dinero, no servicio…”

It’s like a default state of not handling: Because what’s really happening is, nobody wants to ask for money. And here is the one fact that every owner surely has come to realize if they don’t have billions of dollars; that is, owning a horse is f***ing expensive (and owning a racehorse is so expensive it’s out of the range of all but the most committed.

You’re asking a living, breathing being with feelings and a personality to perform at 100% without ever getting a yes or no answer. On top of knowing that there is no such thing as the horse being aware that all the feeding shoeing, grooming, conditioning is expected to be repaid, is the trainer, the vet, the groom and the Industry knowing that if the horse doesn’t repay, the owner won’t own. This industry is starved for owner participation, but nobody says it out loud, and especially not to a potential owner. Too many people get into the business thinking it will cost perhaps the larger fraction of what it actually does, but when the bill comes in and the horse isn’t covering it, reality hits hard. Being an owner must be worse than having a gambling addiction; the thrills are fewer and farther between.

Not surprisingly, nobody wants to ruffle the owner about his pocketbook because when the frying pan gets too hot, the owner might get out of the pan but he’s not jumping into the fire like the trainer, to whom burning, one way or another is a familiar condition of life.

I’m getting the sense that just because I’ve been sitting here thinking and writing about this for the last hour or so doesn’t mean I should feel obligated to tie of any loose ends. This is one of those topics for discussion, and I have appropriately given the story a forum thread. I hope in doing so I might lure a few people to what might become a familiar site to them; that is, my website called the far turn (if you don't like my crappy popup hit the "x" at the top right where it says 'esc'.

But to close; yes, the horse is the one who suffers ultimately; not only its performance, but its care as well. For the same reason that the horse can’t answer yes or no to the simple question, “can you win, and if so, will you try?” for they have no voice, I’ve said ultimately the bettor suffers.
It doesn’t matter what the past performance lines look like if the beast gets its pre-race medications too late or too early, or not at all (say it can’t happen….?) The answer then is a foregone conclusion; “not today”. That puts the racing industry in a state of no integrity with the people it is charged with protecting, as I said before. Those with the voices can count for now, in lieu of the noble and playful and beautiful creatures we never get enough of looking at..

Oh, and finally, I was gonna do my statements this morning so I could give them out at work. But now I don't have time. Oh well; they probably don't have money anyway.

Who Owes Who?

2009-09-04T00:54:00.000-07:00

This scenario didn't happen to me, but the other day I heard (yet another) story about a veterinarian who began regularly ignoring one of his clients. I don't know if that's the best way to put it; maybe not ignored; maybe prioritized the client further down on his scale so that the client observed that he was being ignored.

The client, a trainer, discovered that [i]HIS client, the owner[/i], was not paying the vet bills. In this case, as in most cases, the owner is billed directly for veterinary services. Apparently, the vet feels that the trainer is responsible for seeing to it that the owner forks over the dough. In this particular situation, the trainer was completely unaware of the status of the owner's account with the vet.

The vet will do what he wants; he chooses whom he will visit and in what order. The only exception is the window of opportunity for administering certain pre-race I.V. medications, and even then less- valued clients will be on the fringe. The trainer with the deadbeat owner will get his lasix after the one whose owners' accounts are in good standing. In the meantime, all of this is going on unbeknownst to the fellow in the stands who has squeezed out ten bucks for a Racing Form, a Program, a gallon of gas, a quart of coke and a meal of mustard-covered pork castings* on a roll. Maybe fifteen bucks. The point is, the horse could be that patron's choice.

Never mind the other factors involved in the race; we don;t know if he won or lost; the person that racing is charged with protecting and to whom we owe our livelihood has been ignored, and that's unnacceptable to me. If that seems unreasonable, I agree. But 'reasonable' is always slippery to define.

This is all hypothetical anyway, except for my opening scenario, which is real. All I am attempting to do is create an awareness for a higher level of integrity. For me there is no difference between obtaining and maintaining one's privilige to participate in racing. You have to demonstrate some level of integrity to obtain a license; you must demonstrate your committment to that integrity by paying your bills.

If you fall on hard times, is it your province to take down everything else with you? Your trainer, your vet, your blacksmith, their employees and associates? These people are within your sphere of stewardship when you take on the responsibilities of owner. If you do not maintain them you need to get out.

Notice I said 'do not' instead of 'can not'. Here's the difference: Nobody else "can" pay the owner's bills (especially if the owner's not payin' em!). They have their own bills to pay. Like the feed man and the straw man and the groom, the hotwalker, the gallop boy and so on and so forth. Someone else 'may' pay the bill for the owner, but then it's not about ability - it's a question of there.

The owner can always sell the horse to pay the bills, so there's never a 'can't' as far as I can see. It's always a question of willingness, with an owner. So sell the Nag, pay the bills, and return to the game when the money's good again.

Join a partnership and split the bills if that's your level, but don't ruin the game and leave the beast unshod and untreated and everyone else with empty pockets and a bad reputation because you want more prestige than you are willing to pay for.

*c'mon, it's a HOT DOG!

Very Funny!

2009-08-19T04:32:00.000-07:00

I had to post this email joke. It came from my friend Tom. Most of these remind me of significant highlights of my career, even though I have never actually owned my own horse (probably because I avoided following suggestion #10)

This is not the original. I've given it my own annotations:

Ten Ways To Get In Shape for Horse Ownership

1) Drop a heavy steel object on your foot. Don't pick it up right away. Shout "Get off,stupid! Get off!"

1998 was to looking to be my best year as a Race Rider. Instead of staying in Cleveland (Thistledown) where I could not dominate, I rented a place in Chester, WV. Everydy knew my name in both places, and I could ride the best; the Thistledown shippers that the leading jocks there didn't want to ship down to ride, plus whatever I picked up at the Mount. In a couple of months I had the lineup of the century on all the overnights. Even John Semer was riding me.

Then I got thrown off leaving the starting gate on the baked clay of our turf course. I was out for six weeks with a broken right wrist. I got back up for the first days of the summer meet and actually made leading rider over Tony D. - a dubious distinction since it was only the third day of the meet - still I was milking that to regain all my lost momentum. Then I took a fractious horse to the starting gate. Before we even got inside, it tried to make a last-minute getaway. I got a boxer break in my left hand from just trying to keep myself from being separated from the saddle. (For you die-hard racing and other Mixed-Martial-Arts fans; I still broke the horse from the gate and breezed it a half-mile, THEN brought it back to the barn and told the trainer; "your horse broke my hand".)

I missed riding a winner that afternoon at Thistledown - a horse someone was going to place a large bet on that I stood to gain a chunk of. Some other kid got the chunk and I got six more weeks of unplanned vacation.

FINALLY (and this is what my story is really about) I got back up. It was September, I think. Peaches Yaquinta had a pretty consistent horse for me to ride but I had to get on it every day. The gelding was very cinchy and would whip circles around the groom that was legging me up, and about the third day he pushed the groom over. I yanked the reins to keep him from getting loose and he stepped on my foot. And then he didn't move! - for like five seconds! - with the toe grab digging into my metatarsals...

But that time I didn't take a vacation or see a doctor - I kept everything "on ice". I never found out if it was officially broken, but I still have the rearranged anatomy to prove it happened.

2) Leap out of a moving vehicle and practice "Relaxing into the fall". Roll lithely into a ball, and spring to your feet!

There's never enough practise, that's the problem. SO far I've got the relax into the fall but the lithe roll has eluded me. Last time I tried this I got four pins in my wrist. And I don't have osteoporosis! - Two other jocks broke their wrists at the Mount in '07; Ronnie Allen Jr. and a bug boy. And not long before that, Joe Cuevas hit with both hands and now they're like claws and he doesn't gallop horses any more- he's an agent.

3) Learn to grab your checkbook out of your purse/pocket and write out a $200. check without even looking down.

I win here! I never write the $200 check; instead I'm the one for whom the check is written!

4) Jog long distances carrying a halter and holding out a carrot. Go ahead and tell the neighbors what you're doing. They might as well know now.

Another win for me. I haven't had to do that since horsemanship school.

5) Affix a pair of reins to a moving freight train and practice pulling it to a halt. And smile as if you are really having fun.

The smile actually works sometimes. If the trainer is an idiot, he'll agree when you return to the barn that "he went dynamite!"

6) Hone your skills of diplomacy ...."I'm glad your lucky performance and multi-million dollar horse won you first place - I'm just thankful that my hard work and actual ability won me second place".

It's a fact of life that if you start on a lower rung, you have to be twice as good to get half the credit.
Once This fellow named Wilbur Butler told me to change strategy on his horse to fool the competition. It worked - we beat the chalk horse and leading rider by a nose. As we returned to the jocks room, Rowland said 'you're not supposed to do that to me" (with a smile) and on impulse I answered "well Mike, at least you'll get to ride your mount back." Riders know what this means (when the leading rider beats you, they ride both horses back - theirs and yours, but If you win, you won't get to ride his but you'll at least not be fired off of yours) but nobody openly complains - whining is very frowned upon in this business.

7) Practice dialing your chiropractor's number with both arms paralyzed to the shoulder, and one foot anchoring the lead rope of a frisky horse.

Once or twice I've gotten a superior alignment by being thrown from horseback the perfectly right way. It's only happened a few times; when I was utterly unprepared and therefore completely relaxed. I'd heard my spinal column crack like a zipper from one end to the other, but when I got up and dusted off I felt brand new! The same treatment from the doctor is pure agony...

8) Using the US Army slogan; "Be all that you can be" - add: "bitten, thrown, kicked, slimed, trampled."

Good to know you don't have to serve to become "Army Strong".

9) Lie face down in the mud in your most expensive riding clothes and repeat to yourself: "This is a learning experience, this is a learning experience,..."

It's always the white shirt after a soaking rain. And the appropriate lesson is; a white shirt will not "foil the jinx" of falling off on a muddy day.

10) Marry Money!

Or, like other professional riders, never own a horse; just take the check from the ones who do!

My Horses: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

2009-08-18T02:50:00.000-07:00

I’ve been up since 3 and now it’s almost 6. I haven’t gotten to the BLOG yet. So all I’m going to say is I want to write about my horses again, but I really want to take some photos of them, and I’m not supposed to have the camera on the Back Side. Because of Eight Belles and HBO. So I’ll have to sneak again.

And right now I'm just going to get dressed, review my list (mental) of who I have to get and when, and then lie down and rest my eyes before I hit the gallop trail.

Deshawn Parker: 3000 Wins

2009-08-16T03:33:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine called me yesterday to let me know that DeShawn Parker would probably win his 3000th race that evening at Mountaineer Park. Said maybe I ought to come down and journalize the event since all the Media People have the weekend off. I'm a little hesitant on that, partly because of this BLOG and partly because I'm not official to begin with.

I am sure that the media department will handle all of this on Monday when they return, but the fact is, for those of us here it's monumental news that deserves some airplay, and now, since it didn't happen last night, it will definitely be tonight.

DeShawn rides almost every race on the card, night after night; of eight mounts last night, only two managed to stumble across in front, and Marco Camaque, who was at last glance 9th in the standings, with 8 wins to Parker's 66, boosted his average with 3 wins on the card.

DeShawn's dad has been around racing forever. I remember Jerry Noss saying to me "that guy thinks he's somebody now; well, I remember when he was just a pony boy!" - Jerry's way of playing down anyone who sincerely deserved a compliment (and I'll share some about that colorful character another time). In doing a little background on DeShawn, it turns out Darryl was the first Black Steward in the US. Inspirational!

What I notice most about DeShawn is, first, that he is very tall. If you saw Darryl, you'd wonder as I do how the heck DeShawn keeps the meat off of his frame. Granted Darryl is taller, but he's also got a four-foot girth! On the other hand, DeShawn is one skinny dude.

He doesn't look to me like one of the Big Mac Heaving club. His chest is concave, he carries no water - his eyes are never puffy and he never has the exhausted look that some riders who struggle with their weight exhibit. My educated guess would be informed by the scripture; "man doesn not live by bread alone...but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God".

DeShawn doesn't just do the things most jockeys do to get to ride races. However he maintains his weight, scans his past performances, reads his video replays or presents himself professionally, he is inseparable from teh stuff that makes legends.

So this is my imagined story of DeShawn:

Time spent with his father in the jocks' room was a great influence. There he could create his own identity before he ever picked up the reins for himself. He got to see who the jockeys were; the triumphs and the sacrifices; the good and bad choices his pedecessors made. He had the unique opportunity to see how others damaged themselves and shortened their careers by poor choices, and to craft a vision for his own career that he could love. I'm certain that his ever- growing success is related to a wisdom that supplants the experience of sacrifice with the experience of gratitude.

From time to time I recall somethinsomeone said offhand about him; that they've never heard him say "thank you", as in; "thanks for the mount". Maybe he IS thanks, so he ever thinks of saying it.

And if not, if he's just that self-absorbed, so be it. That makes him as ordinary as the rest of us as well, for I dont; intend to exalt anyone above anyone else in my pages; and he has his share of miseries and does his share of misdeeds as all of us do from time to time. Far be it from me to even want to make him seem perfect. I'm just reminded that for all the good Dale did for him, he didn't come to Dale's funeral (of course that reminds me of three recent funerals I have no excuse for not attending).

So enough- we all put our pants on the same way every morning, but tomorrow morning, DeShawn can be proud to put his pants on the legs of a 3000-race winner. Congratulations, Jock!

November, 2003
Thoroughbred Times Article featuring DeShawn Parker

August 27th, 2005
Blood Horse article on Parker's 2000th win

Winter, 2008
Oaklawn Media Guide Bio - DeShawn Parker

Of Pills and O-rings

2009-08-13T03:12:00.000-07:00

So much for working in the Racing Offce. Happened into a friend who was a jobber there and the story from their side was that it truly is awful.
And not to bore you with the details once again, except for:

- The pay sucks;

- You may have to work overtime but you won’t get paid for it; (if you want you can take it to a lawyer – someone actually got their overtime that way once but it’s a lot of hassle and the lawyer has to be paid, also)

- You can’t work on the Back Side because it’s a ‘conflict of interest’

Where they have come up with this rule, I can’t begin to speculate – after all, we don’t mind permitting oil men and former defense industry executives to decide when & where we shall wage war. If we trust them to handle our tax dollars, then should we not trust the lowly Gallop Girl to ensure that no pills are palmed during the draw?

All About Palming Pills

In racing, after all the entries are closed, post positions must be allotted. The traditional way to do this is, whoever happens to be present on both sides of the counter (jock agents on one side, clerks on the other) participates. This is intended for the purpose of keeping things fair. After all, it’s harder to fix a race when any and all potential interests are in.

For each race, first to last, one person draws each entry from the stack, and another one pours a round ball (called a “pill”) from a container (in my experience it’s always something like a wooden milk bottle.) Each pill has a number on it, and the entry drawn is matched with that number. That is the post position for that horse for that race. Everyone else stands close by and watches the proceedings, presumably so there’s no funny business.

But, if the person who is pouring the pills from the bottle is slick, they might secretly hang on to the pill with the number (post position) they favor for a particular race. When the post positions are drawn for that race, the pill guy pretends his desired pill was drawn from the container, when it was actually hiding in the palm of his hand.

And that’s why it’s called “palming the pill”.

There are some things racing doesn’t tell you, and this is probably one of them. But to say it happens often would be guessing on my part – I have no office experience and from the looks of things might not be getting any very soon. But I can tell you how I feel about the effect this should have on the trust of the racing patrons: NONE WHATSOEVER.

WHY?

Here’s my reasoning: If you take all of these little misdeeds and other selfish attempts to influence the outcome of a race, there is a point at which the failures cancel out the successes. Palming pills is one of those inexact sciences that might offer the palm-er a sense of security but there are too many other variables in a race to make it worthwhile as a guarantee. Because - you never know when you're gonna get yourself parked next to the one horse that takes half the field out when he leaves the gate - including you. Add to that the annoying voice over in your head calling it God's punishment for having obtained your desired post position unfairly.

Here's another reason; if you are palming pills, who is to say that the other guy isn’t? So if all of your palmed pill horses win, then presumably so do all of his. The same person doesn’t get to draw the pills every day- it’s somebody different. And if nobody gets to do it all the time, then nobody is getting any more of an edge than anyone else.

The post positions are known before the bets are laid, so the public is out of harm's way anyhow. One wouldn’t risk palming a pill for a dead horse; only one that has a chance in the race, so it’s more likely that the lucky horse with the good post position, if he got it unfairly, is a shorter-odds horse anyway – more likely to win already. That’s actually an unfair plus in favor of the patrons!

The people that get upset - and rightly so, are the owners and trainers - the ones who are trying to win the purse money. Still, as many times as an owner might gripe that their competition got a better post position because someone palmed a pill, well, just as often they got a good post position for the same reason. But it is the kind of thing that makes horse racing look bad even though it's no less honest than football, politics or banking.

Pill-palming might be one of those things that horrifies a racing association or a commission. If I seem to be condoning it I don’t intend to. We all need too recognize that the people reading this aren’t 100% honest - that should make it easier to swallow. All I am saying is that transparency doesn't have to mean "squeaky clean". Pretense is worse then being transparent about dishonesty, if you ask me.

Compare the same kind of influencing with regard to both Space Shuttle disasters – when the desire to “help something along” simply overcame the level of personal responsibility. Since we’re all subject to this temptation, the comparative innocuousness of palming a pill compared to overlooking a shitty O-ring or a missing ceramic tile should preclude our worrying about the pill. Let’s get our O-rings sorted out and the petty stuff will eventually prove itself to be equally detrimental to those who engage themselves in it.

The reality; "you win some, you lose some", is a constant anyway; you can count on it no matter how many variables people try to tinker with. The only loser in the long run is the one doing the tinkering because it ultimately winds up in the constant "you win some, you lose some" anyway, with one exception: If you get caught tinkering you could lose your livelihood. That's the equivalent of wagering everything you know and love and flushing the ticket down the toilet.

Right about now patrons should be chuckling and pill-palmers should be gagging on their trans-fat racetrack nachos.

Have I said enough to do justice to Transparency in Racing? I sure hope so. It’s just so hard to keep any person one hundred per cent honest, the best we can do is punish them when we catch them (which we should do and DO do). In the meantime, let's demystify some of the rumors and hearsay. So keep coming to the races, patrons, and bet with confidence.

ANd I only brought up the pill thing because I was talking about job on the back side being a potential conflict of interest with a job in the Secretary's Office. The only conflict of Interest it is, is that if you want to work in the Secretarly's Office you have to take a pay cut and increase in your working hours, plus you have to be willing to put up with a lot of disrespect. Kind of like wagering everything you know and love and flushing it down the toilet.

To conclude my lonely monologue about possibly working in the Racing Office, trust that it will probably never happen here at Mountaineer.

The Dreaded Office Job Fades Into the Background Once Again

2009-08-09T02:30:00.000-07:00

Accompanied by a sigh of relief..

Most of the time I get up early to play catch-up, and then, after my exciting morning at work, I rush home to clean up, eat, and crash. When I awaken, I’ve completely forgotten about the morning, so I write less often than I would otherwise.

I keep hoping that somehow I’ll get the website in presentable condition and actually make some money so I can stop trading for it by the hour and settle into a more literary routine. Hasta ahora , Seré laboral con mi piernas en lugar de mi ingenios.

I went to see Rose Mary about that office job but she was in a meeting. One of the office people let me in and asked what it was about. When I told her, she kindly informed me about the application process (online from home or online at the Human Resources department in Newell).

It’s no accident that I can’t get a job here; I don’t even know anybody, and they don’t know me. On top of that, I only miss Rose Mary one day in a row and haven’t been back since. And that's not representative of eagerness for something.

The conversation was irritating for me anyway. Why is this woman instructing me to apply for a job that isn’t posted, won’t be posted, and never gets posted? The last time I went to Human Resources, I asked about the same kind of job – office grunt. A Tall blonde-haired woman was walking down the hall and asked if she could help me. When I asked her if the position had been filled, she explained that if it wasn’t posted on the board anymore, that it was.

I replied that it had never been posted on the board (Front Side or HR), and she fired back haughtily at me “it HAS to be posted. If it’s not there, there is no job”, turned away and stalked down the hall.

You got that right.

They don’t post these jobs. They never appear on the board outside the HBPA office... The board across from the Horseman’s board… the one that has the employment info and job openings….??? And they've never appeared on the board at Human Resources or on the Internet.

I know why I don’t get the job, and I’m comfortable admitting it.
I know the pay sucks, the work is overwhelming, the environment is emotionally toxic and I don’t need any of that bad enough to quit galloping horses, so I stay away from the Front Side altogether. That’s not the way to get acquainted with anyone who might potentially hire me.

And I would have to quit galloping horses; it’s been deemed a ‘conflict of interest’. But I forget why ( someone must have palmed my marbles). The potential conflicted interest is ridiculously minimal. Considering all the hidden ownership that happens, among other conflicts of interest, we’d be better off policing ourselves than being policed by a governing body that doesn’t even know that a race horse is an intelligent form of life and one whose conditioning is ultimately affected by every change in the rules of racing, including but not limited to changes in the rules for entering and scratches and the tendencies of Associations to practice protectionism.

Is it a conflict of Interest for the State to hire a commission that knows nothing about racing and has no direct association with the animal itself?

These are the guys who are going to be interpreting the rules for people who now have to take a sixty-hour course and pass five exams to be considered for any other official position (ROAP). In other words, the student will now be informing the sage.

People on the racing commission don’t have to know everything; they just have to have their basic personal integrity serving as Guide (we can only hope that’s what they have.) The upside of the appointment is that no single special interest group among us can influence them.

Seems strange, to accept being governed by those who were not chosen by you and do not represent you necessarily. Don’t think it cannot work or that’s it’s not already working. Still, it was a sad day when the privilege of exercising a few horses each morning before going to work in the Office was kaboshed. Lots of people lost their Christmas money, and for my part, I’m honestly not interested in the desk job until or unless I am forced to quit galloping by my aging body or by the promise of a better paychek (which isn’t the case right now).

Gotta catch a coupla winks before I dress for work.

The Dreaded Office Job Looms Again

2009-08-03T19:50:00.000-07:00

I heard that another jobber quit the racing office.

Every time this happens now, I think "maybe I should go over there and ask - again - if they need any help". I've been turned down before, and I always carry the thought that they'll never hire me on account of I'm too opinionated or too full of ideas.

And that makes quite a bit of sense, when you come right down to it. After all, I'm the one whining about all the anti-transparency going on around here. Who would hire someone who sounds like they want to turn your way of doing things inside out and backwards?

But what I really want is a chance to see things from the other side - to see the complex responsibilities that are involved, so I can help the horsemen overcome their own ignorance. Sometimes I want to throttle my friends who lie about the way things are so they don't have to take responsibility for whatever they complain about.

So I'm thinking maybe I'll just go ask if I can fill in. Maybe they wouldn't feel obligated to me if I was in a very junior position - one that had absolutely no power at all. It would allow me to get some hours in for my accreditation, and it would help me actively engage the rules more. I could also be a great extra hand without too may hours a week of involvement.

So I go back tomorrow to ask Rosemary or Joe Narcavish. Just to fill in till they find someone, or fill in now and then even if they already have someone.

Derby Day, West Virginia Style

2009-08-02T03:05:00.000-07:00

Well, I did make the Derby yesterday, more with my (imaginary) readers in mind than actual excitement.

But it really was exciting to be there, even though I barely know who all these young jockeys are and the pots are out of my league (I actually won a race on Derby day in 1999, but back then the day wasn’t devoted to stake races. We had two or three stakes I think, and my race wasn’t even allowance – I think it was a 10K claiming race).

I haven’t been to the Derby in about three years, and this was truly exciting! There were people all around the Far Turn! And they weren’t racetrackers either (at least only a few of them were). They wer genuine locals and visitors in sizes, shapes and colors.

There were women all dressed up. Some of them were in mini - no, not mini – crotchie- skirts (no hats, sorry) and so may men with pony tails it was as if people had wandered away from a disco and a hippie convention. I heard that the lodge had sold out of rooms. I guess that’s what brings in fans…the Big horse.

Well, the big horse got beaten. From where I was it looked as if he made a move a bit too early, but I think under the circumstances it might have been warranted. The one horse got out there on the front end alone, and I think Mike Smith has been here enough to know that the track generally favors speed and the rail is deep. And in his defense, all horses looked spent at the finish. He might never have caught the One Horse. I heard one of the jocks saying to the trainer while they were walking back down the chute that the track was cupping away.

Even after all that rain – but there’s no real bottom, except when you hit that dead flat surface. And, um…. No toe grabs, anymore, you know. Hope that rule gets us the Grade I status that the defeat of The Bird could help along.

Miguel Mena, the jockey who was named on the horse that won, didn’t ship in to ride it. Charlie knows Mena’s agent from way back, and Charlie was supposed to take the kid’s tack when he came in. I didn’t know this, and I was like…”hey Charlie your rider won!” when he came home yesterday, and he answered, “he never came in; Dale Beckner rode the horse.”

Ohhh, that had to smart. I thought it sucked when I missed my big chance here and there, and this kid missed a Derby race….wooo, bad karma, baby. He could have used that to springboard through the Spa.

And Kudos to Dale; who I believe had the bug in NY at the same time as Michelle Luttrell. He’s getting to the age were a jock should be recognized for his accomplishments; anyone who has stuck with it for 15 to 20 years should be enjoying the benefit of their accumulated experiences.

Gotta go to work, or I’d keep on….

Business not Related to the West Virginia Derby...

2009-08-01T06:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a work day for me at Burkle's Turf Supply. With the Derby and other stakes events happening today, there were lots of visitors to the shop. Everyone was gossiping and speculating. More than the day's card, however, I've been hearing about the "NEW" racing commission appointed by Governor Manchin.

Well, one already knows that the fellows who got the job are complete novices to racing. The consolation is that their predecessors had no background, either. Looking at it from the horseman’s point of view, it's another nail in the proverbial coffin for the racing industry, at least here in the Ohio Valley.

On the other hand, if the people who have been hired are people with true personal integrity, they will study the rules of racing and give their hearts to serving the industry.

A great example of this would be our HBPA executive secretary, Maria. Hired by HBPA President Lora Bailey, whose intention as I understand it was to avoid giving the position to someone who was already a member of any back side clique, doesn't have a racing background. Still, she is a pro-active learner about all things related to the people on the backside; she even attended the Spanish for Gringos classes in effort to be better able to communicate with many back side workers. Maria was not a state-appointed employee; she underscores my point:

There are a number of positions that would be better served if the people filling them were honestly passionate about the sport itself. Or if, as in Maria’s case, passionate about helping other people, or at least about service.

But more often than not, state appointees are mined from the Charleston milieu of politicians and their friends and families. They are in the job for the Title and the money, but not for the sake of the sport. And who gets the job is determined by whose turn it is or who is the most influential at the moment.

There lies my complaint: If there's one thing about racing, and that goes for horses or dogs, this is not a job that can be handled by a stuffed shirt.

I heard throughout the grapevine about how the last Commission Executive Secretary got the job; the to whom it was first offered it found out what it would require of him....and turned it down because it wasn't the kind of appointment he had in mind (what with all the actual work involved). The woman who wound up with the workload finally quit (within the last year, I think).

What burns my soul with regard to politically appointed positions is as much a fear of the decline and elimination of racing here as it is a personal thing.

Personally, I'm jealous as all hell. The people who have been my community for 30 years; whose desires I would like to satisfy and whose stupidities I would like to address (were I lucky enough to be hired to such a body as the Commission) have been left without a voice. The people with the greatest understanding of the animal in which the sport is rooted and whose well-being is decided ultimately by top-level decisions have absolutely no influence on that level.

Not to mention the chance to influence marketing and development of this product we're peddling here in the N. Panhandle.

With that said, I’m not wrong to say I'm sitting on the sidelines knowing that if you stand me up beside the three new official Suits, I'm just as qualified.

In fact, I probably have more executive experience than they have racing experience; all three of them combined. So should it frost my heretofore nonexistent balls that I'm not wearing that suit? Yes. It's like watching from the sidelines as your team loses its last shot at the Series because they misunderstood SLAM DUNK as something to be accomplished by accountants. And the shareholders are up in the Box drinking and partying.

Sometimes, I swear you just want to rip the clothes off the emperor.

And worse, someone like me, who wants nothing more than a chance to give back to an industry that gave so much to me, but needs a paid position to do so, is sitting in the barn while the fat fatty fat fat people who pretend to be running the show (and oops, don’t seem to realize they are running it right into the ground) are hiring their friends and families simply to keep the Golden Goose in the nest.

It’s one thing if everyone in your family works for the government, and another entirely when they “hold positions” there without actually doing a Goddamn thing. Incest equals a whole family with nice teeth, a guaranteed pension, and less responsibility than a homeless person.

If Senator Bowman already has a wonderful benefit package and pension coming, does his cousin also have to also be so blessed…by being ushered into a seat in an industry that is as alien to her as construction is to a bullfighter?

I don’t even know her name; but who cares amore about the horsemen in the Northern Panhandle than a horseman from the Northern Panhandle?

I may be wrong; she may take the job for the blessing that it is, but I’m not hearing that…

If I knew that she at least loved horses as much as I did when she was little; or maybe attended the races and bet her birth date one time and got hooked; or had a friend who raised Thoroughbreds in West Virginia, or even, EVEN if all she knew was that Soulofthematter, a horse who finished second in the Dubai Cup (to the champion Cigar) was a West Virginia Bred.....

If she was ever spoken of with a laugh and a twinkle, or even a sigh or an epithet, I could believe that the person occupying that office was actually DOING something besides putting in hours..

Maybe then I could feel good about our tax dollars going to someone who otherwise has nothing at stake but a paycheck. But instead here's a woman appointed to the task of making sure that the WV Bred program is properly administered in the Northern Panhandle, whose only ties to the Northern Panhandle, for all practical purposes, are that her cousin, Senator Bowman, owned Woodview Golf Course (at one time or another and possibly still) but that’s not horse racing...

Beyond that dubious distinction, to the Breeders’ contingent at the Top of West Virginia she's simply another firewall erected by the leadership of the Program at Charles Town intent on keeping the program as undeveloped as possible up north here, and for as long as possible. And that’s in my humble opinion, but my thoughts are reinforced by what little I have heard. I mean, if it’s these people who are being served, should they not even get to see her resume?

For the uninitiated:

This means that the Western (Charles Town) area breeders, already well- ahead in numbers of Certified State-Breds, can keep the bulk of the (hefty) funds amongst their numbers: the smaller the group, the less competition for these funds and bonuses. The western panhandle farmers together cooperate (either by co-mission or omission) to keep the northern panhandle out of the loop.

Never mind that this has nothing to do with developing the Breed in West Virginia, nor the health of the Industry as a whole, nor the well-being of the hard working farmers in the visibly Appalachian region of the state (compared to the more cosmopolitan Charleston and the geographic region closer to Washington, D.C.).

Aside from my obvious jealousy, I'm frustrated by what I see as dark times for Racing in general here in my little slice of paradise.

The talk at the Stewards' school was about Transparency. “Transparency” is another one of those lexical phenomena of the new experiential universe; thanks to modern technology and the need for human language to advance us through its inevitable social change). Transparency is a great concept for the graduates of the Stewards' program…but one that Track Management here at Waterford are not likely to champion.

No Cameras on the Back Side; all gates locked; no-one allowed without a license, bar none; all open gates manned by security guards; all and only since the death of Eight Belles, when Transparency became an issue in earnest.

We need our horsemen to be accountable for the way they care for their horses. And we also need to show the world how much we love these animals, at least those of us here who do. And we need the public and the animal rights activists to see for themsleves that if you they going to put some poor slob out of business by making him hold on to a crippled horse, that they are as accountable for him as he is for the horse. It's not all a matter of choice for the greedy owners and trainers, and it’s not an issue we can solve by by taking a position of offense or defense.

Animal rights activists help move the whole mountain forward. We need to see these people as intending the best for the big picture, not as simply ultra-fanatical morons. This means first (and least important), that all the bullshit talk about transparency will be just that - bullshit, and second and most important, that the truth will be relegated to bullshit. So what are we waiting for? Certainly not till we "get Better".

It's all about the money, and if you know it, the money is ultimately not the issue. Hanging on to a concentration of power is the issue. And sooner that you know it, power won't be interpreted or experienced the way it is now, believe it or not, so the idiots are the ones doing the hanging on. The conversation is changing; the Internet and language are pushing lies into marginal existence and general irrelevance. Do we have to wait for everyone else to show us the way or can't we hillbillies be leaders in something?

I’m sure that my ability to understand the whole dynamic is obscured by how little I understand of it all and how deeply inconsequential I feel myself to be in it. Nonetheless, to the degree that I have misspoken; to the degree that I have wrongly charged anyone I have mentioned here; it is to that degree that there must be dialogue.

I’m not averse to being respectful. I mainly am self-effacing and anyone will tell you that. I would never think of speaking this way directly to someone that I have otherwise charged with ignorance, incompetence or apathy. But without my snarky attempts at wit, I don’t think my words would catch anyone’s attention. My forthcoming apology is attendant on my words here being heard.

And I’m not yet expecting it, although I’ve actually tried to hook someone, anyone, with them.

Mine That Bird

2009-07-27T19:54:00.000-07:00

Today Johnny Perez took the Big horse out and gave him an easy half-mile breeze. There were horsemen scattered around the outside rail and most commented that he didn't seem comfortable. Some said that if they had the horse and he worked that slow, they'd scratch. From where I was I wouldn't make a comment (probably wouldn't anyway)because all I wanted to do was get a photo as fast as I could and get to my first barn on time.

I know that it is special and important that we have a Kentucky Derby winner here for the first time in our history. So the local news tells about it, and there goes Johnny Perez breezing the horse. I'm looking at the horse, but my news isn
't about the horse; it's about Johnny Perez!

I never sat on a Grade I winner in my life, but I have breezed a couple of horses that had shipped in to run in stakes here and there. I can't identify with the fame of being a top anything. I can identify with being the one who got to sit on so-snd-so the day he breezed.

so that's my news; local Rider Johnny Perez breezed the 2009 Kentucky Derby winner!

And Now for Derby Day News...

2009-07-21T03:12:00.001-07:00

The second little slice of excitement is about Derby Day, and especially about the fact that Management has issued a decree that there shall be no populating, get this; The Far Turn. Not my Far Turn, but the actual far turn as in the picture on my home page (which may be changing soon if I remodel and add content as I intend to so you better read this and look now).

I was sitting on one of the benches outside the Rec Hall the day before yesterday and one of the trainers mentioned that new directive with minor outrage...por supuesto! Who does not populate the far turn on a big race day?

We do, the ractrackers. So who does is the reason for the order to de-populate. They don't want us in the way of the cameras.

So this Trainer and I agreed; what a backward idea! Whoever heard of DE-POPULATING a racetrack on the Biggeest Racing Day of the year? Does the Management of Mountaineer ever watch the Kentucky Derby?

They ought to be advertising "STANDING ROOM ONLY...SEATING WILL BE HARD TO FIND...MOUNTAINEER HIRING EXTRA SECURITY TO HANDLE THE FLOOD OF EXPECTED GUESTS FOR THE 30-WHATEVER-th RUNNING OF THE WEST VIRGINIA DERBY." But what do they do? they want everyone "out of the way of the cameras" for the races.

Where in the hell is Marketing? Taking a holiday? They should invite every man woman and child in the county to come picnic on the lawn! They should take those empty shuttle busses, pick them up and deliver them here -- and feed them free hot dogs for God's sake...make this a party nobody will ever forget! Because if the cameras film an empty infield and an empty far turn and an empty backstretch, it'll be emptier next year.

Show the world just who the Top of West Virginia is. Everybody loves to make fun of hillbillies. What do you do? DRESS UP LIKE HILLBILLIES and give them what they want! Give them signs like "Devoted PANhandler" and We're here for the family re-yuns'-ion." Bring in a genuine jug band (even if you have to go to Memphis to find one)- make Racing talk about the West Virginia Derby for weeks.

If I were the boss here, I'd take it out of my own pockets to STIMULATE THE ECONOMY!

This may seem like I'm joking, but I have an important point to make. Spending does stimulate the economy, and if you spend in the right places you 'll win. We started running the Derby again some years ago and we paid Bob Baffert to come in and so on...to appeal to the snotty people. That was taken by the Media for exactly what it was (especially when we had to wait 45 extra minutes for his rider - or Dickie Small's rider or whoever's rider it was - to get there from teh Airport); We're a bunch of hillbillies trying to apear classy.

Now every once in a while we get some big name in here, like this year we supposedly have Mine That Bird. The people who run these establishments focus on the big names in the hope that it will yeild the greatest dollars. That's costlier than just paying the locals to have a great time. Once it becomes a staple on everyone's calendar, like Jamboree in the Hills, the huge numbers will show up out of tradition, and make more and more fantastic contributions...jug bands, overalls, Deliverance teeth and the whole nine yards, for a chance to get in the picture.

Then when Marketing lets it slip that it would be really cool if "Conquerator" were to run in the West Virginia Derby, Conquerator's trainer won't be saying "show me the money". He or she will be saying "line me up for some o' that West Virginia MOONSHINE!" And the Conquerators will come.

I'm just saying it would be easier and better in the long run to generate a self-sustaining marketing tool. And I'm not even a Marketer, but I know what made me love racing, and it sure wasn't the sterile, squeaky-clean appearance of a track or a squeaky-clean product.

Before I sign off, I want to acknowledge that even though I've been a racetraker most of my life and that gives me a license to spew out whatever I think is best because obviously we all think we know what's best for racing, that doesn't mean I'm correct or right. It means I have an opinion, and opinions, even when they have some sujectively hand-drawn evidence to back them up, are still only opinions, worth no more than the next one. So take what I say with a grain of salt.

It's just as likely that Mountaineer Park Management knows far more then I do about how to handle the kinds of things I can only opine about. Everything I say here I say with all due respect. My intention in bringing up the issue is only to give me a chance to share in having our establishment be wildy popular. I want others to love this place as much as I do, so it's only natural for me to want my ideas to be heard.

First Things First..

2009-07-21T02:01:00.000-07:00

I am finally attempting to get back to business with regard to the website and my BLOG here. Although sometimes I think I am wasting much time what with having too many irons in the fire, I am unwilling to give up any one of my numerous hobbies and activities. I only hope to someday actually make enough money with this site (and others) to be able to float the whole boat.

I still spend way too much and since 2003 have made no profit. I've invested over 10K in learning experiences, though. But enough about me.

Couple of things; the first is in this post, the second I will post separately today.

A gelding I have been working with since March is making his debut on Friday. "Vert-igo" got the 10-hole going 5 furlongs. So the bad news is, he'll probably be parked on the outside all the way. On the other hand, it's a great spot to be in on his first race. He won't have to contend with the torrent of dirt pelting his eyes right away, but can ease into it from the clear of the outside Post.

He hasn't felt the dirt much yet, so we know he's in for a surprise. I don't think he'll be fast enough to be in front of it; especially his first race, and especially so short. Personally I've never liked it; when you know it's coming, you purse your lips, grit your teeth and squint your eyes in anticipation. Tampa Bay Downs is the only place where it doesn't fly back at you hard. I'd rather ride there than anywhere else.

The worst track is Atlantic City (which they only run for one week anymore). AC didn't just have large pebbles like Mountaineer used to; it was composed entirely of large pebbles. Getting hit with that was like machine gun fire.

The Complaining Attacker

2009-07-16T03:12:00.000-07:00

I've had a client for some time now who spends most of their time either bitching about their help or setting someone up to attack them. I'm guessing that the reason is that they can't afford to pay their help so they need everyone off balance enough to be too intimidated to ask for everything. I'm in that boat and it's getting really sick.

I'd like to find a way to extricate myself from this outfit gracefully, but I suppose that if nobody can stand this individual anyway there's not much to worry about with regard to repercussions.

I know I haven't posted much, and I'll try to get back to it. I find that in the process of looking for new opportunities, I am spread pretty thin.