Tag Archives: athlete

It’s race time

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It’s time to dust off the ratty tennis shoes, break out my scuffed up jeans and crappy T-shirts because this weekend Mom leaves for the track, which means racing season officially begins ­– for us anyway.

Sorry, I’ve been a little lax in this whole blog business. It’s been a busy month and I totally missed out on rattling off my take on the Kentucky Derby or the sad Preakness effort. I was rooting for Animal Kingdom, and pretty disappointed he missed a shot at the Triple Crown by just a length. I’ll circle back to that eventually.

In the meantime, I’m trying to wrap my head around this already an anomaly of a race season for the Rocking Diamond Ranch (that’s my parents, by the way). It’s a little different this year because it’s the first time in a long time I’m not in The Cities to meet Mom at the track when she gets there. Of course, I wasn’t around at all when I lived in California or as a kid when it was my job to stay home and take care of the horses …but still.

What is the same is what my mom will be up to. Every year, she packs up feed, tack, supplies, our race horses, horses she is training for other people, and a couple of pony horses.  She loads up the trailer and heads off to Canterbury Park in Shakopee, Minn.  She eventually moves them all to Iowa for the Prairie Meadows season where she will be until nearly October. Each year, the number of horses she has at the track varies. It can be anywhere from three to 15, which for one person, is quite a lot.

On the backside, there are dorm rooms built above the barns. The dorms are basically 10X10-foot cement block rooms. No air conditioning and communal showers. Mom makes it a home with a refrigerator, a twin bed and a little television. She always makes sure her room is close to her barn and she can see the horses from the single small window.

While there, she is up at 4 a.m. each day. She heads down to the barns to feed, clean stalls and ride once the training track opens up. She’s busy with all of that until mid-afternoon when it’s time to feed and pick stalls once again. On race days, she is busy working: either ponying, racing or helping other trainers, until after midnight. I wouldn’t call it glamorous but I’ve always admired my mom for what she does. She basically eats, sleeps, and breathes her horses for five months out of the year. She doesn’t just know about her horses, she knows everything about them, sometimes even better than they know themselves. Yet, she is always willing to learn, to hear other ideas and try something new. At the same time, her horses are her priority, her passion.  It’s a lot of hard work and it can be heartbreaking when it comes down to simply bad luck. Other times, entering that winning circle is a reminder of what dreams are supposed to be made of.

Of course, it’s no picnic for my dad either. He remains at home and cares for the horses and cattle left behind. They’re both pretty strong willed to do what they do, but it works.

For me, well, I just fill in somewhere in the middle. I help on race days and learn on training days when I’m there. If I go home, I either give my dad a break so he can visit Mom at the track, or I’m forced out of bed in the wee morning hours to go check cattle with him. I complain, but it’s almost always fun.

It’s our family’s official start to summer, even if this weather doesn’t want to agree.

Keeping an eye on the roses

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I don’t like to watch the front of a race. I never do. Tomorrow, when everyone is watching the leaders round the Churchill turn, that’s when I’ll be looking to see who might be making their move from the back.

I don’t have a personal favorite in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby. I like to simply wish for a safe race for all and a good race to watch.

I like when a closer takes the win. It’s hard not to. That feeling of an underdog coming from behind; defying the odds to take the title; its horse racing’s biggest draw.

My style of race watching especially paid off in the 2009 Derby. I was watching the horses looking for a hole (a way to move up on the inside past the other horses), and I saw jockey Calvin Borel’s genius ride as he shot up a twig of space between horses for the win. I was watching the Derby with a few friends, and I remember yelling in spite of myself and pointing to the only gelding on the inside, telling them to “watch this one!”  

It was a risky move for sure, and one not many jockeys would have had the guts to make. I have to say, it is one of the reasons I like Borel and always have. Borel won the 2010 Derby on Super Saver and this year, he will be on the No. 3 horse, Twice the Appeal.

Here’s a link to the video of the 2009 Derby and Mine That Bird’s breathtaking run:

http://youtu.be/AjY-rrAoTl8

I don’t offer a lot of suggestions when it comes to betting in this blog, but I do recommend that come Saturday, your best bet is keeping an eye off the pack.

Something random…

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Have you ever heard someone say they had to “go” like a racehorse? Think it was just an odd saying? Well actually, there is some truth and some history behind that. 

Just for fun, I thought I’d point out a few expressions that have seeped into everyday use but originate from horse racing. Some of these are subjective to their actual origins but you’ll get the drift.

The above came about because it’s a healthy habit of a racehorse after a race.  At the track, the first and second place finishers always go to the test barn to be tested for any performance enhancing products. To do that, a urine test is performed. So often grooms, trainers and vets have to act fast to catch their sample for testing.

Getting a leg up: This comes from jockeys and riders who generally need a little help to swing their leg up and over the horse. (This has often been my job race day.)

Dead ringer: A ringer was a horse substituted for another in order to defraud the bookies. It originated around the end of the 19th century.

Vetting: To vet originally referred to the requirement that a horse be checked for health and soundness by a veterinarian before being allowed to race. Now, the general meaning is “to check”.

Dark Horse: Word is, a Tennessean horse trader mixed a race-bred dark colored horse in with workhorses and would enter into local races and win. People began to say “Beware of the dark horse” and it eventually came to be known as one no one knows much about.

Right out of the gate

Chomping at the bit

Down to the wire: Dates back to around 1900 when a wire would literally be stretched across the finish line.

Under the wire

By a nose

Having the inside track: In longer races, having the inside is, of course, the best as it is the shortest route to a finish line.

Homestretch: It refers to the last stretch of a race

Jockey for a position: The jockeys have to find the right place to move up in a race, their main job is to help guide the horse.

Hit your stride: Horses should run on the right “lede” or be using the correct stride to run best.

Neck and neck

Long shot

Across the board: A bet on a horse to win, place or show.

Closer: A horse that runs best in the latter part of the race

Off and running

Upset: The term as it is used now has long been attributed to the only loss by Man o’ War (One of the greatest racehorses ever. Once more popular and beloved than Secretariat.) The only horse to beat Man o’War was called Upset around 1920.

Naming Rights

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I wanted to name my horse after a Bon Jovi song; nothing too obvious, just a subtle reference. It didn’t work out. I probably should have known better.

Picking a name is serious business with horses. In Quarter Horses more so than Thoroughbreds, the name is usually a hybrid of the father and mother (sire and dam). For example, “Eye of a Streaker”’ was our horse. Her father was Special Eye Appeal and her mother was Streakin Queen. The name must be registered with the American Quarter Horse Association and it can’t duplicate another living horse. For betters at the track, the name gives you an idea of what should be expected. You can tell if a horse is out of proven parents by the name alone.

In the case of my horse, I had found something that seemed to work and my mom had agreed to send it into AQHA with his registration pages. Oddly enough, there is a horse out there named Bonjovi already. Even, I think that’s a little nuts.

Still, somehow, the papers came back with nothing even remotely close to my original name choice; his name is Dee Brakes Gone. We call him Brakes. It was convenient my mom had suggested that name. I should have known better. She always has the last say when it comes to names.

Foaling season is coming up and like every year, I doubt I’ll have any input on the names other than getting a phone call from my mom asking me to “Get on your computer and look this up.” Even though she has working Internet and a perfectly good computer I guess it is easier to call me. At least I get to hear what she’s considering.

I know I probably won’t ever win this argument. The Brakes debacle was years ago and my suggestions on names have never been heeded.  The cows I don’t care about and we won’t be getting another dog anytime soon; but, I think I’ve found a battle I can win: I’ve gone in for the cats.

So this fall when they added five kittens to the two at home, I called out naming rights as soon as I could.

Here’s what I came up with: 

Magnum P.I.: A black cat with a much-defined white strip on his upper lip, i.e. a moustache. I considered Tom Selleck, but Magnum now purrs when I ask him what he’s investigating today.

Captain Charlie Crash: He goes by Charlie but originally I named him Crash because he hails from Owatonna, Minn., where a sheriff’s deputy talked me into taking him home after he was abandoned by his mother at an accident site.

Festus & Matt Dillon: Named after Gunsmoke characters for my Dad (who long ago gave up on naming anything around the ranch).

Stubby: He has a stubby tail. It didn’t quite grow. 

Maytag: He likes to “wash” or lick you.

Aurora Borealis or Boris for short: A long-haired gray that has a perfect ring of white hairs illuminating  his chubby little face like a lunar eclipse.  

Amazingly, whether she just feels a little residual guilt over Brakes (or for naming my puppy even after I’d picked out a name) mom is letting me run with it. Of course, my mom chose my name and as likely suspected I was named after a horse person; except, my namesake wasn’t a girl, but her father. Yep, I’m named after a man (and his daughter who was a Wendy Jr.).

I suppose, like Brakes, I should just be thankful it wasn’t an 80s hair band.

No Ordinary Girl

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By 5 p.m. today, I plan to have my dress on, stilettos strapped and some ridiculously ugly hat on … and I’ll likely have no place to go.

I will, however, be ready for horse racing  history to be made.

Zenyatta, the first and only filly or mare (female horses) to win the $5 million Breeders’ Cup will be running her last race before retirement. (Yes that means a horse won more in 2 minutes than most pro-ballers make in a year.) 

Not only her last race will happen on Saturday, but her last win if all goes correctly. Her record currently stands at 19-0.

So, if you’re not a fan of horses or horse racing why should you care?
Well, you really don’t have to. But why does anyone care about any sport, anyway?

For one, competitions are fun to watch. We root for someone to win (more often than not the underdog) and it makes us feel good when they do. But in Zenyatta’s race, as a girl, I particularly root for her to win.

See, she has routinely beaten not only the other horses in every race she’s won but she’s beaten the boys. Even in the Kentucky Derby ­– the most well-known of all horse races although not the richest – only a handful of girls have won.

Zenyatta is the story of a fellow girl (albeit one with four legs) who has gone up against the boys and beaten the pants off ‘em every time, even when the odds are stacked against her.

Physically and mentally, the male (studs or geldings) horses tend to tower over the fillies in racing. But, Zenyatta’s record isn’t the only thing that stands out about her.
At 17-hands, Zenyatta’s grace and beauty is incomparable. She towers over her competition and her sheer size rivals that of Secretariat.

Speaking of Secretariat and getting back to why this Saturday’s race is important: Zenyatta is somewhat the Secretariat of my generation. Even the most non-involved person with horse racing knows who Secretariat is and is aware (if not only subtly) of the reverberations that went out around the world the day he won the third leg of the Triple Crown. Think, of the cry, “He’s a tremendous maaaccchhinnneee…..” or the Time Magazine cover of the big beautiful “Red.”

Well, if, er…I mean whenZenyatta wins her second back-to-back Breeder’s Cup and sets a career record of 20-0, she will likely do it in true Zenyatta style: Coming from the back to pull out a win in the nick of time, and although she likely has the speed and endurance left to do so, not pulling out too far ahead. She doesn’t like to hurt “the other horses’ feelings,” as her owners suspect. 

So when her nose hits that wire first, it will likely reverberate around the world once again. A moment in time that will live on for the next  how-many-years to be relived in books, magazine covers and the like until even those who never knew what a Zenyatta was—does.

It might not be a banner wave for the underdog (she is favored to win), but it will be a coup for the girls and it is something I would much rather watch live than hear about it after the fact. 

And so, I will be there too, in true horse racing style, donning  my best dress, girliest threads and highest heels (because horse racing is not a “cowboy” thing)  with a slightly disgusting mint julep in my hand.

 Now, I just need to find a place in Fargo that knows how to make mint juleps….