Monday, February 5, 2018

Horse Training...these are the days of our lives. The beginnings.

 
Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.
Training horses is like a soap opera, it really is. The only difference being that in a soap opera, they show you all the details of the trauma. If you are a horse racing fan, you rarely get to see what really happens during the entire week when the horse is not on the track for 10 minutes in front of you. Every trainer, groom and horse has a story that never gets told or that is never known by the average guy.
I have mentioned Emersons Paradise in passing in many blogs. Near the end of my training days, he was my best horse. Best in terms of earning money. He was never really more than a cheap claimer, but he was sound, honest and a very nice horse to deal with. He did what he was told and he was happy as long as he was fed and got his paddock time to run free as much as possible. He was a joy to be around. He was just happy to be a horse and be well cared for. After he was done racing, I gave him away to a nice family with some kids, and they thought he was Secretariat. He was like a pet, and they basked in him and he with them. But, it wasn't the first time I'd had him in his career.
When he was just a colt, 3 years old, I spotted him warming up one day when I was at the races on an off day. He looked to be a perfect horse for me, after a string that were not. For a trainer who doesn't have to pay a training bill, or a groom, he could earn well for me and I could bank the profit. Not a good horse for an owner who had to pay all the bills. He was zero vet work, he was healthy most of the time, and he would earn steady if you put him in the right spot class wise and race wise every week. I think I won 3 races with him in the 6 or 7 months I had him the first time around, and he was claimed for exactly what I paid for him when I lost him. I was sorry to see him go, but I was in the racing game, not the barn pets game. I always kept my eye on him for the remaining years until I got him back. The last guy who had him couldn't do anything with him, and I approached him about either selling him to me, or letting me train him on a lease. He decided on the lease, and when I made him perform right away, and he was worth almost what he had paid for him, he decided to just sell him to me. He was good for me for another 2 years before some minor injuries and older age caught up with him.
But, the story of how I got to him and what I did after I lost him the first time around is what this blog is about. I will do it in parts, as its a long story. Just like a soap opera is.
Before Emersons Paradise the first time around I had gotten myself into a bad situation. I had a day job, a very good one in terms of money, and also a small stable of cheap horses which I inherited as a trainer--one who had never trained or groomed anything before, because my trainer could not handle them anymore. Out of the 5 he had for me as an owner, I took 3 that I wanted, and sold him the other one, while the 5th one was basically worthless to anybody and we gave her away for nothing. I started from there.
Nothing was race ready when I got them. They were still racehorses to some degree or the other. One was a turned out mare that I had bought to race and then breed. She injured herself fairly quickly right after I'd bought her, and she also wasn't very fertile as it turns out. So, she was being rested, and I thought I'd either try to breed her again, or get her back to the races. I was told by everyone who thought they knew better that her bowed tendon would preclude her from racing ever again. It was ugly, no doubt about that. When she arrived on the trailer with another one, she was dog lame. I couldn't figure out why, but it didn't appear to be her bad leg, as there was no heat in that and she didn't flinch at all when you touched her there. I turned her out and she walked lame, with a limp. After a day, a guy at the barn I had picked to train told me she had a big nail stuck in the middle of her foot. I held her head, he pulled it out, the blood came pouring out, and 2 days later she was completely sound. I didn't have time for her at this point anyway, so I just turned her out every day and let her run. And run she did. She was completely sound in the paddock and almost fit enough to race. She was very energetic and ran the paddock all day. That would be something I noted when I did get her back to the races. Her name was Almahurst Loraine, a big strapping, bossy and fast mare. She was big and strong, and if you didn't know better, you would say I had Niatross in the paddock. She looked just like him, and her mother was by Niatross. I had high hopes for her as a broodmare, but that never worked out.
The second one was called Eddie Lebec, named after the character on Cheers. I didn't name him. I bought him as an unraced 2yo when he didn't make it to the races for the people that bought him as a yearling. I paid very little, they paid too much. I thought he looked okay, he had good breeding, he was healthy and had no injuries. I thought I would take a shot. I went half with the trainer, but he couldn't make him go, and didn't want him, so I decided to take him on. It was a risky move for a novice trainer with no experience at all. One thing about him though, he was well behaved. He would do just about everything you asked, and he had some speed and grit. When a horse would come up beside him, even a racehorse that was much faster than him, he would not let them pass. He would go as far as he could until their advanced stage of development was too much for him at that point. I knew he would take a while, as he hadn't been trained at all in 2 months. I started back with him slowly, just jogging and building him up, seeing what he was like, reading what I could to see what I could do with him to make him into a racehorse and valuable to me. I thought he would make it eventually, if I took my time and let him develop. I didn't really ask much of him until the warmer weather came back, so he wasn't much work either.
The 3rd one was the easiest to work with, in terms of me knowing virtually nothing practical about training. He was perfect gaited, wore very little equipment, stood quietly and waited for you to give him his cue, and knew his way to the track and back. When you turned him to train fast, he did that and understood his job. I literally could not go wrong with a starter horse like this. He was the one I worked with and on every day either before work or after, sometimes both. When I had more time, when the days got longer, or on the weekends, I would fiddle with the other two and do more work on them. There was no rush. I was making very good money at my day job and I was taking my time and learning. I also had no truck or trailer, so it wasn't like I was going to go anywhere anytime soon with them when they were ready to go to the racetrack. It was a process, learning on the job, trial and error. Let me tell you, there were lots of errors. This horses' name was Edward Seelster, a horse I had claimed a year or more before for a group of friends to learn the owning game. He was also a cheap horse, like Emersons Paradise, and they were similar. Edward was small, steady, stout, consistent and easy to work with. Edward was another horse I bought back later in his life, and that is a story for another day.
When we first got him, there was a lot of room for improvement on the previous trainer, and we did that. He won his first start, and then was 2nd 3 times in a row after that. The money was good where he raced, and we did well. Eventually, he started to make smaller amounts only, and then got sore, so we shut him down in November. He arrived on my doorstep so to speak around February. I had hoped to have him ready by mid May, and was on track for that. It ended up he didn't get there until late June.
One thing about Edward is he didn't like being in his stall. In a perfect world, I would have lived at the farm I trained at, turned him out almost all the time, then just brought him in to train and put him right back out. He would have lasted and stayed healthier under those circumstances. I put him out with Loraine whenever he wasn't training and she was outside, and they were perfect mates. She was bossy and dominant, he was a happy go lucky gelding who knew his place and just let her boss him around. It was a perfect marriage for the two of them. She ran a lot, and she made him run...chased him to run, if he didn't want to. On the days I didn't have enough time to jog him, or it was too dark when I arrived, I put them out together for an hour while I did the stalls and that was enough to keep him fit. On the weekends I would train him as fast as he was fit to go at that point, and he was getting close to race speed. I trained him one last time in early May, and he was a week away from going to the track to prepare to race again for money. I couldn't have been more happy with him and the job I'd done, considering how little I knew then.
One thing about Edward, his biggest flaw was he had a bad stomach. That was manageable, but it was an issue to watch. He would tie up, and if you don't know what that is, its basically muscle cramps where he seizes up and doesn't want to move. The best thing for those types of horses is to always keep them moving. So, one night, just before he was to go to the track to train, I left him outside in a small pen beside the barn. I'd done that while I was there a few times, and he was good in it. He couldn't get out on his own, and it was to be a warm enough night to make it a good idea. In this case though, he didn't have Loraine to watch over him and his back.
I arrived very early the next morning, before work, and the sun had just come up. I saw Edward, and something wasn't right. There was blood all over his legs, and the little small pen had been torn up. My guess was that some wolves had tried to corner him and kill him, and he fought back, enough that they didn't succeed. Anyway, that set me back on him 3 weeks waiting for him to heal.
Wolves were an issue in that area. You saw them off in the distance every now and then when you jogged the horses on the track, and the odd time you would see one actually on the track. There are 3 types of horses and how they react to seeing a wolf. The first kind, like Eddie Lebec will keep going forward but shy towards the inside of the track to avoid getting close to them. That is the majority of them. The second kind, some of them, are the Edward Seelster types who see them, stop in their tracks, and turn completely around to go in the other direction. Most of those also want off the track and back to the barn, where its safe.
Then there are the very few, the 3rd kind, who will not only not shy or turn around, but make a B line right to the wolves and attack them. Almahurst Loraine did that a few times when I jogged her. She was fearless and brave. As long as Edward was in the paddock with her, he was safe. She would kill anything that got near them. When I went to get Edward, I had to put feed on the other side of the paddock so she would be occupied and let me take him. Otherwise, she was the boss and I was not allowed in their space.
Since Edward was off for 3 weeks, other than to take care of his legs and bring them back to proper standing, I began to jog Loraine and also do more work with Eddie Lebec. Eddie Lebec was tricky. He had a hitchy gait, and I had to play around with his shoeing and equipment to manage it. That was using skills I really didn't have yet, so as I said earlier, at that stage it was trial and error. By the time I got him close to race speed, I had him right. All the pieces came together. He was never perfect, but he was viable and he did very well when I first started him at the track. He showed that determined desire to lead and not give up the lead, and that got him 3 wins in his first 6 starts. He turned out to be my best earner that summer. The guy that had him before me, my previous trainer, and also still a good friend, watched him race and couldn't believe he was the same horse. I had done a good job making him into something. I was proud of myself for that. Eventually, he was kind of lame, as he had suspect ankles that only got worse over time, but I kept him over for the next season. That was a mistake. I could have sold him for decent money and a good profit after the 3rd win, but I didn't. Live and learn.
Jogging Loraine was another matter entirely. Jogging would be a loose, but inaccurate way to describe what she did. Loraine didn't jog, not often anyway, and not willingly.
She was scary. There is no other way to say it. I felt I took my life into my hands every time I took her out to go onto the track. She was so strong, so determined to do it her way, to go as fast as she could as soon as she could, that I couldn't control her. As they say in the game, I was just a passenger when I sat behind her. It wasn't jogging, it was survival.
Being that I was by myself much of the time, the biggest danger was letting go of the crossties and having her bolt forward before I could get seated and have some measure of control of her on the pathway to the track. If I could do that, I could at least try and keep her slow. Even with that, she would pull so hard you could only go a lap or two and then either let her go full out, or take her back to the barn.
I tried to take her out mostly on the weekends, when I could get someone to lead her out and try to stop her from gaining a head of steam. Once she did that, it was game over. That worked for a while, but with Edward on the shelf, I ended up taking her out to "jog" every night. I feared and dreaded it every time. It like thinking you are driving your car, but you know the brakes likely will not work.
Next part to come shortly.



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