Page 16 - April 2009 The Game

16 The Game, April 2009
A Comedy of Errors (names changed to protect the innocent)
The whole thing started two days before she galloped over my face. I took the chestnut mare to the track and within ve strides of the gap felt like I was posting on a three-legged dog. For reasons I don’t fully understand, nothing feels quite as mortifying as attempting to exercise a lame racehorse. I endured the inevitable sarcastic comments and jogged to the quarter pole, just to see if she might warm out of it. When she didn’t, I turned around and walked the mare back along the wall. I couldn’t help but notice the occasional white peppermints nestling in the dirt like tiny eggs. Somebody must have a hole in their pocket, I thought. Back at the barn the assistant trainer wondered why we were home so soon.
Canada’s Thoroughbred Racing Newspaper
That wasn’t so bad, I
remember thinking, right before
she reared straight up on her
hind legs and ripped the lines out
of my hand. When she landed I
stepped in and snagged the lines
again. Now all I had to do was
get her off the track. But again she went up high and this time when she came down I found myself standing directly in front of her, an unenviable position to say the least. The mare charged forward and I started backpedaling, chucking the lines in
a hopeless attempt to get her stopped. Blind with panic, she steamed ahead and I backpedaled faster. The nal outcome was never in doubt. I’m not sure whether I tripped over my own feet or the mare bowled me over, but over I went. Something hard crashed down on my face, driving my helmet into the mud.
“She’s dead lame.”
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
“All right,” he said. “We’ll try her again
“I don’t think so.” He grabbed my leg and boosted me into the saddle. The mare jumped sideways but the groom held on and walked her up the shedrow while I knotted my lines and tightened the girth. “You okay?”
tomorrow.”
But the next day she felt exactly the same. Once
“I hope so,” I told him. He turned us loose. Things went ne for about the rst minute. As we walked onto the track I shook my head in wonder at
again she bobbed her head all the way to the quarter pole before I pulled the plug and headed for home. But after her second day in a row with no exercise, the mare was getting sharp. She hopped and skipped her way back along the wall, snorting and whipping her head around until I could see the whites of her eyes. The mare was a handful at the best of times, and as we left the track she skittered sideways through the off-gap down onto the pavement, feet clattering on the blacktop. Back in the shedrow, the assistant trainer waited to hear the news.
“Like a car with one at tire,” I told him. “And she’s getting sharp too.”
the mass of horse esh rushing around the bullring. Horses coming and going from all directions and sets of workers pounding around the clubhouse turn every thirty seconds. The mare hopped and skipped sideways as I checked my girth one last time and gathered my lines, trying to soothe my stressed mount, as yet unaware of the unfortunate series of events about to occur.
I rolled onto hands and knees and scuttled like a cockroach for the safety of the rail. When I picked my head up the rst thing I saw was blood spurting everywhere, lots of it. I didn’t bother touching
“How’d she feel?”
At this same moment, not twenty yards away, young exercise rider Billy Ho was walking his mount back along the outside wall. Right on Billy’s heels rode longtime trainer and exercise rider, Rod Bowman. Renowned on the backstretch for his good humour and faultless galloping etiquette, Rod also serves as a self-appointed, non-commissioned track of cial. As horses ooded onto the track and sets of workers rounded the clubhouse turn, Rod seized this ideal moment to test the vigilance of the unsuspecting Billy Ho. Without saying a word, Rod plucked a peppermint from his pocket and tossed
it, prompting a sharp rebuke from rider Myron Teasebrick.
my face. If something vital was missing—like my nose—I preferred not to know about it for the time being. Tottering towards the rst aid attendant, I couldn’t get over the fact that this represented the second time in less than three months that a horse had stepped on my face. Both times it happened
so fast I never felt a thing. Later, as I lay in the emergency ward, the doctor stitching my face together, I couldn’t help but wonder at the ridiculous series of circumstances contributing to this unfortunate event.
“The boss will be in tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll give her some Bute tonight and see if that helps. He can watch her go tomorrow and decide what he wants to do.”
Maybe I should have listened to my instincts in the rst place and informed my trainer I wasn’t interested in galloping a lame horse. Or maybe
I could have articulated more clearly my opinion that taking this particular mare out onto the track during the busiest part of the morning after two days off wasn’t a good idea, especially without a pill to help calm her nerves. Maybe if Rod Bowman had been paying attention to his own horse instead of tossing mints at Billy Ho’s, none of this would have happened...at the very least, Rod wouldn’t go down in Hastings Park history as the rst person ever ned $100 for throwing peppermints.
But the next morning the boss hadn’t arrived by the time the mare was supposed to go. The assistant trainer considered our options. “We better wait ‘til the boss gets here,” he decided. “He’s gonna want to see her go. When can you get her?”
“What are you doing, Rod? You’d be the rst person screaming bloody murder if somebody pulled that stunt on you!”
“I’ve got one rst and second. I could do her at eight-thirty.”
“I want to make sure he’s paying attention,” Rod said, launching another peppermint. The hard white candy landed high on the rump of Billy Ho’s mount, setting off a chain reaction of bucking, leaping horse esh.
“The boss should be here by then. I’ll put the tack on early and walk her around to get her good and warmed up.”
Thanks to these three “maybes,” this week I’m galloping horses with a face that only a mother could love...or maybe a grandmother. Which reminds
me of another one of my late Grandma’s favourite sayings: Bad things always happen in threes. I hope that doesn’t mean I can look forward to my face getting stepped on again anytime soon. But with two facial stomps to my credit and only a broken nose and half a dozen stitches as collateral damage, maybe I better forget about the awful possibilities and just count my blessings instead.
“Sounds like a plan,” I told him. And that’s exactly what it was...a bad one.
After checking my blind spot I turned back just
in time to see Myron Teasebrick’s horse charging towards us. I squeezed my legs and braced for impact but the chestnut mare wasn’t interested
in being broadsided. She ducked inside instead, dropped her head and bucked, sending me sailing over the starboard bow. I was somewhat amazed to land feet rst on her offside, still holding the lines in my hand.
At twenty- ve minutes after eight I turned into the barn and blinked as my eyes adjusted to the gloom. All the way down the shedrow I watched a groom leading a fully tacked horse. The horse snorted and lunged and swung its head wildly back and forth.
It was—of course—my chestnut mare. I followed the groom and the nervous mare into the shedrow
and hitched up my pants, congratulating myself for putting on clean underwear that morning, a principle my late grandmother used to live by. “You never know when you might be in an accident,” she once advised me. “And when it happens you don’t want to be caught dead wearing dirty underwear.”
The groom swung the mare around. She danced and fretted as I stepped in closer. “You better be careful,” he warned. “She’s crazy today. She gets more wound up every turn around the shedrow.”
“Does she have any tranq in her?”
by evenSteven
Did You Know....
CTHS New Owner Syndicate
com/syndicate.php or contact the CTHS of ce at 416-675-3602.
That Canadian-bred TWILIGHT METEOR won the Canadian Turf Handicap on Saturday, February 28, 2009 at Gulfstream Park . It was 18 years ago that his breeder, David Willmot’s Kinghaven Farms’ won the same race with Canadian-bred IZVESTIA.
The CTHS of Ontario will once again be
offering horseracing enthusiasts the opportunity to become owners in their annual CTHS New Owner Syndicate program, a mentorship program designed to encourage new ownership within Ontario’s Thoroughbred industry. Established in 2006, the program was developed to assist those wishing to make only a 10% investment into a racehorse in return for 100% input from an experienced mentor and trainer.
Alberta Sale moves to Red Deer
Did You Know....
The 2009 CTHS Summer Yearling Sale scheduled for September 1 is moving to Westerner Park in Red Deer this year. Northlands Park, where the sale is usually held was unavailable and parking was also an issue (last year). Sale thoroughbreds can move in August 30 with a preview on August 31. For more information visit www.cthsalta.com
That trainer Roger Att eld will train approximately 20 horses for owner Frank Stronach this year at Woodbine.
For additional information visit www.cthsont.
The Game April 2009.indd 16
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