Page 23 - The Game June 2006

Your Thoroughbred Racing Community Newspaper The Game, June 2006 23
They’re Paying Attention to Myckie Neubauer
By Harlan Abbey
Michaela "Myckie" Neubauer loves horses and horse racing, but always has seemed to have been able to look into the future and not be caught up in the moment.
When she was galloping horses for noted trainer Carl Chapman "Once my horse worked three furlongs in 33 seconds and I thought I was flying." She traces her love of race riding to her early teen years when she and a girl- friend would gallop their riding horses around the Fort Erie training track at night. One night they even sneaked onto the muddy main track, Neubauer's horse won the impromptu race, but lost both front shoes in the muck. But as to a future as a jockey: "At one time I was thin enough ... but not brave enough," she admitted.
Living on Thompson Road, across the road from the racetrack since the age of eight, Neubauer also had an early start on her career as a trainer, which began 18 seasons ago: "I'd take my dog Laddie, a Greyhound-Collie mix, and 'work' him from the half-mile pole down to the finish line. And he never once cut across the grass in the middle of the track."
Yet once she began training, she and her husband Carl Norris quickly dis- covered that a Fort Erie trainer cannot make a living on the normal payment of ten percent of a winning purse. As a result, they own most of the horses in their barn in partnerships, thus claiming 60 percent of a purse for a win. And they're also breeding some of their better race mares once they retire.
Perhaps her ability to look ahead was inherited from her late father, Walter, said her brother Robert, who also works in their shedrow: "Dad grew up in Germany and was drafted into the army in World War ll. He'd been a circus tightrope walker as a youth. When he was captured in France, he learned that if you escaped from a prison camp three times, they'd send you to America. So he scaled the
fences three times, went to a near-by tavern, and waited to be caught. He wound up out West, doing work on a farm in Montana."
Myckie Neubauer recalls "When I was 8 or 9, we visited the people Dad had worked for; they loved my dad, who became a draftsman for a steel company here. I can remember making snowballs in Montana in the summer."
Neubauer's parents insisted that she put her love affair with horses on hold until she completed her degree (English) at the University of Guelph. She spent one summer between semester in a factory job, and never returned.
"The first horse I ever trained was a Thoroughbred named Rick N Back," she recalled. "He won through his conditions (non-winners of two races, for example) but he couldn't handle open competition. He was a nice big horse so I sold him to a girl who spent three years training and showing him as a jumper and wound up selling him for $39,000. Then the next trainer put the finishing touches on him and sold him as an Olympic jumper for $200,000. But during those years his name was changed so I was never able to fully follow his career.
"If someone makes big money on one of my ex-runners I don't mind, because you know they have been and will be getting the best of care. Sometimes, though, life after racing isn't better for them. Some that are given away wind up with poor homes. That's why I prefer to donate my horses to Longrun, which retrains them for riding and checks out the stables where they'll be kept. We donated Roche Rock, a good old man, and Jack Red, I sold Count Rey In to people who loved him to death and sent us Christmas cards for years."
And although Neubauer and Norris look closely at breeding and race records before deciding to keep a mare for breeding, Neubauer admitted they sometimes violate those standards:
"Starfax is well-bred and beautiful, but she got hurt. But I loved her too much to sell her. Her 3-year-old by Bold N Flashy is Shadow Fax. Her 2-year-old Catapult is by Cats at Home. She has a yearling by D'Wildcat that we hope to name Hellaga, to honour my mother Helga and Carl’s mother Ella, and just foaled a full brother to Catapult. We're breeding most of our mares, including stakes winner Olympic Advice, to Tejano Run, a proven sire. We have a beautiful foal by Alphabet Soup out of Diablo's Peak. We won the free breeding by being third in the Adena Springs Matchmaker Stakes."
The star performer in the Neubauer barn is expected to be Pleasant Hall, who won two races at the Fort and had four second-place finishes at Woodbine at the $60,000 claiming level, winning a total of $200,000. Neubauer owns him in partnership with a long-time friend. Steve Bahen rode him at Woodbine last year and Maree Richards will ride him at the Fort this season. "Pleasant Hall was such a challenge, didn't want to go into his stall at first and still acts a little bit strange," she said.
"Another favorite was a homebred, Epilogue, who won two races at Fort Erie as a 3-year-old and two at Woodbine as a 4-year-old before being claimed. He was just all heart, despite being injured the first time he breezed. He had chips taken out twice but I just knew he was a racehorse from the start. And then there are others who don't want to be race horses, don't want a rider on their backs, don't want to go to the track, don't want to train, and like to bite people. If they want to run in the afternoon you'll put up with that. But one filly we had got barred from the starting gate and I was happy she was ruled off the track."
Neubauer said she has had two "biggest moments" as a trainer. The first was winning the Puss N Boots Stake in 1999 with Just For Jules
"because his owner, Hugh McKenzie, had been in the game for 40 or 50 years and never had won a stakes race. We had tried to claim the horse once, but were outshook for him. We finally got him for perhaps $6,250. He didn't like to be whipped so Dale Hemsley used his thin 'girlie stick' on him. He also won the last race at Woodbine that year, at a mile and seven-eighths. And his owner died the next year."
The other satisfaction came in 2002 when her fellow trainers voted her "Outstanding Trainer of the Year."
"That year we had some nice Woodbine quality horses," she recalled. "Go Figure had three stakes placing, Best of the Duck did well and our sta- ble made over $250,000. It was neat and exciting. To be honored by your peers is great because all the time you're in the barns working you don't really know if anyone is paying atten- tion."
The Neubauer stable's 2003 season was even better; she was the sixth lead- ing trainer with 30 wins from 105 starts for 28.6 percent, had a 66.7 in-the- money figure, and stable earnings of $575,592.
At Fort Erie, everyone is paying attention to Myckie Neubauer.
Trainer Myckie Neubauer with homebred 3-year-old gelding, Shadow Fax
THE HECKLER - CONTINUED FROM PAGE 22 Finally, the day arrived when The
Heckler and I were on the card. There were some tough horses in the race, much fitter than Heckler but that didn’t daunt my dream of getting to the wire first. I was certain this horse would be the one to take me into the winner’s circle. The fact that he was a distance horse running six furlongs didn’t factor into my winning fantasy. My instructions were to let him settle in the backstretch, pull to the outside at the head of the stretch, two taps with the whip and then put it away. In the warm-up, I con- vinced myself the big gelding would forgo his idiosyncrasies of coming from way off the pace and refusing to pass on the inside. (Ah, for that sense of optimism now. Experience somehow doesn’t seem like a fair trade!)
The Heckler was nervous in the gate and had his special handler. Jake would always lead him into the stall and stay with him. (I’m not sure what Jake’s annual Christmas bonus was but I’m sure the trainer, Bobbie Venezia, was more than generous.) We had a clean, fast break and I was sure we were on our way. Within three strides, The Heckler settled into a slow, rhythmic pace. Chirping, bouncing up and down in the saddle did nothing to convince him to quicken his stride as ten of the twelve horses pulled in front of us. I settled in on the rail to save ground. Rounding the turn and heading into the stretch, Heckler was ready to run. The rail was clear but even with encouragement from the whip, Heckler was going nowhere. Tired horses were coming back to us, creating a sensation similar to a film running back- wards. In frustration, I took him to the outside and like magic, the big horse was
in gear. To the people in the grandstand, it must have looked like an exciting finish with a horse coming from last to fifth place at the wire.
My determination sometimes translated into stubbornness, especially when trainers and jockeys were telling me things I didn’t want to hear. But when a horse spoke to me, I listened. The Heckler was not going to run his race on the backstretch and he wasn’t going to pass on the inside. Got it!
Ten days later, we were back in the gate for another six furlong race. Once again, we broke sharply and then settled in at the back of the field. As hopeless as it looked from twelve lengths behind the leaders, I tried to keep an optimistic outlook. By the three-eighths pole, we had passed several tiring horses, on the outside, of course. Three horses wide for the turn, I found myself in fifth position at the head of the stretch. Two taps with the whip, as
instructed, and The Heckler was in gear. Closer and closer we came to the two leaders. Three lengths, two lengths, one length. I was at the leader’s flank, his shoulder, his neck. The automatic camera caught us at the wire.
Once again, I was in the winner’s pic- ture if not the winner’s circle. It was the best sprint The Heckler had run in many years and it brought me to the attention of several trainers.
There is no better teacher for a young, anxious apprentice than an old wise horse. The lessons that The Heckler would teach me over the next three years served me well in my racing career and remain with me in every facet of my life. Never give up no matter how far behind or how desolate the situation seems. Don’t mess with a winning formula but stay flexible because you never know what the future will bring.