Page 25 - May 2005 The Game

26 The Game, May 2005 Your Thoroughbred Racing Community Newspaper
Legal Jousting (IRE) New Stallion in 2005
Eight-year-old stallion, Legal Jousting (IRE), offers breeders an opportunity a cross into the Byerly Turk sire line.
Legal Jousting (IRE) is by Indian Ridge - Sire of Breeders’ Cup Mile winners Domedriver and Ridgewood Pearl, and broodmare sire of Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner and Kentucky Derby hopeful Wilko. Indian Ridge is one of the last tail representatives of the Byerly Turk sire line.
During his career in racing Legal Jousting (IRE) won his maiden race
at age 3 in a field of 27 and was beaten by a short head by Bach (Group winner, 3rd Breeders’ Cup Mile) in the Leopardstown Guineas Trail and was also second in the Group 2 Desert King Tetrarch Stakes to Monashee Mountain at the Curragh. At age four, Legal Jousting (IRE) was third in the Grade 3 Fort Marcy Handicap at Aqueduct.
Legal Jousting (IRE) is out of the Sadler’s Wells mare, In Anticipation, and is a half brother to Group 2 winner Irresistible Jewel and listed stakes winner Diamond Trim.
Legal Jousting is owned in partnership and is standing in 2005 for $1,500 live foal guaranteed at Hillside Thoroughbreds in Wellandport, ON. He is both Breeders’ Cup and Ontario Sire Stakes nominated. For a free hypothetical mating visit hillsidethoroughbreds.com Inquiries to Jacquie Karr at 905-386-0912
Jockeys secrets worth weight in calories
Tommy Wolski
What weight problem? With all the recent negativity about jockeys battling weight to ride their horses, yours truly, (a former jockey for many years) went back into my memory bank and decided it was time to reveal the lighter side of losing weight.
Now if you’re expecting a column about jockeys purging themselves to make weight, forget about it, you won’t be reading that here.
The following stories are tongue and cheek but are true none the less.
Recently a television commercial showed chubby NFL coaches joking about how easy it was to take off excess pounds. By the end of the season these same coaches looked like they had actually eaten a jockey.
That commercial missed the point by interviewing the wrong people. To get the inside facts on weight loss, the producer of that thirty second spot, should have asked the true experts....professional jockeys.
Jockeys are athletes who try their utmost to cram a 130-pound body into a 112-pound frame every day. Being a jockey is one a job where a person can actually eat oneself out of employment, and many do.
The following weight loss secrets have been tried and tested to prolong the careers of some of the jockeys I have known:
One hot day in July, many years ago, a foursome of Woodbine riders including one young green apprentice jockey, decided that the next best thing to a sweat box would be to go for a long, hot drive in one of their flashy Cadillacs.
At the time jockeys cashed their riding cheques at a bank which was located on Yonge Street in Toronto.
All four of the riders dressed in hooded sweat suit and each put on a ski mask and a pair of gloves. The windows were closed and the heating was cranked as they travelled down the highway.
They needed the gloves because the car became so hot you couldn’t touch anything with a naked hand.
You can picture it now...it was one of the hottest days of the year and four guys, all wearing ski masks, gloves and sweat pants were riding in a flashy car on their way downtown.
Thirty minutes later they arrived at the back and one of jockeys exclaimed that he
had already lost five pounds.
The plan was for two of them to wait
inside the car with the engine running to make sure the car stayed real hot, while the other pair rushed into the bank to cash the cheques.
After picking up everyone’s money the two jocks returned to the car and were shocked at the sight of their friends spread eagle across the car and being frisked by several police officers. The other two were ordered to do the same.
Some one had alerted the police of a possible bank robbery in progress by four men wearing ski masks, driving a big Cadillac, with windows rolled up.
After plenty of questions and lots of explaining, the four horrified jockeys were allowed to leave and were warned never to attempt that stunt again.
A lesson, I personally will never forget.
For years, until his passing, Irish-born jockey Dennis Tierney was among the top riders on the West Coast.
One day at Santa Anita, several riders were discussing various ways to lose weight.
Tierney had a sharp sense of humor and commented that as jockeys in England would have to reduce without the use of a sauna.
"Their method of losing weight in the hot weather was to put on a rubber sweat suit and get inside a cement cubicle with just their head sticking out," said Tierney. "Then all of the cubicle would be sur- rounded by straw and manure from the horses stalls You lost weight fast, but never had any friends.“
Then there was the time at Sandown Park on Vancouver Island, a small bush meeting conducted after the Exhibition Park season ended, where one jockey innocently decided to make his motel room a sauna.
He taped all the windows closed and sealed all of the cracks under the doors with towels. He then cranked up the heat and turned on the shower to provide some steam and went off to sleep.
Boarding, Lay-Ups, Breaking & Training
The next morning to his surprise, he found the wall mir- rors had come loose, the wallpa- per had peeled and most of the Gyproc had fallen from the
• Brand New Facility
• Spacious 12’ x 10’ matted stalls
• Fully insulated barn • 60’x160’ Indoor arena • Quality air flow & plenty of light
• 9 Oak board, double fenced paddocks
• Sand ring & Round pen
• Experienced, Professional Care
Olympic Stables
ceiling.
The next day he
was asked to move to a motel which already had a sauna.
Kathleen or Shelley 905-843-9626/416-705-0168
CONT.PAGE 36
Woodbine Racetrack 2005 Major Race Days
• 101 stakes races
• Labatt Woodbine Oaks:
Sunday, June 12
• Queen's Plate: Sunday, June 26
• Breeders' Stakes: Saturday, August 7
• ATTO Mile: Sunday, Sept18 • Canadian International:
Sunday, October 23