Page 10 - May 2008 The Game

10 The Game, May 2008
“The Bird Man”
very busy rst year.
In the decades since his arrival,
Moe has broken and galloped some of Canada’s top horses. Most recently, he’s the rst man on the track in the mornings atop True Metropolitan. For this privilege, Moe feels truly blessed. “Like sitting in a Rolls Royce” is how he describes the sensation of riding the multi-Sovereign winner. “I love that horse. I gure I feed him a quarter- pound of candy a day.”
Not all horses are as smooth a ride as True Metropolitan, but the wear and tear of daily galloping doesn’t seem
to faze Moe. “It’s my exercise,” he reasons. “They keep me t, and I keep them t.”
Last fall was the rst in over twenty years that Moe didn’t break horses. But it wasn’t because he didn’t feel up to the task. No, Moe had his hands full with another fast and cunning creature: the pigeon. His father raced pigeons in Ireland, and from him Moe had learned to handle what he calls the “poor man’s racehorse.” There being no pigeon racing scene
in Canada, Moe has recently turned his bird-handling skills to removing pigeons from stadiums, shopping malls and other venues.
He likes pigeons, and his methods of removing them are ethical. Once they’re in Moe’s hands, the birds
are transported somewhere into the mountains, where they hopefully nd a more suitable home than a concrete ledge. His rst experiment with his pigeon-catching techniques was in the Hastings stretch. Over the span of six weeks he had removed over 1,500 pigeons from the rafters and eves. “At one point, I had six hundred of them stored in my tack room,” he laughs. They have not come back since.
“Birdman” Moe, however, is likely to remain at Hastings, near the people and the horses he loves. “I’ll be here forever,” he says with a twinkle in his eye. Moe has certain leanings towards the Hindu doctrine of reincarnation, which allows him to ponder such eternal possibilities. And the way Moe is with animals both large and small ensures that in him, good karma continues to accumulate.
Faith
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
Canada’s Thoroughbred Racing Newspaper
Get Tied On
Continued from Page 8
What followed was another stereo- typical Irish move - Moe departed for London to serve a stint behind a bar. “Wonderful times they were,” he reminisces.
with Chaplain Shawn
The song continues with Moe crossing the Atlantic. The New World beckons as it has beckoned the Irish for centuries. The young man arrives with his girlfriend in Vancouver. The year is 1980, and the couple is here for a six-week holiday. As luck would have it, the annual Polar Bear Swim catches the Irishman’s eye. He’s on the beach early in the morning with hundreds of others, ready to take the frosty dip.
Faith is the ultimate commitment. We put faith in so many things, every day. If hope is based on what might
be, faith is based on something more tangible. Yet, there is a paradox to faith. Many times, as the passage from Hebrews says, it’s a certainty based on the unseen. For instance, if a trainer you’ve known and worked for a long time asks you to gallop a new two
year old, your faith in this horse being a good ride is higher based on what you have experienced. However, if
this horse is in a trailer in the parking lot and the trainer, who you’ve never ridden for says something to the effect of “Let me get him used to the saddle”, your faith diminishes rapidly.
hasn’t worked (in stores now, a new improved user-friendly God!)
Listen, if you want to see God, you’d better be prepared for the consequences. Here’s just a few who “saw” the Lord:
Moses: lived a life of hardship for 50 years in the desert and was denied access to the Promised Land.
Disciples: saw Jesus perform miracles, etc. All died horrible martyr’s deaths at the hands of the Romans.
Paul: struck blind when He heard Jesus’ voice. He suffered whippings, shipwrecks, was jailed and nally beheaded.
Now just because you can’t see God, doesn’t mean He isn’t there. Seeing God puts you in a category of people who were given a rare privilege, but had to carry a huge responsibility.
A few years ago, Bobby Frankel
was in the program as a trainer here at Woodbine. I never saw him once. We also have Steve Asmussen listed here in Toronto. Do you think we’ll see him saddling maiden claimers? Neither do I. But just because we don’t see either trainer doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
If you’ve tried putting faith in God and were disappointed, perhaps you treated Him like a horse you’ve bet your paycheck on, only to see him lose. That’s false hope. But faith in God is based on His past performance in your life and the life of others.
You may need to count your blessings in order to get a better view of what God’s done in your life and take responsibility for where you’ve mixed up hope and faith.
We have a horse here at Woodbine called Silver Gun. He is a rock of consistency, regardless of who he runs for, long or short, turf, dirt or synthetic, year after year after year. He always trains well, always races well. A person can put their faith in him to always do his best. There is a plethora of horses that disappoint and are inconsistent. Yet day after day, many ignore the Silver Guns and put their money and faith in horses who they hope will do well.
Day after day many people ignore God and put their faith in people, money, sports, jobs, you name it. There’s an old saying that goes “You need only a little faith in a big God, not a big faith in a little God.” Perhaps your faith has been misplaced.
Take time to count your blessings, see what God has done in your life - and have faith.
“So there I was. My girl in one
arm and a bottle of apricot brandy in the other, standing in the ocean with beaches and mountains all around. I knew then that I wasn’t going back to Ireland,” Moe explains.
The same faith is used by a trainer
in a groom who has been working for him/her for a long time. The trainer has faith that this groom will show up for work because of the relationship they’ve forged with this person. The same groom will have faith in their trainer on payday, not because they hope to get paid, but because they have been paid regularly in the past.
And the local horses, too, had something to do with him not leaving. He was beginning to poke around the Hastings backstretch. He peeped over fences and eventually sweet-talked
the security guard into letting him in. “That’s when I met Shrimp Eliot,” says Moe. “Shrimp knew everyone and he knew the ropes well.” With Shrimp’s help, Moe attained what is usually impossible to attain. He was issued
a work permit, even though he had applied for it on Canadian territory.
Faith isn’t just some touchy-feely experience, it’s an expectation of the future based on our past and the past we know.
Soon he was working for Mel
Snow, who was kind enough to sign
a ten-year sponsorship for a man he had only recently met. “Mel made it clear that he needed me here. He’s an incredible guy and was a huge help to me right from the start.” A year later Moe married his girlfriend, making it a
Faith should rise and fall, not with our hopes and dreams, but with well thought out logical plans that arise out of experience. Often we get faith and hopes mixed up and then realize disappointment when what we hope for doesn’t materialize.
How do these two get mixed up?
Take note of horses that compete
in the Kentucky Derby or Queen’s Plate, and where they run in the next few months. So often half the eld for these classics are composed of horses whose owners or trainers have lost sight of reality and sense of what’s best for their horse. Although the horse’s respective parties may have their faith based on past performances, if those performances aren’t derby caliber and don’t indicate improvement, then faith has become hope and hard feelings are on the way. The longest distance in the
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world may be the eighth of a mile from the preps to the Derby or Plate.
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CONSIGNOR OF TOP PRICED FILLY IN SELECT SALE 2006
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North off Hwy #9, Between Airport Rd. & Hwy #50 993445Mono-AdjalaTownline,RR#5,Orangeville,ON L9W2Z2
Farm: 519-940-0319 Cell: 416-999-1249
Many people tell me how hard it is to believe or have faith in God because:
a. They can’t see God or
b. They’ve tried God in the past and it just
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