March – with an update

While all of you in the east are still fighting old man winter, we have been basking in spring/summer weather since January.  We usually get a late snow but I am having my doubts about that happening this year.  With no rain and hot weather I had to start irrigating. When they haven’t been used for a while, the sprinklers often become home for small bugs which then clog the opening with bug debris and so you have to turn them on set by set and see which ones are working.  Those that aren’t, have to be reamed out or replaced.  I have seven irrigation sets, one for each pasture, so we started testing and after replacing and reaming they still weren’t working like they should be.   There just wasn’t much pressure.  Figuring that I had a leak, Matt and I searched every pasture but couldn’t find any puddles of water.  Although it was nice to know that it wasn’t a leak in the underground pipes and we wouldn’t have to be digging, it also meant that it would probably be the pump or one of it’s pipes and therefore was bound to be expensive.

 

So I called the well people and they pulled the pump and found a big hole in one of the vertical pipes.  They replaced it and although I now had lots of pressure and the sprinklers were all going round and round perfectly, my wallet was considerably lighter.  It is always the unexpected things that set you back and so I really needed the horses to help me out.  HA!  Anyone who has ever owned a racehorse knows how that goes.

 

Cash Receipt ran a second not too long ago but since then has done absolutely nothing.  We decided to enter him down at a small meet in southern Arizona.  Tucson runs a few weeks in the late winter/ early spring and has races for very cheap claiming prices.  Our jockey decided not to make the trip from Phoenix but we got lucky and picked up one of the locals at the track who gave the horse a very nice ride and he finished second.  That was nice but second place at Rillito only earns $400.00 which barely covered the hauling.  Now, I don’t want to hear any snickering from you people that have good horses or run at places that have slot money laugh, because $400 is better than nothing and I was happy with his performance.

 

We then entered him back at Turf Paradise in a ridiculously easy race for the track.  Not only was the competition fairly easy, three of the seven horses scratched.  Including us!  The night before the race Cash must have cast himself in the stall and there he was race day morning, with a fat leg.  The injury was not serious, but he couldn’t run and our whole group (except maybe me) was cursing worse than Scott Blaise.  They finally wrote another race and even though he was training well he ran terrible.  After making the lead, he led until the stretch and stopped like he ran into a wall.

 

Back at the barn we had the vet come and scope him (run a tube down his throat with a camera) and he was full of mucus and yuk.  Remember, this is the horse that had a mass in his throat and had to be operated on twice.  I may be wrong but the way I understand it is that his feed was catching on the ragged edges of where the mass was removed.  So now he is on some antibiotics and will no longer be fed hay on race day.  Funny, that was the way we used to do it when I was training – back when the dinosaurs were roaming the earth.  No hay on race day.  Hopefully, this will help him next time.  Ever the optimist, me!

 

FD Icy was training extremely well and had bullet work after bullet work.  Bullet means the fastest work of the day at the distance worked.  We were looking for the perfect race for a horse that has had almost a year off and the races we liked either didn’t fill or they weren’t used.   For those that don’t know – a racing secretary puts out a condition book with a list of races that he thinks will fit the horses on the grounds.  These are of various conditions and distances.  He then tries to make a days’ worth of races from those in the book.  Since things can change, they also offer ‘extras’ which are listed on the previous day’s overnite.  When nothing came up ‘perfect’ at least from our point of view, he was entered in a race that he probably wasn’t quite ready for distance wise.  He looked really good until he ran out of steam and cantered in.  That race hopefully helped his fitness level and he is entered back in a starter allowance.  Everything is being done with hopes of getting him ready for Arizona Breed day on April 26^th.

 

It looks like Prescott is not going to open again this year and now I have to decide what to do with Icy.  The trainer wants to take him on the California fairs and then Del Mar but I don’t believe he is that good a horse and I not only don’t want him or I to be embarrassed but I can’t afford California prices.  He also mentioned West Virginia and New Mexico but I don’t think those places fit the rest of his barn as well as California. More than likely I will probably end up bringing him home and see what happens next fall.

 

***********Update 3/26**************  Icy’s jockey had a horse fall on him the morning of the race and we had to use a pickup rider.  The horse is a hard horse to ride and the rider didn’t get along with him so chalk up another one.  BAH!

 

 

My other racer, McEver, the pacer that I own a few hairs on, continues to be the bright spot in this operation.  She has two wins and a second in her last three races.  I don’t make any money but I do get a win picture so that is fun.  No one has claimed her yet so that makes me happy and they did jump her up in claiming price for her next start so if she does get claimed it will be for a better price.  It seems at Yonkers, if you draw outside the five gate you don’t have a prayer.  Guess where she drew….post 8.  HA!

 

************* Update 3/27 ********** McEver ran to her post position and beat one.  Not a fun week of racing and now I have to wait at least three weeks until any of them run again – except, maybe McEver.

 

Barilla and Nae Doot are happy as clams and I think I will pay the neighbor kid to ride them a couple times a week this summer.  Make them into saddle horses so they can have something to do as I really think horses are happier if they have a job.  Cash will be retired at the end of Phoenix and I think I will send him to a jumping horse trainer for a few months to see if a new career could be in the works.  He is certainly tall enough and is very pretty.  If he doesn’t work for that then I guess he will come back here and join the crowd here on the farm.

 

Crown Secret is back in foal and after 60 days or about May 1^st I can bring her back so that will be nice.  This is the last time I will try and breed her but let’s hope third time is the charm.  She is one of my most favorite horses and I will be happy to have her home. That will give me a lot to do this summer, just taking care of my own.  Of course the more horses, the more broken sprinklers, but what else do I have to do when there is no racing.

 

Not much else is going on around here.  I still really want to get a few chickens but I can’t find a chicken coop and we have way too many coyotes to let them loose.  All my neighbors have cows but they draw to many flies and my neighbors have enough for all of us.  The guy to my east has one that is ready to calve and he dotes on her to such a degree that it is actually pretty funny.  He bought her a fancy halter and takes her for walks so she can eat the green grass along the river or road.   This is all after he butchered her brother.

 

Some of my neighbors do not have good fences and there is an old country saying that good fences make good neighbors.  Matt found four weaner calves in one of my pastures not long ago and after several phone calls, I finally found the owners.  They were out of town but I said the four were no trouble and could stay as long as needed, however, my fences were not meant to keep cows in.

 

They must have liked the grass because they all stayed until the next day when two “cowboys” showed up at seven am and tried to wrangle them back up the road.  Then it was easy to see how little my fences mattered to four just weaned calves.  They scattered every time they got them near a gate and some would go through the fence and some ran backwards and one just took off in the direction no one else went.  One of the horses they were riding was just a colt and he promptly ditched his rider so then we had four calves and one horse running around.  My dog, Barilla and Nae Doot thought the whole thing was terribly exciting and with the dog barking and Nae Doot and Barilla running up and down, it is a wonder they ever got them headed home.  What should have taken a half hour turned into at least a two hour procedure.   It was a most entertaining day.

 

Well that’s about it for March.  Things can’t get much worse so I expect April to be better.