Broken Legged Mare Forced Out of Retirement

It was with some trepidation that A Fleet Cat was sent to the gate for the NWRC Cavalcade Cup Turf Sprint last October. Then a four-year-old, the daughter of Afleet Alex had managed a steady, tough campaign throughout her career, despite a number of suspected, but often unreported injuries and infirmities.

Trainer D. Roys Mansur and owner Be 1^st Farms retired the eleven time winner on October 26, 2007, one day after finishing fourth in the Cavalcade Cup Turf Sprint. The trainer was seemingly relieved to make the announcement.

“To say that she has earned this is an understatement. She’s run once or twice a month since April of her two-year-old season, once taking a couple of months off in the winter after she bled badly down in Florida.”

“Initially, Be 1^st (Farms) and I were hoping at the outset of her career that she would stay sound enough to break her maiden and maybe win a race or two. Aside from chronic knee problems, a club foot, a lifelong battle with stringhalt, blindness in her right eye and deafness in her left ear, she came out of the race in New Mexico (the race prior to the Cavalcade Cup Turf Sprint) with a fracture in her right cannon bone.”

Rewind back a couple of months.

In fact, it had been reported in mid-September that A Fleet Cat had been stall-bound for several days following the Storm Off The Lake Special in New Mexico, though at the time, the problem was described as ‘not serious.’

D. Roys Mansur had been very specific about plans for the filly going into the fall/winter campaign, stating prior to the Storm Off The Lake Special that the NWRC Cavalcade Cup Turf Sprint was the ultimate goal. Ms. Mansur articulated very clearly that A Fleet Cat would in fact start once more between the two races.

When A Fleet Cat remained in New Mexico for several weeks, only hand walked for twenty minutes or so each day, it became clear that not only was she unlikely to run once before the NWRC race, but that the NWRC race itself was hardly a certainty.

The trainer, however, was not to be swayed, at least publicly.

“A Fleet Cat will be shipping to Vegas for the Cavalcade Cup (Turf Sprint) in the next few days. Yes, we missed a few days of training and ultimately it has cost us a start that we had hoped for. But, this filly is doing great, she is sound, and we look forward to proving that she can handle the boys too.”

Though neither the press nor the fans had ever pressed the issue of A Fleet Cat’s physical problems, it had not been a well guarded secret among those close to the connections or the inner circles at the track. The alarmist tone of D. Roys Mansur’s proclamation, a defensive reaction to a non-existent interrogator, actually prompted disbelief and cemented a rising public suspicion that all was not well with A Fleet Cat.

On October 19, 2008, NWRC spokesperson Cher N. Sneausheath addressed questions regarding the filly’s nomination in spite of the lack of apparent training.

“To the best of my knowledge and that of my associates, Ms. Mansur intends to send A Fleet Cat here in the next day or so. Nevada only requires published works for horses without a start or work in the last forty-five days, so she doesn’t need to work.”

At the time, Sneausheath reassured concerned fans to some degree.

“However, in light of the interest and some public concerns, I will personally see to it that I talk to (Track Veterinarian) Dr. (Paul) McGaunn. Our entrants are all subject to a pre-race exam and Dr. McGaunn and I will consider this case with greater scrutiny.”

Of course, A Fleet Cat did arrive as announced, did not work as expected, and did run as scheduled.

She was installed as a narrow morning line favorite and despite the rumors, setbacks, and contradictions, A Fleet Cat was sent postward as a convincing 5-2 favorite. Far back early with only two beaten heading to the five-sixteenths pole, A Fleet Cat made a brief move leaving the far turn, advancing to within six lengths. She could not sustain the rally however, flattening out to finish fourth.

Just five hours after the race, A Fleet Cat was loaded into a trailer and departed Las Vegas. The next morning, D. Roys Mansur announced the retirement of A Fleet Cat.

While fans of the filly awaited to learn her future mate, the connections were setting a peculiar chain of events in motion. First consigned as a ‘racing prospect’ to the Barriff’s Mixed Sale, A Fleet Cat was withdrawn after various medical imagery revealed the extent of the grizzled mare’s injuries. Prospective buyers retreated in panic upon examining the radiographs and ultrasounds, and again, the credibility of the connections’ assessments of A Fleet Cat’s soundness throughout her career was again questioned.

Several weeks later, she appeared in the Texas Mixed Sale, this time as a broodmare prospect. She was announced sold for $695,000, but it was revealed the next day that Be 1^st Farms had bought her back, leading many to suspect that the connections were merely fishing for a market value so that they could use her as collateral against loans to keep the racing operation solvent.

Just weeks later, D. Roys Mansur was given the now five-year-old mare by Be 1^st Farms.

According to several close to the situation, the ownership interest had been hemorrhaging losses in their racing enterprises for years, but had been effectively deducting those losses against gains from outside enterprises. Recent declines in outside revenue left Be 1^st Farms with a substantial debt to the trainer and the issue came to a boil when Be 1^st Farms fell into collections with the local Veterinary clinic after amassing a $358,614.79 bill to perform emergency intestinal surgery on pensioned thirty four-year-old former mid-level claimer Person Roger.

Originally offered for sale at the price brought at the Texas sale ($695,000), Mansur found that buyers for A Fleet Cat that existed just a month ago were no longer interested. In fact, despite dropping the sale price significantly, many former suitors now considered any ‘asset’ that required capital to exist as a liability.

Unable to sell A Fleet Cat for anything close to Person Roger’s vet bill, much less her training bill, Mansur then decided to breed the mare in the hopes that the resulting foal will bring true market value as a yearling or two-year-old.

Unfortunately, she waited too long to make the decision to send the mare to Kentucky, and all but one hauling company had gone out of business in recent weeks. Bad weather throughout the nation had left the roads in shambles and with several States enacting a ‘freeze’ on the budget due to enormous deficits, it was a game of Russian roulette to attempt the trek along dilapidated, often impassible routes.

It was one week ago today that D. Roys Mansur saddled up A Fleet Cat with a stock saddle and a few saddle bags, grabbed the horn and swung aboard. She rode from the ranch straight to Lone Shark Park, stopping to pick up the mail and a lottery ticket along the way.

Making no excuses for the decision to ride A Fleet Cat back into the racing spotlight, Mansur arrived at the grandstand entrance like Paul Revere after crossing a Charles River contaminated with Jolt Cola.

“I’m broke and if this busted down old mare expects to eat, she better go to winning races again.”

“I know this will infuriate you, but…”

“…As much as the fans love to see horses train to win at a year of age, sold to win at a year and a half of age, and then run to win at two years of age…”

“…as infrequently as possible, usually in small, non-competitive races, designed so that a good jock agent can turn a high-end claimer into a multiple graded stakes winner…”

“…through age three and occasionally into age four…”

“…and then whisked away to be leading juvenile sires before we learn their names as racehorses…”

“…those days may be on hold for a while for a lot of people and their horses.”

“They destroyed our fields of forages and grains and much of our grazing land in the form of small farms to make room for hundreds of thousands of vacant homes. Not only has the cost of feeding a horse ballooned outrageously in the last few years, the simplicity of it is no longer an assumed guarantee as certain food types have actually become scarce.”

“Not too long ago we sold older racehorses, past their prime or a little too achy, making a decent dollar finding these runners the possibility of a second life, either as a hunter, jumper, riding horse, or maybe even just a pet.”

“I’m not entirely sure that the population of horses exploded as much as the available land simply vanished, but coupled with the rapid inflation on grains and forages due to scarcity, now it has become something of an impossibility to give a perfectly useful non-racehorse horse away for free due to a simple lack of space and the reality of twenty dollar bales of alfalfa.”

“This dilemma has yet to seriously endanger much of racing because at every level there has remained some overriding degree of wealth, certain highly profitable individuals lured to racing as much by its tax incentives as much as the charm of the sport.”

“Unfortunately, and you won’t hear this said with disappointment often – right now, even the rich aren’t getting richer.”

“Massive syndication deals on the two or three annual stars as well as unnecessary syndication deals on the dozens of dreadfully average racehorses are waging a losing battle with people that find themselves in the precariously unfamiliar position of desperately needing to show a profit, rather than a loss.”

“So as much as you all may hate it and find me cruel and unusual, I will force you to enjoy watching a race mare compete. The inflated market is gone. Sure, there will be those top-sellers that defy that trend as the financially unflappable can battle amongst themselves for the truly coveted.”

“But for some of us that a year ago could have cashed in for a lot more money off the track than on it, it is time to reconsider our approaches and perhaps focus on a more durable, sustainable campaigner. The massive reductions in stud fees hoping to lure apprehensive breeders guarantees losses for many tied into market-influenced deals for mediocre stock, but offers hope of minimizing certain unexpected losses.”

“Presumably, the market for sub-Champion quality stallion and broodmare prospects is not going to be nearly as tantalizing in the present and coming years as it has been.”

Unlike Paul Revere’s “one if by land, two if by sea…” proclamation, D. Roys Mansur’s speech to the masses at the grandstand entrance caused very little commotion.

The noisy old blind man with the cane waiting for the lone cashier to arrive for work and take his five dollar admission including senior discount lost his hearing aid last week and the line to the public assistance office is nine blocks long.

Upon realizing that the general public wasn’t extending an ear to the plight of the repressed horse industry, Ms. Mansur rode A Fleet Cat to the barn area and found her a stall.

Upon realizing that Lone Shark Park was just a racetrack and did not offer slots, the squalling old blind man with the cane and no hearing aid decided that he’d rather get in the public assistance line.

With A Fleet Cat tucked up and fit from the ninety-seven mile trip from the ranch to the track earlier in the day and resting in a disconcertingly morbid pose, Ms. Mansur headed to the race office and filled the Off Without Capote Stakes. Though Texas statutes, like those in Nevada, require one work for more than forty-five days of inactivity, the Texas Stewards, all graduates accredited by the same accrediting group that handles the yokels in Arizona, decided against enforcing the rule as any and all rules are subject to interpretation and amalgamation, regardless of their specificity.

Fulfilling a daily requirement of all licensed trainers, Ms. Mansur was certain to stand outside the office for thirteen minutes and decry the ills of her industry to her peers, again finding an audience that can’t see or hear, but makes a lot of noise.

The next day, A Fleet Cat was forced to remain stall bound until it was time for beer.

So at five-thirty prompt, just as the track opened for morning training, D. Roys Mansur led the five-year-old mare out for a little grazing. Three minutes later, she was back in her stall as it became much too cumbersome to graze the mare and reach in the tack room for another can of Keystone.

Alas, it was yesterday that A Fleet Cat, stock saddle and all, finally made it out of the shedrow for a little hint of exercise as D. Roys loped her to the post office so she could mail out a few bills to clients two weeks early.

On the way back, she stopped to chat with the lone remaining media connection, Mutton Chop, who had justifiably been abandoned by the industry in Texas a few years ago during the Breeder’s Cup telecast. Despite his stench, a crowd of a few had assembled around Mutton Chop which now with the addition of Mansur, represented each of the five trainers with a starter in Saturday’s Off Without Capote.

After a few minutes of absurdly dramatized questions that did nothing to stimulate the conversation, Mutton Chop was killed by one of the five trainers sick of his irritating shtick, but grateful that he provided a catalyst for their assembly and hopefully a conclusion to this novel.

Charles De La Racque, trainer of 6-1 longshot Evil Mutant wasn’t expressing a tremendous amount of joy that Mansur had made the trip to Lone Shark.

“It would be nice to ship all the way through the 1800’s or whatever they call this State and not have to face A Fleet Cat at the last second. If I know that D. Roys is going to show up, I stay away from Texas, even if it did mean sacrificing the expansion of my knowledge of second amendment constitutional rights.”

Mansur, however, attempted to reassure De La Racque, stating unequivocally that even though A Fleet Cat is “ready to roll”, he is not, in her words, “…just quite there. He isn’t, what’s the word… He’s just a little, I don’t know, I guess he could be… a little bit… Sharper? That’s not the right word, is it?”

Still, with about as much in winnings on turf as her four rivals combined on turf, A Fleet Cat could just be too good, regardless of whether or not she’s one-hundred per cent.

Or, not, according to R. Gosiven Fuyvneinteu, trainer of razor sharp Amanda Woodward.

“She (A Fleet Cat) had better be ready to run. My mare (Amanda Woodward) doesn’t need to work in company; she’s ready to belly down and fire.”

Entering Saturday’s feature in the midst of a three-race win streak against allowance foes and four wins in her last five starts, veteran Amanda Woodward seems to be finding her best form at age five. Though she owns as many wins (eleven) as heavily favored A Fleet Cat, she has earned just about one-third as much, in large part due to a pair of claiming wins, several conditioned allowance wins at small circuits such as Utah, Maine, and Iowa, and a twenty-eight race resume that is void of a stakes appearance, much less a win.

Fuyvneinteu, who claimed the mare for $75,000 early in her three-year-old season, is if nothing else, certain of his assessment of his entrant.

“As sharp as she is and with only five in the field, I wouldn’t be surprised if she wired the field.”

Though Amanda Woodward isn’t dazzlingly fast, perfectly comfortable sitting off the pace, among her four rivals this weekend, only millionaire Kacymygirl is inclined to show much speed.

“If that old mare (Kacymygirl) that won all the graded stakes on dirt with (jockey Javier) Webb decides to go, we may not tie into her” explained Fuyveinteu, “but she hasn’t run a good race in almost a year, so there isn’t any reason to duel. Either way, we’re in a perfect spot and training great for this, so these two classy old mares better bring races from yesteryear to keep my mare from winning.”

N. J. Badday, trainer for Jersey Bound Stables and of seven-year-old veteran Kacymygirl, was quick to caution the confidence of Fuyveinteu with a chuckle.

“Now don’t you just be thinking that she’s old and got no flashy pedigree, so I’ve been waiting, and now I’m going to keep running her until I can breed her or something crazy like that.”

“My mare can still be right nice tough and mean and this ain’t no thirteen or fifteen horse gate like she’s tried lately. I’m plum happy and glad only four of y’all come here and none of y’all seem to think you want to be on the lead. I’m fine with that, don’t duel with me Jack.”

In truth, Badday wasn’t off base with his characterizations of the difference between Saturday’s race and recent races Kacymygirl has found herself in. Rafa Zambaygo, trainer of ten-time winner Reina Jade, was eager to point that out to Fuyveinteu.

“Mr. Badday’s not lying to you, mate. I’ve seen this old hussy run when she can get the lead. I was visiting my old mates in Queensland when she ran in a long sprint stakes (The King Puppet Stakes) there. She ran far back, but was in a huge field and got mucked away from the gate. They were going seven and a half and she never was close to the front and doesn’t have any real late kick, so she never had much chance.”

“I remember because she got a lot of action with the bookies and when she was never a threat turning for home, all I could think was, man I wish that I had my mare (Reina Jade) in here. As far back as she gets and the pace collapses with the favorite stuck where she doesn’t want to be, (Reina) Jade could have run past the all of them.”

Reina Jade is another that has bounced from turf to dirt at various points, though presently neither appears to be preferred. She has continued to perform well on both surfaces, but perhaps just not quite as well on either as she has in the past.

Her running style is odd and perhaps compromising as she rarely is in very close contact with the leaders at any point, but almost needs to avoid ending up too close to a tepid pace. Her best efforts are almost always races in which she is able to fall well behind and make a sustained rally, rather than her alternate mode where she settles mid-pack and remains there, often throughout.

Zambaygo, like Badday and Fuyveinteu, was under astonished by the presence of A Fleet Cat.

“I thought she was broke down last year. I never thought that she was amazing anyway. I am actually amazed that they are laying even money.”

“Of course she can win, but any of these fillies can win.”

The overflow of confidence from Zambaygo, Badday, and Fuyveinteu about their own chances, and his own misgivings about having to face A Fleet Cat left Charles De La Racque, and his confidence, in near shambles.

“I don’t find about D. Roys’ mare (A Fleet Cat) coming until after I get here. Now everyone is dancing around me like they already won the race. What have I gotten myself into?”

With a calming tone, De La Racque was reminded that his filly is two for three on turf in her brief career and seems to be on the mild improve at age four. It was a mild, but temporary sedative.

“Well yeah, I know she’s getting better and I think she likes the turf more, but I’m not trying to tear her legs off either by making her try so hard. Can’t you see that I try to be cautious with her; it was a big step trying a stakes race last time; I was really worried for her.”

“Oh, stop your crying.” an exasperated sounding N. J. Badday countered.

R. Gosiven Fuyveineteu agreed, “Come on now, we are all just talking, bragging a little. Let’s go run our horses, have some fun, huh?”

D. Roys Mansur rejoined the conversation, after relinquishing control of this novel for three pages.

“Look at me, Chuck (De La Racque)! If I can go from trying to squeeze every dollar of value into this mare before squeezing every dollar out of her, to riding her in a stock saddle to the entry booth with a half-broken leg, anything is possible!”

Charles De La Racque settled and relented.

“I suppose you’re right. It’s a nice day, the horses are happy.”

Rafa Zambaygo chimed in before the group drifted apart, something about who was going to dump Mutton Chop’s carcass. As D. Roys bravely grabbed his ankle and began to drag, Mutton Chops sprang to life with a last gasping plea before clunking back dead.

“If you can’t make it work as a business, you guys might just have to resort to trying it as sport again and see if what once worked still can, since what isn’t working now, won’t work ever…”

“Does he ever shut up?”, asked D. Roys as she and De La Racque closed the lid on the dumpster.