July

July

After such a fantastic June things didn’t go as well in July.  After the Fourth of July break, racing resumed and the weather was unseasonably dry ….. for awhile and then the rains came making nothing but marshes and mud.  I brought all the racehorses home for a little R & R while Yavapai was closed for the holiday and I picked up a few boarders at the same time.  So I went from having three empty pastures to having none.  I decided to turn the four pony horses out together on my biggest pasture so that I would have a place to put some of mine.  The ponies would only be here for a short while and they all lived together at home, so that worked out ok.  Besides the grass in the pasture was so high it had gone to seed and was badly in need of a mowing.  I did get a new boarder around the end of July – a nice 2 YO gelding that was getting some R & R after breaking his maiden.  For whatever reason, they seldom, if ever, write a 2 YO winner’s race here at Yavapai.  My trainer Chad Story was supposed to bring him out to the house, he goes every day to the track and I only go race days, but he kept putting it off – meaning he didn’t want to – so I finally had to go and do it myself and while I was there I brought Crown Secret home.  If there is anything in this world I hate to do it is haul horses – except maybe rope horses.  But I needed the board money to off set some of the operating costs, so I did it 

My pastures all look great, few horses and lots of rain make it very easy to grow things.  Fewer boarders also mean fewer sprinklers to fix, too, although I have had to fix a few fences.  My neighbor runs cows down in the river and sometimes they come looking for higher ground.  It scares all my TBs to death when the cows tear down the fence and come marching through the property.  Cow horses they are not!  Thanks to the cows, I had three saddle horses get loose the other day, and follow the cows down the driveway.  After running around my property for awhile, they went to visit the neighbors and destroyed a front lawn as well as leaving calling cards everywhere.  I, of course, was at the races and had no idea such havoc was going on until I returned home to find the front gate closed and horse and cow tracks everywhere.  Someone had shooed them all back on to my property and shut the gate.  What a mess!  I had cows and horses in every direction.  I finally got the horses penned up and then saddled my old rope horse and ran the cows back through the fence but had to wait for the boys to get home to help fix the fence.

OK – enough about the farm, since this is being published in a ‘racing newspaper’ I guess I ought to get to the racing stuff.

It’s a good thing I started out with six racehorses because they are falling like flies.  After the break over the fourth of July, I decided to keep Cash Receipt home for the next few months to give him a chance to grow into himself.  He’s a giant horse with really big bones and was suffering what could best be called – growing pains.  So he will stay here at the house until the end of September or so.  I really like to give every horse about three months or so off a year.  It’s not always feasible, but I try, and I am very lucky to have a place to turn them out.  I would normally have turned him out Sept through November but this works out ok and he should be back in training by October and able to run by the end of the year. Besides, that will help cut the training bill.  So he is happily munching grass next to the old pony and an in foal broodmare that belongs to Chad my trainer.

FD Icy stayed at the track over the 4^th but came home when most of the others went back in.  He stayed for about two weeks and had a grand time making his own private racetrack around the outside of the pasture.  Every morning and most evenings he’d do three or four laps – down the hill, around the pasture and back up the hill and then do it over again – just for the fun of running.  I took him back to the track the middle of July as I am going to supplement him to the late Prescott Futurity.  The trials will be the 15^th of August with the Futurity on Labor Day.  It will cost $3,200.00 to supplement him but he’s earned it.  Then he will come home for his vacation and I am thinking of sending him to Alex Hartman in New Mexico as his trainer of record here, is moving to Kentucky.

Not much to say about Nae Doot.  I finally got Chad to put a big shadow roll on him and it helped him immensely.  He wants to stick his head way up in the air and that combined with his high action had him practically running in place or so it seemed.  A shadow roll for those of you that might not know, makes a horse stride out better.  Horses like to see where they are putting their feet and by putting a big fuzzy roll over their nose they tend to drop their head down and out, so they can see the ground ahead of them.   I suppose this stems from when they were wild and a missed step could be the end of them.  Anyway, combined with blinkers he managed to run a decent third last time out.

Crown Secret enjoyed her holiday and came back to win another on the 19^th so that was fun.  I thought she would get a few more races in before the end of the meet but last week she tripped coming back to the barn after a gallop and pulled the check ligament just below her knee.  She is supposed to have 30 days stall rest but I don’t have any stalls so she is in a small pen.  I haven’t decided whether to breed her or bring her back to race again next year.  I have about five months to decide.  What a bummer.

Newton‘s Theory is resting until September somewhere near Ruidoso, NM and will be readied for a winter campaign at Sunland Park in New Mexico again.  He went out on a high note winning the Farewell Stakes at Sun Ray Park with ease.  It was a big win for me and coming on the heels of Icy’s second in the Yavapai Futurity kept my feet off the ground for some time.  When that horse is right he makes it look so easy.  He’s still a mental case, however, and it’s easy to forget that part when he runs so well.  But, I don’t have to deal with him as long as he stays one state over.  Alex Hartman has done a super job with the horse and Newton has supported all my under-achievers at least this year.

Last but not least is Barilla.  She has had setback after setback, ranging from sore shins to blisters in her throat.  She finally got her gate card and her tattoo and is entered to run on Saturday the 7^th.  She got to come home for the short break but may have liked it here to much as she has been moping ever since she went back to the track.  When she stopped eating we thought ulcers and I splurged on the Gastro Guard which is hideously expensive but it didn’t seem to help much.  A nice shot of Winstrol (a steroid) did get her eating again, however, now Chad is worried about a bad test.  The vet assured him that it is supposed to be out of their system within 14 days but every horse is different and on race day it will only be day 15.  Great!  She’s been in training since last February and now that she is finally ready to run, he may scratch her.  Worse, I don’t think she is good enough to go to Phoenix in the winter so she will probably get turned out until next spring.  This business is not for anyone wearing short pants!

Well, that’s my story for July.  Hope August turns out well and the horses do well – those that I have left to run.  It is hot and humid and I am starting to look forward to fall and the cooler weather.  I am planning a short trip to Minnesota in September which will be fun if I can pull it off.  The family has a nice cottage on a lake and while I am not much of a fisherwoman, I do like the jet ski.