April

April!  You gotta love it.  Warm, windy and dry!  Everything here in Arizona has turned green and I just heard on the news that Prescott was the pollen capitol of the country last week.  No wonder I sneeze all day long.  And I am not the only one – two of the cats and the dog are miserable also.  But all the pastures have come back to life and when I drive across some of the local ranches – there are new baby cows everywhere.  My neighbor has two new foals on the ground and it sure does make me wish I hadn’t gotten out of the breeding end of the horse industry because they sure are fun. 

Our little racetrack is in trouble and the rumors went around that we weren’t going to open this summer.  Of course we have the same rumors every summer so that really isn’t any thing new.  Unfortunately, The Yavapai County Fair Board that runs the place sold their soul to the devil in the form of Jerry Sims who runs Turf Paradise in Phoenix…. Arizona‘s number one track.  Now you may think that doesn’t sound too bad, but Jerry doesn’t want racing – he wants slots, and the track is just a way to hopefully convince the legislators to allow more gambling where there is already gambling.  Then like all the other slot tracks, they would eventually work to get rid of the subsidies paid to the horses.  Anyway, he is a very smart person and owns all the Arizona OTB’s and any contracts Prescott had as to some of the OTB money, have all been re-negotiated in Jerry’s favor.  But the good news is – the track will open this summer.  I don’t know if we will have many horses and there is already talk of cutting the racing days.  Jerry will love that, as he can simulcast races from elsewhere and not have the overhead of paying out purses and other expenses due to running a track.

Jerry also didn’t like our Racing Secretary of many years, so he cut his pay and the guy quit.  They offered the job to Matt, but out of loyalty to his old boss and a dislike of Jerry Sims – Matt turned it down also. So we now have a Racing Secretary who used to be at Remington and I hear is pretty good – I just hope he can deal with the small track mentality we have around here.  Jerry Sims has very few friends on the backside, well, alright, he has a few, but I don’t know if he can hold the threat of no stalls at Turf next winter over their heads and convince them to stay in the state instead of leaving for other summer venues.  It might be an interesting summer.  For my part – I am already mad at the powers that be – they raised the price on my clubhouse table!

Matt has decided to be a jockey agent again this year.  Personally, I wish he’d go back to training, but he thinks this is the way to go so he doesn’t have to be beholden to Jerry Sims in any way.  Jerry has been known to throw people off the property if they don’t agree with him and Matt doesn’t agree with Jerry at all.  So, Matt is looking for a couple of decent riders to agent for this summer in case anyone knows anyone that would like to come out and get some experience.

As for me, I am down from six race horses to a more manageable number of four.  I finally sent the last two that I had turned out up here to Phoenix.  Crown Secret and FD Icy went down in late February to Chad Story to get ready for Prescott.  The rest did them a lot of good and they are training well.  They are scheduled to work this week and they are on track to be ready opening week.

We took Nae Doot away from my main trainer Chad, who never really got along with him, and gave him to a guy named Ed Kereluk.  Ed did well with the horse considering Nae Doot lacks any real talent.  In fact, in his last two races he really tried, which is something new for him, and we were hoping he might even win a race.  Unfortunately, he come back bad after his race on March 29th and X-rays showed a chip and a spiral fracture of his knee so his racing career is over and he is already up here at the farm recuperating.  I suppose he will eventually take over poor old Butch’s job of the resident ‘teacher’ horse.  Butch is still pretty spry for being almost 40 years old and more than a little senile.  He may get confused and forget where he is going but he can still find the way to the grain bucket.

As  for the rest of the horses, Barilla has had some setbacks, she grabbed a quarter (stepped on the heel of her front foot with her back foot) in her race two back.  She lost about two weeks of training and then came back and ran really big last time out, with a new rider, leading from the gate to deep stretch where she ran out of training and tired to finish 3rd.  She should be entered this week, which will set her up for breed day the 30^th of this month.  Breed Day is a day for Arizona bred horses to compete for higher than normal purses and to also showcase our Arizona breeders. 

Cash Receipt has been recuperating from a fat leg he got when he decided to be a jerk in the gate.  He got tired of waiting for the rest of the field to load and reared, hanging one leg over the front of the gate and scrapped his tendon.  Thankfully it wasn’t any worse.  Chad had gotten a bit high on him after his last win and entered him in an allowance race and while he didn’t embarrass anyone he showed he needed some class relief.  Now, he is well again and ready to run but they haven’t used the races we have entered (not enough entries).  Hopefully they will get enough horses and the race will go soon.  

Newtons Theory won a race in February and then Alex Hartman, Newton’s trainer, must have been drinking some of the same Kool-Aid as Chad, as he jumped Newton up to the allowance level also.  He finished a bad third in his first try but Alex still believed he could win at that level so entered him back and he ran up the track.  I kept pointing out that the only person who would be sad if he was claimed would be Alex himself.  So, yesterday, April 2^nd, he entered him back in a claiming race and sure enough – he got claimed.  Ironically, it was probably the two allowance races that made him look good enough for someone to tag.  I am a bit sad but it was a good time for the horse to go and I hope he does well for his new connections, although I bet within hours of signing the slip they were wishing they hadn’t.  The horse is a nut case!  He is goofy as they come and you pretty much have to do things Newton’s way or he will do something stupid – run through the rail, or the stall guards, or over the top of people – he just doesn’t care.  Alex got him a goat which helped calm him down – somewhat – so hopefully his new people have a goat also.

Well, that’s about it for this epistle.  Phoenix has about a month of racing left and then we start up here the end of May.  In the mean time, I will hopefully get some horse boarders in to snack on all this grass I have grown.  Cash may get the summer off unless he gets claimed which I hear is a good possibility as one guy already called and tried to buy him.  There are not too many races for a 3 YO route horse up here, except for the Prescott Derby.  Although I could send him over to Alex and he could do the Sun Ray Park Derby in New Mexico in late June which would set up nicely for the Derby here in late August.  HA!  Maybe I’ve been drinking some of that Kool-Aid, too.  In our defense – by the time the Prescott Derby rolls around – most of our 3YO crop has found their niche in claiming races and the better ones have all left for bigger tracks so the race usually comes up very light on legitimate entries and we would probably fit right in.   Secret, Barilla and Icy will run here in Prescott and it can’t happen soon enough.