Monday, October 31, 2011
High Flying Adore
I called her Flyer. This filly arrived a week or so after I started and went into the pony stall. She was a dark bay with a wide blaze. She was nice to walk and often I would go visit her in her stall. One time I went over and she had a gash in her forehead. I called over Sanchez and looked around for what caused it. The number of loose nails, loose metal trimming, and splintered wood made it difficult to find where exactly she had hurt herself. I went searching for a hammer to get her stall in better shape so it wouldn't happen again. Marcelo later said this action showed how I think like someone who should be a foreman or assistant. A week or so after she got here she was entered in a race. For a few days after I didn't see her or notice her abscence because we walk different horses and often the ones in the pony stall get shipped off after their races. Then one day I'm sitting with Sanchez and he and Marcelo are betting for the first race. Marcelo comes out with the program and a pen and deals out the results. This horse scratched, trouble in the gate, this horse won, this was last, this one broke down, this was second...wait, wait, wait broke down? What do you mean broke down? I stammered. Sanchez mimed slitting his throat. I stared in disbelief, dead? Wait that horse is dead? Yeah, broke down, they come onto the track, you know, and put it down. You know the horse that was over there- he points to the pony stall- it broke down. What? What happened? She broke down. She's dead? No, no problem with the leg she'll go to the farm now. Flyer was my first eye-opener here. This wasn't all fun and games.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Siberian Wildcat
I love this filly. She was my first favorite. I remember on my first day in Saratoga she was the third horse I walked. Right away I loved her because she was calm and was in the other barn so that no one could watch if I did something wrong. And then when I walked her I noticed something weird. I kept hearing these noises, like a fart and squeak combined into one. Then I noticed her sucking in on her lips and glancing at me out of the corner of her eye every time she made the noise. I started laughing at this childish behavior of making noises for attention. But it wasn't just that, often she would do it when she had just had a drink of water or had a bath. The action is equivalent to sucking in your cheeks, the corners of your lips getting pulled in too.
Wildcat is a black filly in my mind but technically she is still registered as a dark bay. She is very small, thin and gangly. Her head is still the oddly thin profile of a 2 year old. She has a round star in the middle of her forehead and then a lightning shaped stripe running down her nose. In Saratoga she was in stall 6, here she's in number three, still managing to be tucked away from everyone.
In Saratoga her personality in her stall was a bit different from here, another reason I liked her. She just did not give a shit about anyone. She didn't like being touched or talked to. She went into her stall and immediately faced her butt towards you and went to sleep. I would call in "wildcat" and she would turn her head sideways to give me a quick, disaproving look and then toss her head and press it back against the wall so she didn't have to see anyone. They tried running her with blinkers but it didn't make much of a difference, she is not crazy on the track and she runs fairly consistently.
Here she is much nicer in her stall and she really has warmed up to me...of course I'm the only one who visits her. But I call to her and she comes and sees me. She is still weird about being touched, like she doesn't understand it or she somehow doesn't seem the hand coming at her, especially around her head. But she never tries to bite or kick or hurt me in anyway. She prefers to be the one to make the contact, if I stand there she will brush her nose or lips across my face, neck, arms or wherever she can reach. She loves my hair, both sniffing it and trying to taste it. But every so often I'll move slightly and she'll spook for a second and even go all the way to the back of her stall before coming back and laying her chin on my shoulder.
She has run once here, finished third. Not a bad race, but there was not much to show, she held roughly the same spot throughout the race. When we were hosing her I asked Sanchez for the program and saw what I had feared, it was a claiming race, $40,000 I think, but still claiming. My heart froze. I had just lost Molly's Ship. Was this filly, one of my three strongest connections, going to disappear as well? The day was cool but sunny. As we walked I looked at Wildcat's coat glisten, studied how the blanket clung to her thin frame, watched the delicate steps she took...all out of fear that this was the last time I would walk with her. As we went through the corner of the training track on the way to the receiving barn I took each step with a sharp reminder settling in my head that not a week before I had run barefoot, injured and muddy, through that dirt to reach Molly's Ship before his new owner Rob Young took him away from me forever. There was a split second of unbearable anxiety after the race when Marcelo asked if anyone had claimed the Wildcat. When the guy shook his head a wave of relief fell over me. Walking in the test barn my joy was slighted by the groom who wouldn't take her for a second so I could see how War Hitch ran in the race after us. I wanted so badly to see him run. But the groom sneered and said "You're the hotwalker." His friend even called him an asshole but they still huddled up in a corner room and watched the race together. I walked back alone. Never again would I help him out. One little request and he had to be a prick. I felt bad for my poor wildcat, such a gentle horse. On other occasions I saw the groom beating on his other horses and I feared for her.
Wildcat is a black filly in my mind but technically she is still registered as a dark bay. She is very small, thin and gangly. Her head is still the oddly thin profile of a 2 year old. She has a round star in the middle of her forehead and then a lightning shaped stripe running down her nose. In Saratoga she was in stall 6, here she's in number three, still managing to be tucked away from everyone.
In Saratoga her personality in her stall was a bit different from here, another reason I liked her. She just did not give a shit about anyone. She didn't like being touched or talked to. She went into her stall and immediately faced her butt towards you and went to sleep. I would call in "wildcat" and she would turn her head sideways to give me a quick, disaproving look and then toss her head and press it back against the wall so she didn't have to see anyone. They tried running her with blinkers but it didn't make much of a difference, she is not crazy on the track and she runs fairly consistently.
Here she is much nicer in her stall and she really has warmed up to me...of course I'm the only one who visits her. But I call to her and she comes and sees me. She is still weird about being touched, like she doesn't understand it or she somehow doesn't seem the hand coming at her, especially around her head. But she never tries to bite or kick or hurt me in anyway. She prefers to be the one to make the contact, if I stand there she will brush her nose or lips across my face, neck, arms or wherever she can reach. She loves my hair, both sniffing it and trying to taste it. But every so often I'll move slightly and she'll spook for a second and even go all the way to the back of her stall before coming back and laying her chin on my shoulder.
She has run once here, finished third. Not a bad race, but there was not much to show, she held roughly the same spot throughout the race. When we were hosing her I asked Sanchez for the program and saw what I had feared, it was a claiming race, $40,000 I think, but still claiming. My heart froze. I had just lost Molly's Ship. Was this filly, one of my three strongest connections, going to disappear as well? The day was cool but sunny. As we walked I looked at Wildcat's coat glisten, studied how the blanket clung to her thin frame, watched the delicate steps she took...all out of fear that this was the last time I would walk with her. As we went through the corner of the training track on the way to the receiving barn I took each step with a sharp reminder settling in my head that not a week before I had run barefoot, injured and muddy, through that dirt to reach Molly's Ship before his new owner Rob Young took him away from me forever. There was a split second of unbearable anxiety after the race when Marcelo asked if anyone had claimed the Wildcat. When the guy shook his head a wave of relief fell over me. Walking in the test barn my joy was slighted by the groom who wouldn't take her for a second so I could see how War Hitch ran in the race after us. I wanted so badly to see him run. But the groom sneered and said "You're the hotwalker." His friend even called him an asshole but they still huddled up in a corner room and watched the race together. I walked back alone. Never again would I help him out. One little request and he had to be a prick. I felt bad for my poor wildcat, such a gentle horse. On other occasions I saw the groom beating on his other horses and I feared for her.
Oceola Maid
This 2 year old filly just came from the farm two weeks ago. She is very sweet but a bit shy sometimes. Her coat is beautiful, a golden strawberry bay with roaning and a white blaze on her forehead. She is Tito's new prize. She came over from the other barn when Saul went to Oklahoma and now she is permanently over here as his new addition. He is very fond of her. Out of all of his powerful, energetic horses she is his quiet little child. Being in stall number two on the other side will probably keep her quiet, rather than adapt to the head tossing of Tito's other horses the way Burbon St. Girl did. This was the first filly I really liked in the other barn when I was banished there and couldn't see my regular favorites.
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