Busy, cold, night at the horseraces.

Well last night at the racetrack it was cold, rainy, and miserable. It was the first night of horseracing at Mountaineer Park without the "King" - Dale Baird. The flags in the Mountaineer infield flew at half staff in remembrance of Dale. We had three horses in plus one to run for good friend Bob Guciardo from Cleveland. Two were longshots - Unstable and Carrie Boone. We were worried because we didn't know if Dr Zi would do his recent "head throwing/ smash jockey's face in" move out of the gate with his huge jowly head. As added stress 2 of our 4 jockeys took off their mounts for the evening and we needed to find new riders for the 2nd and 4th races at about 6:00 - an hour to post time. As usual it was more a matter of "who can we get to ride" rather than "who do we want to ride" and replacement riders Axel Dasilva and Ken Deonaugth (sp?) both followed instructions perfectly, we were absolutely thrilled with both rides, and will use both riders again.

Unstable ran really well for Axel (at 50+ to 1 odds), beaten less than 5 lengths, was wide in a smart move by jock Axel Dasilva to keep the dirt out of his face, and he really liked him and asked to ride him back.

Dr Zi stormed immediately out of the gate ahead of the rest of the rest of the field, with NONE of the headslinging of the past 3 races - yeay!! Jock Ken D had him laying beautifully third in hand down the back side. Zi is is a router going short so he ought to have a good kick at the end. At the 3/8 pole Ken asked him for his run, Zi considered it briefly then chucked it at the head of the lane, starting to "climb" and complain about the muddy going.

Carrie Boone was in with such a tough bunch of mares. When she was obviously not going to place jock on a deep muddy track Luis Rivera wrapped up on her and let her canter safely home, and she came back in one piece.

In the same race, Never Under ran a huge race under Rex Stokes, leading most of the way, ceding late for 2nd. Bob has done a beautiful job of training her - she has really had a great year. Her owners are leaning towards breeding her - and she will produce lovely, athletic, stout babies.

We tried to sell Dr Zi this morning - had him sold, paid for and delivered once this morning and the guy came back 15 mins later and told me he didnt realize he was a stud and wanted his money back. Technically he IS a "horse" and I never tried to mislead him. Yes I realize I should have pointed out that he was (very obviously) a stud. Zi looks all stallion and has these HUGE nuts hanging there and when the guy picked up his legs to flex him, the nuts practically poked him in the face. We could have been been a typical "horse trader" and say "too bad, you bought him, he is yours now." But we said "fine, give him back."



Jockey Axel Dasilva came to the barn this morning to check in with us as I was walking Zi and mentioned what a gorgeous horse he is. Zi is a horse that turns heads because he is the cock of the walk - vibrantly healthy, slick as a ribbon and dapples glowing in his rich liver chestnut coat. I commented to Axel that he had just run last night (as now Zi is dancing and snorting fire with the chain through his mouth) and Axel asked "Is that Dr Zi?" The horse is infamous, I swear.

We have Charles the First in tonight with Ricky Feliciano aboard. Charlie is feeling great, acting strong and full of himself. There is a lot of dying speed in the race and we know Charlie is capable of a great closing kick so we are hopeful he will like the conditions and put in a big effort.