Horse Racing Fantasy Community

Things Change and Fast: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The first thing I have learned about this business is that minute you start mapping out a plan for the next months something always to change that plan.

Last week Pete had a potential serious injury…..this week he is fine and had a great week of training. After two vets looked him over they found nothing that was causing his problem. Their recommendation, “put him back in training”…so we did and he seems to be doing very well. The latest theory is that he did not like his new shoes and was unsure how to walk so he looked like he was lame…OK????

The next plan was for Beacon Beach to remain in swim therapy for a couple more weeks….as of today he is being shipped to the our trainer to begin full time training early and he could be ready to run in 45-60 days if all goes well (uh oh another plan)

Saturday was the first day Beacon had a jockey on his back. He was fitter than expected, swimming had paid off… and the people at the training center thought there would not be much more benefit to his fitness in future swim lessons. So it was now time to get some speed works into the guy.

Adding to the urgency of getting Beacon out of here was some of the conditions at the trainer center. This is a huge location where there are hundreds of horses and many trainers. While we had an assistant watch Beacon full time many of the other horses seemed neglected. There was a neglected horse in the stall next to his Beacon, he had no bedding and his stall smelled like urine. We felt so bad we stole some food and fed it to the poor guy….inquiring about his owners it turns out somebody was feeding him and caring for him daily but man was I pissed at the way the horse looked. Secondly, when Beacon was going around the training track there was a horse tied to the starting gate and just left there. About an hour later someone came strolling out and took the horse. But it is really dangerous to leave a horse out unattended.

After seeing these things we told our trainer we want our horse out of here now. He said he did not have any open stalls, and Beacon would be fine for another two weeks. Little did we no he was upset ( not wanting us to get even more upset) too and already making arrangement to get Beacon out of there too. Lucky for me but not so for my friends a horse my partners own on Sunday developed an issue, discovered after a race and will be shipped to a vet clinic today opening up a stall for Beacon (that story for another day).

Horse racing changes by the minute and you have to have the where with all and financial reserves) to change with it. I wonder what will happen next....

dedewhale