Winning is always great for the human connections. Sometimes however you feel a little better about a win when a particular horse has overcome some difficulties or troubles. That was how I felt today when Richwood Silver crossed the wire at snowy Turfway Park this afternoon. She was a horse that I picked up off the "scrap heap" at the Keeneland November sale last year for $17000. She had three awful running lines but I liked her pedigree and shape and thought that a few changes may do her some good. Richwood broke her maiden in her first start for us (and the first winner under the banner of Bluegrass Equine Center also) and looked like a promising prospect. A sale to West Coast interests for a nice profit fell through and I wound up selling 50% of her to friend and client Bob Gary. We entered her in an allowance race at Oaklawn Park and she looked like a winner every step of the way until the jockey suddenly pulled her up. I thought for a brief second that she had broke down. That was until I saw the rest of the field pulling up too. The tractor that pulls the gate had malfunctioned and the starting gate was sitting in the same place that it was when the field broke. Needless to say it obviously had a psychological effect on Richwood as she simply never ran well afterwards. She didn't even show the speed that she had always flashed in the past. We gave her a short break and brought her back this fall with little change in performance. Finally we dropped her in class and today she showed that old speed and fight and took the 8th race wire to wire for an easy win. Though I think we overanalyze horses thoughts and feelings I couldn't help but think that maybe she felt good about winning again also.
It was also great fun to win a race for Bob who is a great owner trying to build a racing stable the right way. The start up of our program has been a little slow but hopefully this can be a sign of our patience paying off in the long run.
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