Celestial Acres

Emperor (to Mephistopheles, who has given some financial advice):

"All this will hardly whisk our woes away;
What is your Lenten sermon good for, pray?
I'm sick of the perennial how and when;
We're short of money--well procure it then."

Goethe (pic.at age 38), Faust Part II

For emperors $$$ hardly grows on trees. We peasants...make do.  We're two days away from navy day--Dec. 1, start of serious training for yearlings, Preston Burch style. Q of the moment is location, facilities, funds, a few other items.  Will be counting available cash in a day or so. I found out in Lexington, 1998 -- unable to stay on the road on fumes.

Yesterday I phoned Celestial Acres.  They have stalls.  $125/mo. Trainers license unnecessary.  They have indoor/outdoor arenas and  5 furlong track 10 min. from Remington Park.  My stable boarded there a couple months in 1992 while transitioning south to La. Downs.  Celestial Acres was a decent training facility 20 years ago and still run by the same folks. Small stalls, as I'm remembering.  Our other possibility is our farmer's hay field here in KC.  For the moment I've eliminated the world class training facility in Opelousas.  800 miles and 15 hr. trips back and forth from there--doable except when I figure in the cost of gasoline.  Decision soon.

Training:  Wed. Eve 11/28--fast day, open riderless pasture gallop.  Never got 'em over :14 sec./f despite best efforts.  Decent w/o though. Skipped riding due to pulled muscle in (my) inner leg.  Fine today.  Watching #148 glide over ground keeps this going.  #7 showing signs of life.

Wed. Misc.

Another leap forward last eve as #7 responds for first time to signal for open trot.  Same riding aid for #148 so far means walk fast although small step forward from him as he was comfortable working in open pasture, instead of circular riding around edge of paddock.  Knocking on wood both horses seem past the stage of fright under tack which might cause a fallen rider, and both to date have been fun to work with although #7 shows some capacity for being a bit of a stinker..

Preston Burch was long galloping youngsters in Nov. and Dec.  Must consider that Burch broke yearlings in June as opposed to our late Oct., had advantage of company and skilled 110 lbs. jocks.  And so, we're naturally a little behind the P. Burch training schedule and hoping to catch up quickly.

Equipment continues to arrive.

A $56.00 Kodak Playful camcorder(Amazon, 4 left--Kodak discontinued camcorder due to cell phone competition) with 1080p video and 32 fps same as a former $1000.00 machine.  Our jock cam is here, and some vids soon, hopefully.

Have been distressed with helmet safety.  The ladies review the helmets and their concern is helmet fit and ventilation.  My concern is safety and what happens when my head hits ground after a 180 off a horse.  And so, in process of researching and reading every available helmet these days voila suddenly a safe helmet appears out of nowhere.  What great times we live in!.  Will be ordering a Gatehouse Professional Jockey skull from Great Britain today:

Pretty basic looking.  The wonders of this helmet below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEyTCjdaVyE

Training In The Icebox

New super duper web cam on the way.  Vids. soon.Last Wednesday shirt sleeves in late November with my fellow horse boarder's warning that a pocket of cold air forming over Alaska, and this week Brrrr.  Wind, cold.  I have young TBs that can be called prospects provided they receive appropriate prep.  Hopefully to be provided.  The last week they've done their lunging and free pasture running.  The riding is going well getting a few steps of trot from each horse.  Week from now we'll be open trotting presumably, and a few steps away from serious training--to be done in cold weather.  Will see.

Challenges Finale

A few posts back involved various challenges  getting our horses to the race track.  Posted on riding since I was a little rusty and getting old, facilities here in KC since RR now without our own farm now,the big one which is money, although I've never been into buying success.  More fun when you're scratching and scraping possibly.  Another one I had in mind was personal motivation, energy, discipline--state of things at age 65 and now 28 years since purchase of horse #1.  My conception was sort of a personal diary of up and down.

That was a month ago.  Will skip by this "challenges" thing for now.  They are all still there, of course. At the moment my mind set is beyond belaboring obstacles and just getting it done, and that is particularly after watching my horses run today.

. The facilities Q will be answered in the next week.  Two choices:

1.  Hire an Louisiana trainer and groom that I know to oversee my horses while I go back and forth to Opellousas.  I'd spend about a week at a time down there, then back to KC to handle business, and back down, in hopes the trainer will get the horses ridden when I'm gone.  This would be a highly expensive and barely doable proposition.  Bottom line--I've probably got enough $$$ for about 3 months of this, and then hopefully horses would be close to racing and a deal might be struck to finish the job.

2.  Option 2 is to pay this farmer in KC enough $$$ to open his hay field to training.  This is the preferred option as there's plenty enough $$$ for this, and believe the horses  can be got pretty close to racing in this nice field with significantly less stretching of things to the limit as an 800 mile commute to LA might involve.

Will talk to the farmer around Thanksgiving.  He has a hearing problem, and I have a speech problem.  Great combo.

Training:
Sun. 11/18:  While KC Chiefs played another historically pitiful game we improvised a riderless full speed open field gallop.  I'd finally got the nutrition thing down, and it showed as #7 for once was totally into it, and, I must say, showed he can run. Getting the idea, finally.  #148 continues to show his stuff with a long silky smooth athletic stride. Two trainable horses, most definitely.  Made the day! Front shoes were reapplied to #148.  Hoof grown from 4.5 shoes to 5.  Some athletes just have it, and #148 just does everything right.  In his second shoeing he stands there like my 17 yr. old, raises his feet on the slightest signal, his hoofs are shaped perfectly with a naturally carved out sole(as opposed to flat footed) that allows a horse to get a better hold of a sand race track.  His hoofs are small which permits less drag.  The horse acts like he's been ridden his whole life.  Everything right with #148, knocking on wood.  Passed on riding today.

$6400.00

Combined yearling sales price of winners of Delta Downs Jackpot and Delta Downs Princess.  What a great sport, eh?  Potential there for RR stable to, 'er, top that in 2013.  People poo poo 6f tracks.  The 6f track, however, much easier on the horses which stay on the same lead for shorter distances in most of the races.  Due to this less time on one lead the jocks can drive the horses a little harder producing some exciting races.

We took Fri. and Sat. off.  Sat. one of those days.  With so few horses I can optimize nutrition.  Have yet to really do that, and decided this would start Sat.  Mix a nice cocktail of Omelene 200, crushed alfalfa, 4 multi vitamins and a couple handfuls of some special Purina high nutrient pellets.  First thing that happens?  Horses get into fight over one of the buckets and send the bucket flying, feed spilled all over the ground. Lucky for them I''d left my gun in the truck.  Start harder training tomorrow.  A plan is percolating.

Wed. Misc.

As owner of two Louisiana bred yearlings the Delta Jackpot at Delta Downs is officially "of interest".  I see they're doing other than just giving away the purse this year.  Was mystified by the previous non-participation in this race. 

My horses are doing well.  First day of walking under tack outside the paddock today.  It will be after December 1 that they'll be galloping.  Need a couple of weeks for them to get their sea legs out in space.  Then, will see.

Mon. Misc.

By my experience coaching--training mostly involves a little elevated common sense, noted as I age a relatively rare talent.  The little known fellow in the vid showed through the years that he has it in spades.  What a pleasure to watch this guy coach athletics right down the road in Manhattan, Kansas as Kansas State and Coach Bill Snyder presently rank as the #1 college football team in the polls.  Kansas State.  Think about it.

The RR stable is getting perilously close to navy day in terms of the start of serious training.  The riding is going well although a ways to go to call them green broke.  Feeling our way with the normal 0% risk policy.  Should be trotting within the week, and then we see how far we can take things at the farm before thinking about a race track.

Training

Well that was awesome (election).  RR is back to horses.

Wed. 11/8:  other than that time continues to fly, as it does with young horses, last eve we have possibly our best w/o, and, most of them have gone with this pattern  Double lunge line for both of them off and on for 10 min.  #7 showing a little more spunk and when released put on a display galloping back to the herd.  The young fellow looks decent running.  He's still 15'3".  Needs to grow and sort of doubting he will.  #148 has cut the blub of his front left heel and is more restrained in his gallop as would be expected.

Both horses were walked under tack around the paddock.  Nice clean work, and best riding with them to date. They're ready to be moved out of the paddock into space.  Starts tonight.

One development.  Turns out #7 has a fairly significant healed boo boo on a hind heel bulb which may very well explain his recent reluctance in his gallops.  Certainly much more energetic and willing yest.  Will see.

Politics

"The world is ruled today by bewildering wrong counsel urging bewildered wrong action."
        --Goethe letter to Wilhelm von Humboldt March 17, 1832 five   days before his death at age 83

Is there a more compelling result of the Internet age than full comprehension of the above statement?  On the message boards we learn how people think, how they make decisions, and it's other than a pretty. I shudder to think about these many idiots stepping into the voting booth exercising their prejudices engendered by their utter lack of knowledge, logic, and common sense.  Add to this the exploding 90 IQ population, and, universal suffrage should be looked at, possibly?

Nevertheless, a clear choice today.  On the one side the white fellow who seems a doer instead of a thinker, who tends to talk in negative expressions--something one would think a 65 yr. old would have learned to avoid--and who either for reasons of necessity or complete inexplicability has embraced many of the irrational ideas of the hate radio crowd and the right wing of the GOP.

Obama to me is the typical black "intellectual", if that phrase is permitted.  About a 120 IQ from his expressions, lazy, mind all over the place, inconsistent--I'd question that the man could tell u what his core principles are, and while he parrots a few attractive policy positions what Obama really has done--and almost all that he's done is use the government to shovel money to his people.  I doubt the average citizen has a clue at the unprecedented wealth transfer to minorities that has occurred in the last 4 yrs.  Just this week in my office--black lady, $60,000/yr. income for the fire dept., gets letter from her second mortgage, Bank of America,--ur $26,000 second mortgage has been forgiven under a government program.

There's the immigration thing with Obama, of course, and gov. birthing policies that are exploding the minority populations.  Hardly a crime for a black president, if u happen to be black.  If u're white, it's time to wake up, possibly.

To me the analysis is fairly simple:

Romney = very competent
Obama = very incompetent

Do the voters see this?  The polls show that 100% of minorities will vote for Obama, and that includes Herman Cain.  73-75% of white folks by the polls vote Romney.  Most Caucasians have figured things out by now.  The remaining 25% I suspect will fairly soon.

How will it turn out?  From what I can see, Obama leads Ohio and Pennsylvania.  That seems fatal for Romney's campaign.  Romney started way too late with the positive "I'm a good guy" message.  Good his handlers finally figured this out, except it took almost to the last week of the campaign. My own crystal ball says the U.S. Census way under counts black Americans and that it is the true numbers of minorities that likely will tip a close election.

2012 BC Postscripts

 Could title this BC and performance since the Ft. Larned press conference is fount of info.  Preface that I declined handicapping the BC races or even looking at the PPs.  While this blog has of late been a personal diary on my new steeds the emphasis will be on getting performance out of a race horse.  With this in mind I watched the races.  A few thoughts and comments.

Ft. Larned jock: "kicked away from the pony and we warmed him up good..."

Good grief.

 More Ft. Larned Jock:

"..they don't put any pressure on me..."

For big races do u get a name jock that gets on ur horse once or twice, OR do u do what Ian Wilkes did with Ft. Larned and find a no-name willing to work with ur horse, and have the guts to stick with him?  The latter likely with some provisos, and here is a successful real world e.g.

And, whoa...Ian Wilkes was a Carl Nafzger assistant.  I've never seen anything significant in Wilkes PPs.  However, I noticed Wilkes said they used JC Gold Cup as a prep race after some time off with an eye to BC--i.e. maybe they decided to avoid pressing Ft. Larned in JC Gold Cup.  Given sparse number of races that seems a decent strategy and might explain why the horse was inexplicably back in the field instead of on the lead in the Gold Cup.

Whoa #2..Owner lives in Western Kansas.

I never want to see the name Bayakoa.  Maybe the greatest race mare.  She reminds of Go For Wand.

Game On Dude-questionable body language, horrible warm up. what is Baffert thinking with that incompetent pony rider that barely got the horse in a canter? I always wonder also when seeing these non-warmups--what is the jock thinking? If those are Baffert warm ups is it any wonder his horses drop like flies.

Wise Dan--What happens when u get Affirmed on top and Secretariat on bottom of the same pedigree?

I thought it a bfd that Little Mike was by an unraced stallion named Spanish Steps standing in Indiana for $3000.00 and then, turns out, he's full brother to Unbridled Song.  We like full brothers to great sires here at the RR ranch.  See Rainmaker by Storm Cat and Antespend, sire of #148.

Best run and race of day--argument could be made for Tapizar.

Or, George Van Couver. Watch that horse disappear completely under the "great trainer" Aidan O'Brien.

Can women train:  Kathy Ritvo.

Really liked D.W. Lukas's horse although Merit Man who finished second was a $2200.00 yearling of the type we like around here.

Wonderful race strategy for consideration--watch the Argentinian horse in the Marathon on Fri. Especially on the back stretch.

Ft. Larned v. Royal Delta?  As always, to me, pointless too run fillies against boys.  This one might have been interesting. RD is a deep nodder when she runs.  Inefficient.  Perfect looking horse otherwise that, unlike her prior races, she was strong all the way.  Mott, as opposed to Baffert, certainly had his crew ready. Most of them ran strong races and would have been interesting to know how Mott may have diverted from his usual questionable training.

More $$$: The Stable Budget

Two posts ago corrected for training costs.  In Opelousas/La stall rent costs $180/mo./horse instead of $360.00.  This reduces costs per horse to $1580.00 per month per horse or $53/day.

So--in Opelousas, LA we can train a horse--still, in this day and time--at $53.00 per day.  If we happen to be at a race track and getting free stalls instead of spending $180/mo. for stalls, the total cost comes down to $1400/mo.per horse or $47/day.  Guarantee we'll spend more than that with everybody and their brother's hands in our back pocket the minute we walk through the guard shack.  But $47/day per horse is within the realm of possibility.

In the RR Stable we are the trainer and can subtract the $500.00 trainer cost from the cost per horse (and, again, good luck finding a trainer going through all this trouble per horse for $500/mo.)

This reduces RR stable costs per horse cost down to $1080/mo. We do our own riding and hope to spend as much $$$ on jocks as possible (i.e. when we find them), and so, reduce the $200.00 riding cost to $100/mo. for us.

Bottom line for RR stable in Opelousas is $980/mo./horse x = $1960.00/mo.  Let's say our horses will cost $2000/mo. in Opelousas or $1640/mo. at the race track.

I currently have $8000.00 in the bank to be shortly reduced to $5000 for vehicle repair costs, enough to keep us in Opelousas or racetrack for two or 3 months.  My Social security of $1650/mo. will kick in in April, and so it looks as if we might be able to be at a track January 1 and make it through somehow.

One more interesting thing:  When I do get to we're were going I have thought, good grief, how to make some $$$ at that point to keep us going before horses presumably win a purse.  Epiphany!  What's the one way every experienced horse person has to make some $$$ at a race track?  Of course it's the windows.
 At Ak Sar Ben over two summers handicapping every weekend I broke even though I was going for broke most of the time.  Surmise--with extremely careful handicapping one might supplement the on the road income by $100-$200/week.

Training:
Wed. Oct 31--Off
Thur. Nov. 1 One horse does everything right #148; the other #7 everything wrong.  Both horses were lunged.  #148 did his usual enthusiastic effort and when released promptly went into a full speed run abbreviated when he ran straight into the herd. 1/4 F maybe.  #7 had a decent slow gallop on the lunge line that had nothing to do with him, and everything to do with me chasing the horse every step.

Unknown exactly what the problem is with #7. Hoping its as simple as that he fails to understand what's expected and is fighting it a little.  That could be overcome.

This was followed by tack work, and thankfully the Mexicans were there to help or I'd likely have been laying on the ground after getting on #7.  #148 did his walk under tack professionally.  Keep knocking on wood with this tall and therefore potentially dangerous horse.  #148 a trooper to date.