Remembering Valiant Pete

We are coming up on Cal Cup weekend, and it seems a fitting time to honor the memory of our retiree Valiant Pete, who won the inaugural Cal Cup Sprint in 1990. Pete won eight starts out of twenty-five races; placed in the Gr.3 Palos Verdes Handicap; and retired with earnings of $327,325. But Pete will be best remembered for a race that does not even show up in his past performances. In 1991 Valiant Pete took on Griswold, the worlds fastest Quarterhorse, in a tremendous match race at Santa Anita Park. Thanks to the wonders of Youtube, here is a link to that awesome race. The world record that Pete set that day for four and one-half furlongs stood until April of 2007. Valiant Pete was a red rocket.

Valiant Pete at Tranquility Farm in 2007, at age 21.

Valiant Pete was bred and raced in California by the Valenti family, and was originally retired at his home ranch, Mira Loma Thoroughbreds. When that farm was sold in 2005 Pete was sent to Tranquility Farm for his second retirement home. He was one of the kindest old horses imaginable and was always a favorite with visitors, especially kids, whom he loved. You are sadly missed, old Champ, and I hope you will be remembered on Cal Cup Day.

We salute Morvich Handicap winner Geronimo

Today is the opening day of the Oak Tree meet at Santa Anita Park, and the running of the Grade 3 Morvich Handicap. Tranquility Farm salutes our retiree, the once and forever mighty Geronimo, who won the Morvich Handicap in 2005.


Morvich won the Kentucky Derby in 1922, and he was the first winner to have been bred in California. An ugly duckling of a colt, he was nearly overlooked by his breeder as not worth training. Here is a link to a very interesting article about Morvich, and why a race is still run in his honor today. It is fitting for Geronimo to have won it, as he also had to overcome great difficulty to come back from his racing injury to be the horse he is today. The Morvich Handicap is about horses with heart.

More Good Direction; Dressage Anyone?

How very useful when a photo confirms your suspicians. Sometimes this is not such good news, but in the case of Good Direction it always appeared to me that he was floating around without touching the ground. He is one of the lightest movers for a Thoroughbred of his size that I can recall. I have even made jokes about levitation and leading him around with a string.

Here is a photo of Good Direction not doing anything special. He is just cruising around his paddock without touching the ground, no big deal, he does it every day. I guess he is just really happy to have been rescued. If you missed reading the story of Good Direction you can find it in a previous post. If you are interested in an outstanding dressage prospect, come visit him at Tranquility Farm.

Everything you do is horse training.

I heard this all the time when I was kid. It was repeated daily, whenever I screwed up. So if I had to produce one kernel of great wisdom from the equine Zendo I attended as a child, it could be captured in this simple phrase.

And so on to today, when our great little class of 2009 decided to teach themselves about enjoying water. Not the puddle they love splashing in when we irrigate their paddock, but water from the evil hose. Today’s lesson began as a simple exercise in dust control; it has been really hot and the Santa Ana winds will arrive momentarily.
All of our paddocks need to be wet down daily and when the weanlings were put in tonight I was still in there with the hose, and luckily with my camera in my pocket.

First they clustered shyly behind me, no photo of that phase, but rest you can see. One by one they tested the cooling mist and I simply invited them into it instead of intentionally wetting them. The first to come in for a bath was "Hercules" the de facto leader of the group, with his little brother right behind.

The fillies needed a minute to think, but if this were truly fun no way were the colts having it all to themselves.

Because they learned at their own pace without any coersion they will happily come forward when they see a human with a hose in the future, not try to run away as so many horses do.A bath will forever be associated with fun and affection. Naturally I think Thoroughbreds are geniouses, but this way to socialize weanlings with water is probably helpful with any young horse.If you plan to adopt a hand-raised Thoroughbred for your next horse, see us first!

Denied

This weekend is the Ralph M. Hinds Invitational Handicap at Fairplex Park, and a fitting time to honor our retiree Denied, who ran a very close second in this race in 2003. The notations in the Daily Racing Form say "resisted" and "outfinished". Not at all suprising because this horse is a fighter.

Denied ran thirty five races with ten wins; he was eight times second; and seven times third. It is clear that he gave his best whenever asked, and he placed twice in Grade 2 events, running head to head with greats like Inesperado, Spring House, Storminaway,Reddatore, and Bluesthestandard. Denied was a very serious racehorse.


But his greatest fight came at the end of his racing career, when in two unformful starts out of his last five races he finished more than twenty lengths back. Something was clearly very wrong, but Denied fought back to come second by a head and then go on to win in his last two starts in 12,500 claiming races at Santa Anita. Denied, however, was in trouble, and shortly thereafter he shattered his sesmoids. Now he was in for the fight of his life, and suddenly, there was no one in his corner.

If ever there was a poster child for why racing must institute a uniform retirement system for the protection of the horses it is Denied. After thirty-five brilliant races he became one of the "unwanted horses" we hear so much about today. Thankfully, Tranquility Farm was able to come to his rescue, and after a long and difficult rehabilitation he is now sound enough to truly enjoy his retirement. Denied spends his days in a paddock where he happily watches the world go by, and his nights bedded in a warm and comfortable stall. As he so deserves, and was so nearly denied.

Adoptable horse Seeking Perfection

We have received some e mails from people who would like to have a better look at Seeking Perfection, the horse with the "can do" attitude. Seeking Perfection is 15.3 hands of pure muscle and energy just waiting for direction. He so willing and eager to please that he will be a delight to train for his second career. Seeking Perfection socializes well with other horses and he has great potential to be an all around fun horse for the family or a versatile rider.

Letting horses be horses

One of the real joys of rehabbing Thoroughbreds off the racetrack is letting them be horses again. If you consider how they are isolated and put into stalls to be trained as yearlings it is no wonder some of them behave like visitors from another planet. Things that most horses always have like turnouts in green grass and the company of other horses are a rare treat to a horse coming from the confinement of the track. While our horses are waiting for adoption we let them have some fun. Mentally it great for them, but learning to play together is also serious education and prepares them to calmly ride in company or be turned out with other horses. Here are adoptable horses Don'tbeatattletale and Sea Kris.
Don'tbeatattletale shows off his moves!

And nothing beats the sheer joy of a run in the grass.

Seeking Perfection

The beautiful dark bay gelding matching strides and wits with the firey Karazi is named Seeking Perfection.He is a lightly raced four-year-old, and if he were a kid in school instead of a horse he would always be the boy with his hand up. He runs to the gate every time he sees someone with a halter and has an enormous desire to please. Seeking perfection is a stout 15.3 hands with tons of energy and confidence that would enjoy doing any activity you can think of. If you are looking for an all-around horse and best friend, come to the farm and meet Seeking Perfection. He will steal your heart.

Good Direction

Today is the Barretts Juvenile Stakes at Fairplex, and we have with us a horse who competed in this race just two short years ago. Good Direction is a beautiful Kentucky-bred gelding who sold in the May 2007 Barretts for $62,000 and then went on to run third and subsequently win a $100,000 maiden race at Del Mar later that summer. He seemed logical choice to run in the Barretts Juvenile, but it was not his day to shine. He ran a surprising eighth, and so began a four race slide that continued until May of 2008 when he was pulled up and walked off at Hollywood Park. It is hard to contemplate what Good Direction may have endured in the months between his dismal performance in the Barrett’s Juvenile in September of 2007 and May of 2008 when he was unable to finish his race, but even now you can see it in his eyes. Good Direction still asks for reassurance.

Good Direction was returned to the races in the fall and this time he appeared at Golden Gate Fields in the lower claiming ranks. His last start was November 8, 2008. On December 2nd he was discovered on a feedlot in Fallon, Nevada, just days away from shipping to Canada for
slaughter.


When we rescued Good Direction last December he did not look like the horse you see today. He was thin and miserable with a bowed tendon and a lacerated leg that miraculously did not cost him his life. Today I'm happy to report that Good Direction has recovered his health and soundness in our care, and that he is a strong, gorgeous mover ready to begin a second career. He is a happy horse today, but he has endured a lot in his short life; surely his best days are before him.

Remembering Vol Au Vent

Yesterday was the Bustles and Bows Stakes at Fairplex, carrying on a long tradition of debuting some of the best two-year-old fillies in Caliornia. A fitting day to honor the memory of Vol Au Vent, our late retiree who won the Bustles and Bows Stakes in 1974. Not a misprint. Vol Au Vent was a foal of 1972, and she was already twenty-five years old when I rescued her in the winter of 1997, shortly before the opening of Tranquility Farm.

It was two days before Christmas and in an incredibly wet and miserable el nino winter when I received a call that two “good old mares” were about to be loaded on a slaughter truck from a farm dispersal. The caller volunteered to bring the mares to me, and I accepted my unusual Christmas gift with with no questions asked. Horse rescue is not for everyone. One of these mares turned out to be Vol Au Vent, who was in terrible condition from neglect and the weather.

Vol Au Vent's benefactor stuffed her papers in my pocket before driving off into the stormy night, and as I unfolded them I was suprised to learn that she had won nine races, including the St. Frances Stakes, the Courtship Stakes, and La Merced Stakes at Santa Anita, all now faded into history.I had a real racehorse in the barn. I nursed Vol Au Vent all through that winter and the remarkable constitiuion that had enabled her to produce thirteen live foals after her brilliant racing career saw her improve almost daily. By spring she looked amazing for her age.

Vol Au Vent at Traquility Farm, age 30.

Vol Au Vent had a great retirement here at Tranquility Farm, and she lived to be thirty-three years old. She passed away peacefully in 2005, and she is buried by her good friends Fortunate Betty and Victorian Heiress, grand old mares in their own right...stories for another day.

Saving Kickin Stars

Rescuing horses from auction is chaotic to say the least. Prior to the Jockey Club releasing the database of tattoo numbers earlier this year it was often nearly impossible for rescuers to identify horses in the brief time allowed before they passed through the ring and into the slaughter pipeline. Sometimes a glimpse of a tattoo in a dark alleyway is all you have to try to pull together the pieces of a life soon to be terribly lost.

When Kickin Stars went through the ring last February there were way too many Thoroughbreds for the volunteers from Southern California Thoroughbred Rescue to cope with. They were there to take as many horses as possible, but it was a frantic scene, and many of the Thoroughbreds were held back until very late when they were snapped up by waiting killer buyers. The fix was in, and Kicking Stars was among the unlucky that were roughly loaded into stock trailers and driven off to a feedlot in the dead of night.

Kickin Stars had endured thirty-nine winless races at Los Alamitos, a racetrack infamous for breakdowns and brutality. Her tendon was on the verge and she was summarily dumped in a livestock auction. She probably couldn’t fathom what happened to her that night. Taken from the secure stall where she had lived for years she was suddenly thrown into the freezing mud in a pipe pen full of panicked horses. Somehow she got cast in the pipes, and was found there the next morning exhausted, with her hind legs battered and bleeding.

While SCTR rescuers worked the auction, Tranquility Farm worked simultaneously to find any known connections to the horses. Locating a breeder, former owner or rescue sponsor is their very last chance. And so the angels arrived for Kickin Stars. We discovered she was a full sister to a mare that belonged to friends and supporters of Tranquility Farm, and when asked without hesitation they sponsored her rescue and rehabilitation. Today she is doing wonderfully, healed and healthy, all thanks to Rob and Debbie Falb, who saved her life.

This very morning I received a call from the Humane Society of the US, requesting a statement to my Congressional Representative and Senators in support of HR 503 and SB 727, the bills to ban the export of American horses for slaughter. Apparently there is hope that once again these bills may be gaining some forward momentum in congress. If passed they will spare future horses from the ordeal Kickin Stars suffered, and from the terrible fate that awaited her. It isn’t easy to keep on writing letters and making calls while such cruelty to horses persists without abatement.But if you will speak out for them, now again is the time. Here is the link to the latest news on the anti-slaughter legislation,and a search function to reach your representatives. It’s up to us. HSUS End Horse Slaughter

Wild Express

Today marks the sixteenth anniversary of Wild Express's victory in the 1993 Las Ninas Stakes at Fairplex, which was her only stakes win in a thirty-race career. Wild Express was a solid racehorse however, a model of consistantly that ran monthly over her two and a half year career,finishing in the money ten times and earning $117,286. Not only did she perform consistantly, but as a claiming horse she also had to adapt to being in six different barns. A lot was asked of this young mare.

Wild Express at Tranquility Farm, Sept. 16, 2009.

Following her racing career Wild Express joined the broodmare band at Golden Eagle Farm and there produced seven foals, with four of them going on to become useful racehorses like their mother. Wild Express typifies the bread-and- butter horses that truly make racing possible. Sportwriters were never hovering to see her go to the track every morning, but she gave her best over thiry starts and then produced seven sons and daughters to follow in her footsteps. Congratulations, Wild Express. Job well done.

Musings on Naked Way.

Today was our weekly day with the farrier, and it is a long day bringing in horses from the pastures, trimming them, and also attending to other things like cutting manes, worming, and some vaccinating at the same time. Economy of motion. I’m tired by the end of a day with the shoer, but I wouldn’t trade jobs with him.

I enjoy holding the sleepy horses that appreciate attention from humans no matter what the reason. Horses like Naked Way. He is a huge white presence of near glacial proportions, luminous in the shadow of the shedrow. He has beautiful expressive eyes with deep golden highlights not seen too often in a Thoroughbred.

It takes two entire pages to print out Naked Way's race record. He was a claiming horse his whole life, beginning his career in his native Florida at two in 1993, and then embarking upon an oddesy that would take him coast-to-coast to many tracks that are now just fading memories. He ran at Tampa, Calder, Hialeah, Belmont, Grand Prairie, Remington, then to Golden Gate, Bay Meadows, Hollywood, Santa Anita, Pleasanton and back east again to Mountaineer Park. He passed through eight stables, and ended his incredible journey with ten wins and earnings of $150,334. Somehow his stout legs kept him going for six years through eighty grueling races.

But when I look at this great old horse what I see is a living historical artifact, not of racing in the late twentieth century, but a touchstone to the Thoroughbred ancestors we find at the end of the pedigree page. The place where the lines go blank, and the notations in the margins read "conjecture" and "also known as". You see there is a uniqueness that Naked Way has carried forward since the first "Thorough Breds" raced for English monarchs at the turn of the eighteenth century. Naked Way is a direct decendant through two lines to Alcock's Arabian. Also known as Pelham's White Barb, or possibly the same as Bloody Buttocks due to his rare chestnut spotting over his shoulder and hip.

Bedouin legend says that the color pattern known as the "bloody shoulder" was the mark of Allah given to honor horses who had carried their wounded riders safely home from battle, and that the war mares of the prophet Mohammad were decended from these. There are two versions of the Alcock Arabian's history; the first is that he was imported from Constantinople in 1704 and the second is that he was bred in England from early imports by King Charles II. Either way, it is known that he sired good runners and lived at least until 1726 according to his progeny records.

We know that the majority of grey Thoroughbreds today all carry this linage; not directly through tail-male or female descent, but rather through the mysterious "center" of the pedigree, where the markers for grey coloring skip from sire to dam. A trip through the pedigree page of Naked Way will take you to the place where our knowledge of who these horses really are is lost in the legends of time. It unfolds hundreds of years of history, their's and our's entwined. There are clues here to the source of his generous heart.

Our rehab goes high-tech.

Suddenly it feels like fall here in the mountains with cool and cloudy skies, and evening comes way too soon on a farm with more than one hundred horses to check on before the sun goes down. Today was entirely taken up with veterinary work, dealing with the real problems of our horses.

Fire Lookout had his second set of x- rays on the sesamoid bone he fractured last December, and as great as he looks and feels, he needs another check in a few months to be sure that it is completely healed. The great news is that there is marked improvement from his initial injury, and that it is healing cleanly. He is such a happy horse I had high hopes that he would be ready for a little more exercise, but he is still in rehab for a while. We have had many other horses go on to be riding horses with this type of injury, so we hope he will be ready in the spring.
One of the veterinarians that we work with, Pacific Crest Equine, has just purchased an amazing new digital x- ray machine, and for the first time here at the farm we can have state-of-the-art imaging done without hauling miles to a clinic. This is so wonderful! As we discussed Fire Lookout’s prognosis we could zoom in on every minute feature of his bone and rotate the image to see every possible view. Even though I had hoped to see a complete recovery, this was enchanting, like looking at the surface of the moon.

After the wonderful high- tech fun our regular farm veterinarian, Dr. Steve Bond, who is my “baby man”, came to check on one of the weanlings that came down with a fever and a cold. She had been started on antibiotics, but I wanted her lungs checked and thankfully she is doing fine. A sick baby is always very high stress so I have been hovering over the weanlings like a mother chicken for the last two days, praying this is something that will be mild and not real contagious. As we checked the filly all the others crowded around and tried to give Dr. Bond hugs. He said these kids are “Too dang friendly!” Mission accomplished.