Cob Jockey

From a record number of words about adulting yesterday, to a small amount of words about a crying little girl today:

PC: Zoe Metz Photo via Paulick Report

"This Zoe Metz photo of trainer Michael McCarthy and [seven-year-old] daughter Stella saying goodbye to City of Light hits us right in the feels. The Pegasus World Cup winner is off to begin his stud career at Lanes End Farm in Kentucky."

Anyone who's spent time in or around the racing industry knows they leave your life as fast as they come into it - whether they're claimed, sold, moved to another trainer, retired to a second career, or retired to the breeding shed - but that doesn't mean you don't get attached.

“He's the horse of a lifetime. I don't know what else I can say..."

McCarthy acknowledged it will be tough going back to his Santa Anita barn with City of Light not being there.

“So we'll kind of hit the ground running and try to replace him,” he said. “I don't know that we ever can, but we'll try to find something.”

Stella, I hope your dad takes you on lots of trips to Kentucky to visit your buddy!

Full article: City of Light's Pegasus Win Just 'Icing on the Cake' for McCarthy

My job...is really hard.  That doesn't mean I don't like it, it's my dream job, but I've had to learn to be okay with a baseline level of stress in order to cope with it.  And occasional stress spikes.

A face that says "I might have just lost a million dollars in hardware and an entire virtual infrastructure and I wish I was someone else right now..."

But, that means when my job is awesome, I savor it and tuck it in my brain for later.  When my job is awesome, I take a few deep breaths and think "Damn, the tech industry is awesome," sip a glass of whatever alcoholic beverage is in my hand at the moment (because if there's one thing the tech industry does often and well, it's drink) and remind myself why I stay here.


Especially when 'here' is Churchill Downs during Derby week.  And a glass of Woodford on the rocks is in my hand, because, duh, Kentucky.

Every year my company rents out a big suite at Churchill and holds a massive event, where we invite our customers and our vendors.  The food is free, the booze is free, the swag and giveaways are plentiful, and everyone gets a voucher to get their feet wet with betting.  The entire city of Louisville basically never stops the party during Derby week, whether they care about racing or not, so it's very festive.

We also sponsor a race!

Our event was held yesterday, and it was the first time I've been invited, and oh man, it was awesome.  Beautiful weather, tons of socializing (some of it even productive work socializing that should end in $$), and ponies, so close to me!

Especially for the turf races.

This being Churchill during Derby week, the dress code was strictly enforced, depending on what part of the grandstand you were in.  For us, jeans, tennis shoes and athletic wear would get you turned away.  Dresses, blazers, sport coats, collared shirts, ties or bow ties, and nice shoes were highly recommended (though they noted you are allowed to wear comfy shoes to get to the suite, and then you have to change into nice shoes)  Many, but not all, women wore hats.


At the end of the day, after watching the entire card, we had to walk back to the parking lot because the shuttle wasn't running.  As I came out of the tunnel that goes under the track, My Old Kentucky Home started playing over the loudspeaker.  I immediately got chills and thought of my mom, for whom Churchill is like Mecca.  We've both been there separately now, we need to go together sometime!

Our suite was almost that entire green tent you can see behind Practical Joke in this Kentucky.com photo.

A pretty good day of work, all things considered!

I have so much I haven't written about.  I don't realize how much my new job kicks my ass until I look at how my posting frequency has dropped off lately.  Hoping to fix that, even if it just means I draft a whole bunch on Sundays.  Enjoy some old news!

To cap off our all-horse weekend in September, my mom and I ended up seeing Bob Baffert speak at Indiana State University on Monday evening, thanks to a tipoff from Austen (who used to work there).  This recap is going to end up being total word vomit, no apologies!


It was generally geared toward college students trying to discover their identity and find out what they want to do for a career, but not so much so that it was annoying.

He took us through his early years of not knowing what he wanted to do in his life and substitute teaching after graduation because he needed money.  This was a pretty formative experience for him: he didn't know what he was doing, made up the rules as he went along, and actually did end up commanding respect from one of the most unruly classes in the school using some really unconventional methods - but he joked that he knew he wanted students that couldn't talk back from then on.

Then he took us through his start in Quarter Horse racing, and then to his stumbling into Thoroughbreds.  He had two main ideas: one is that you can always learn something from anyone.  He's a relentless information seeker, and came up in Thoroughbreds in the pre-internet days, and he said he'd ask tons of questions to anyone who would let him - successful trainers, not so successful trainers, breeders, pony riders - literally anyone.

The other interesting line he told when someone asked him what his biggest mistake was.  He said "You have to learn to trust your gut, even when other people question you," and then backed it up with some cool stories.  Stories from when he was young, and stories from when we would know him.  I can't remember which really famous horse it was (should've written this up much earlier than two months late!),  but he saw a horse that would go on to be Derby caliber at an auction, wanted him instinctively, and then got talked out of it by someone that "knew better."


Finally, he got pretty emotional at the end in the Q&A.  Talking about all of his Derby winners, how much he loved Silver Charm, and finally, talking about the big man.

My mom meeting AP, April 2016

Through it all, you could hear how much he genuinely cared about each horse just by the way he talked, but when he got to American Pharoah, he got a bit choked up and very emotional.  He talked about how he never stops pushing himself to be better, there's always another goal to chase.  And then AP came around and took him on the wildest trip of his life, achieving all the goals any racing trainer could hope to achieve and being just a supernaturally talented and kind horse to share the stable with.  And he said he went through some depression after he retired him, because where do you go from American Pharoah?  And how do you make up for that big of a hole in your life?  Little by little, the talented horses in his stable have inspired him to keep pushing, but he didn't pretend it was easy to have American Pharoah walk out of his life and into the breeding shed.

He said he doesn't get asked to speak much so he was honored to have been asked by ISU, which surprised me.  If you do get a chance to hear him speak, I highly recommend it.  His speech was a little stiff, but he really opened up and was himself in the Q&A, and both were amazing insights into what it's like to be a top caliber trainer, and how he got there.

I've written before about my mom.  About how I'm lucky to be able to trace my love of horses back to a parent.  Not everyone can.  She can't, her parents definitely didn't get it.  But I could, thanks to her.

My mom was nine when Secretariat won the Triple Crown.  Imagine what watching him felt like to a horse crazy nine-year-old in the Chicago suburbs.  She fell head over heels in love with the 'tremendous machine'.  He was her hero, in the truest and purest sense of the word.  Less than two decades later, she'd name her first horse after him: Little Red, instead of Big Red.

Imagine also what it felt like when her two best friends got to meet Secretariat when they were still kids.  My mom couldn't go, I can't remember why.  They brought back a snapshot of him for her, and a lock of his mane they sneakily put together out of his brushes when no one was looking.  It's my mom's most treasured possession; it's as close as she ever got to meeting him.  The lock of hair goes with the pets and the people into the SafeShed in the backyard anytime a tornado threatens.

A photo of Cigar my mom took at my event at the KHP a week before he died.

I realize that makes my mom sound crazy, but she's really one of the most rational people I know.  She's just head-over-heels, nine-year-old girl in love with Thoroughbred racing.  I went to equine college and, although I still love horses, began to see them from more of a business perspective than a little girl perspective.  (Trust me, they weed out the "Barbie Horse" types out of the equine majors early on.  It's for the best.)  But my mom never lost that childlike love of them, and that's really special.

Every May, we'd watch the Kentucky Derby together, with her starting the race sitting down clutching her Secretariat Breyer, and progressively and unconsciously crouching, then standing up, then jumping as the race progressed.  And every year, I could tell she felt the disappointment of another year without a Triple Crown winner a little deeper than I did.

Mom, the "Grand Pony" and me at Fox River Valley HT.

She'd deeply loved other racehorses since then - Seattle Slew, Cigar, Zenyatta, Rachel Alexandra - but when American Pharoah won the Triple Crown, she was totally smitten.  We watched him sew up the Grand Slam together with thousands of other people at Keeneland last year, and it was so special to be there hugging her and screaming when he crossed the finish line.

At the Breeders' Cup.

Here's where it gets fun.  My dad, who could not care less about horses, is a magician with Christmas presents.  He puts so much thought and care into them, from the smallest of gifts to the most elaborate.  He's not the most outwardly affectionate guy, but his love for my mom really shows through in his Christmas presents, starting with the first Christmas memory I have, which was when he gave her Kentucky Derby tickets in Christmas 1991.  She'd never been before then.

The first and only time my dad has ever seen me ride.

This year, her biggest present was one that took him weeks to procure: a trip to see American Pharoah in January.  There weren't even public tours yet: he was told he couldn't get a ticket unless he was a "rock star, famous breeder or A Rod" according to Coolmore Ashford.  He was told "No", multiple times.  Still, he persisted, and finally a random trainer connected him to a random release of tickets on sale at 10am on a weekday.  They were in, and he gave her the news Christmas morning.

But it snowed that January weekend, big time, so the trip was delayed.  Until yesterday.


That huge smile says everything you need to know.  A nine-year-old girl meeting her equine hero.  He's only four, but this picture was four decades in the making.  He was everything in person that they say about him in the articles, she said: easy for his handlers, doesn't need a lip chain, ears pricked the entire time, clearly happy just to be touched by anyone.  He even nickered at them when he saw them coming.  I couldn't stop staring and smiling at that picture for a long, long time after my dad posted it this afternoon.

Congratulations, Mom!!!!!

My mom is a lifelong horse lover and a lifelong Thoroughbred racing fan.  I mean, if your first formative horse experience was watching Secretariat win the Triple Crown, you'd probably fall in love with it too.

She of course passed that on to me, and when the Breeders' Cup (and American Pharoah) came to Keeneland for the first time ever this year, she couldn't not go.  My dad found out they were having this "ultimate tailgating experience" on The Hill behind Keeneland, (technically on Calumet Farm's property) for $50/vehicle, we signed up.

Mom, Dad, me and my husband Nick

It was an amazing experience.  We took my truck, and set up a tent behind it to deal with the intermittent showers.  We had a table, food, and of course alcohol.

My truck and our tent - sides up, because it was chilly!

About a 200m walk from our tent, they had food trucks, souvenir shops, really nice restroom trailers, and a betting tent, as well as a jumbotron for the races, and multiple live bands that played up until each race's horses entered the paddock.


Although the event was put on by Keeneland, we weren't at the track itself, right behind it actually, but it was almost better.  Definitely more comfortable, cheaper, and we still got to yell for AP with thousands of other people.  Even the undercard races were fun to watch with a crowd:

I think I took this during the Turf.

I need another softshell jacket like I need a hole in my head, but there was a purple (favorite color) Ariat button-neck softshell jacket that had the Breeders' Cup/Keeneland/2015 logo on it...in a moment of total and utter lack of self-control, I bought it.  To commemorate the occasion.  It's even fluffy on the inside, so it's like a late fall/early winter softshell jacket and I don't have one of those...that's justifiable, right?

#noregrets

And of course...the big hoss won.  I don't even care if you hate Thoroughbred racing, you need to watch the replay of that race.  He went wire to wire, pulling away, ears up.  That horse loves his job, and is just a complete once-in-a-generation freak of nature.  I was thrilled to be there jumping up and down with the crowd and sharing the moment with my mom.


Congratulations, American Pharoah, and thanks for the wild ride!  It's something I'll never forget.

My mom and I with the backside of Keeneland in the background.