Class at the Racetrack....

.... It Has Four Legs

When horseplayers start talking about class, they're almost always talking about the horses.

"That colt has class."

"She's dropping in class."

"That filly is classy."

The funny part is, sometimes the horses have enough class to make up for the rest of the racetrack.

Now, before anybody gets bent out of shape, let me say this: there are some wonderful people in racing. Honest folks. Good horsemen. Owners who pay their bills, trainers who tell the truth even when it hurts, and people who'll congratulate you after you just beat 'em.

Those folks are why this game keeps going.

But then you've got...the cast of characters.

Spend ten minutes on the backside and you'll hear conversations that sound like everybody signed a pledge never to use a horse's actual name.

"That little horse is alright. He tries."

Which little horse?

There are four hundred little horses around there.

I knew a trainer out West whose answer to every owner's question was identical.

"What do you think of my horse?"

"He's alright."

Didn't matter if the horse cost ten grand or a million.

"He's alright."

But then he'd lean over in his own barn and whisper,

"How much ya got into that horse?"

Oh, now we're getting somewhere.

That sure ain't curiosity.

That's a fellow trying to figure out whether he can convince you to drop that horse in for a claiming tag before you catch on.

And names? Forget names.

It's always "that little horse."

"The gray one."

"The bay horse."

"The filly."

You'd think naming them was just a suggestion.

Then there was an Australian trainer who'd look at one he didn't like and say,

"He's a homer."

At least that's what it sounded like.

For the longest time I thought, "Well...that's an awfully harsh thing to call a horse."

Turns out accents can start more rumors than social media.

Now, if you want stories, racing has plenty.

There's been a lot of talk lately about Gerald Brooks retiring.

Yes...that Gerald Brooks.

The fellow whose stories have become racetrack folklore.

The one people still talk about driving his truck through the stable gate because he'd had

enough of showing his license every morning.

Whether you've heard that story firsthand or tenthhand, one thing's for certain—it sounds less like a retirement story and more like an episode of slapstick comedy where everybody forgot to add the background music. Benny Hill' - he'd be proud.

The thing is, every racetrack has somebody like that.

If one retires, another one seems to pop up before the dust settles.

Out in California, one trainer made headlines after being suspended for allegedly altering jockey club papers with a pen and white-out so his horse would qualify for a race.

That's not backside gossip.

That's the sort of thing you can actually read about, on google.

You can't invent stories better than the real ones.

You can't make some of this shit up!

Then you've got the fellow who can win graded stakes but can't stand getting beat in an allowance race.

We beat one like that once.

You ever have somebody look at you like they wished eyesight came with laser beams and a cannon?

If looks could've blown me over, I'd have needed a chiropractor.

Winning is easy.

Watching somebody else win—that's where you find out what kind of person you're dealing with.

Then there are the workout games.

One trainer got upset because we posted video of one of her horses working well.

She wanted us to take it down because she was "trying to make money."

I told her exactly what I tell anybody making that request.

"You don't sign my paycheck, and you don't pay my bills. Don't ask me to hide information from the public."

That's the end of that conversation.

Same trainer had already made herself famous with the clockers.

Tell them to watch for a horse wearing a green saddle towel......then send the horse out wearing a white one.

That's like telling your buddy you'll be driving a Ford pickup and showing up in an ice cream truck, without the creepy music.

Folks wonder why clockers sometimes look aggravated.

Well, there you go.

And then there are the mysterious workouts.

A breeze gets added to the record.

Nobody saw it.

No clocker has it.

Gerald walked into the racing office pissed off at a clocker, because the clocker didn't want to falsify a work for one of his horses. Yes, he was pissed the clocker didn't want to make shit up for him.

https://youtu.be/N92rJurDkaQ?si=lzB_pzbSqdEERauM

Another incident with my own trainer, when driving his cart on the horse path, Gerald was yelling at his exercise rider, whom was going the other way. He narrowly avoided running up the back end of a horse going to the track. He was surprised when his golf cart had four flats the next day. I'd say the trainer of the horse that almost got runed over was responsible.

That's not the only time Gerald was yelling at riders, he got suspended for allegedly assaulting a rider after a race.

Then, people ask me why horseplayers get skeptical. Duh!

Because after enough years around this game, you realize the horses are usually the most straightforward creatures on the property.

They don't hide workouts.

They don't alter paperwork.

They don't play mind games.

They don't hold grudges because somebody beat them last Thursday.

They show up.

They eat.

They train.

They run.

Every single day they tell you exactly who they are.

The humans?

Well...sometimes they need a stewards' inquiry just to explain breakfast.

So yes, class matters in racing.

The handicappers are right.

It's just that the class they're measuring is usually standing on four legs.

The two-legged version can be a little harder to find.