Wow
WHAT A DAY. A WEEK. WHATEVER.
There is nothing better than winning a horse race.
Nothing.
The public tends to concentrate on the lows in this game. The bad trips, the vet reports, the ones that don't work out, the horses that break your heart.
But the highs?
The highs are orgamifuckingsensational.
And Friday, September 25, was one of those days.
Not just because we won a race. It was the way it all went down.
We have a great group of partners. GMP Stables, Gary Gullo and Anthony Melfi, Brian “Playin Angry” Pagano, Ed Barker, Phil Stillman and Maureen Quigley. All wonderful partners.
Although one of them apparently turned into Chris Farley when we crossed the finish line first.
It was glorious.
For all of us.
The week really started earlier at the Keeneland Sale.
Our sales strategy is pretty simple: we're financially burdened.
We only have so much money to spend as a group. We have to go looking for quality with a shoestring budget. That means understanding your consumer, understanding your buyer, and accepting that there are certain things about a horse you can live with.
Because here's the deal:
There is no such thing as a perfect horse.
We have made it something of a calling to make something out of nothing.
On the flip side, there are plenty of people in this game who are remarkably capable of taking something and turning it into nothing.
No pain, no gain.
Same goes for horses.
A lot of horse buyers are born on third base. When you've got unlimited resources, it's pretty damn hard to find value because you're not forced to look for it.
Sometimes you have to accept a horse that's a little dinged up. Something other people are afraid of.
And that's where the opportunity can be.
Today's buyers don't have much patience. They want to buy the horse, turn him around immediately, break him, train him and get him ready for the two-year-old sale.
Those two-year-old sales have become a cancer in this game.
People talk about the breed getting softer.
Maybe.
But I think a lot of the problem is what we're doing to these horses.
We keep doing the same thing over and over again and then act surprised when we get the same result.
That's not insanity. That's just Tuesday in the horse business.
Owners have zero patience.
And if there's one virtue that matters in this game, it's patience.
You have to understand that when you're buying horses. Once you do, you can expand your mind and start seeing opportunities other people don't.
For me, it starts with the individual.
Some people go straight to the catalog page.
The catalog page is like crack cocaine to some horse buyers.
But here's the problem:
Paper doesn't run.
The catalog page doesn't run.
The individual does.
Pedigree is funny. It's subjective. That's why you have to be objective when you're looking at it.
One person sees something in a catalog page and thinks they've found the next Secretariat.
Another person sees the same page and sees a horse that's going to eat hay for four years.
Do your homework and sometimes you can unlock doors like Harry Potter.
Start with the individual.
Then figure out what you can live with veterinary-wise.
And third—least important to me—is the catalog page for perspective.
The individual is the most important thing.
You know what you want.
You know the look.
The movement.
The balance.
And class.
Ah, class.
How the hell do you determine class in a young horse?
You watch how they handle things.
At Keeneland, it's chaos.
Horses everywhere. Behind you. In front of you. Colts. Fillies. People running around.
And I'm doing all of this with a walking boot on my left ankle because I pulled a suspensory.
So basically, Keeneland became Frogger: Horse Sale Edition.
Except I couldn't move laterally.
Not ideal when 1,500-pound animals are moving laterally all around you.
But that's part of the process.
You get to interact with these horses in a chaotic environment.
Most of them are wonderful. Well-mannered. Smart. They understand the process better than some of the people walking around looking at them.
And you're not just looking at conformation.
You're looking at the entire package.
When you have a budget, it narrows the field.
We liked several horses.
Outwork colt was a beautiful mover. He had a palmar defect in a fetlock joint. But the deciding factor for us was his throat. It wasn't good or bad. It was just small to average.
So we didn't bid.
He brought $65,000.
Nice horse.
But we had one on our radar.
HIP 4101.
A Good Samaritan colt.
An Harlan's Holiday-looking horse out of a million-dollar mare as a yearling at Keeneland, by Scat Daddy.
He was a WOW horse.
I knew there was something going on when the agent at the consignment desk told me:
“No reserve.”
That got my attention.
I had my vets dig into the X-rays.
Sure enough, he was literally “as is.”
He had a chip in his knee.
And that's when the buyers started jumping ship.
Because today's buyer wants to buy a horse and turn him around for a two-year-old sale.
You can't do that with a horse that needs time.
I have two vets. One is a surgeon here in Kentucky, and I turned to him for some clarity.
His response?
“The report is scarier than the actual chip.”
He explained that the chip was in an easy spot to remove if we even needed to remove it.
His assessment was that we could buy him, reevaluate him in four weeks and see how things looked.
And if it needed to come out?
Easy procedure.
Excellent prognosis.
Well...
Now we're talking.
I've been around horses a long time.
I know there is no such thing as a perfect horse.
If there is one, they either aren't trying very hard or somebody has had that horse wrapped in bubble wrap since birth.
Then I met HIP 4101.
I had him walked right to me.
I told the walker, “Bring him right to my face.”
I wanted to see his people skills.
This horse walked right up to me—a total stranger—after hundreds of people had been around him.
Confident.
Put his nose right in my face.
I grabbed the shank.
He didn't flinch.
This guy was cool.
So, as they say in Grease:
“You're the one that I want.”
I saw him Thursday and Friday morning.
Friday was hectic.
He was selling later in the day, and we had Banksy's running in the feature at Churchill Downs.
I was going to have to bid remotely from the Stakes Room.
Then I did the math.
HIP 4101 was scheduled to go through the ring about the same time we were supposed to report to the paddock.
Because apparently I didn't have enough going on.
Talking about class.
Banksy's has been amazing for us.
He dances every dance.
He's won both of his starts on the turf.
I didn't even notice he was even money on the board.
I was too busy worrying about everything else.
A great guy from Keeneland called to assist me with the bidding. Joe.
Great Keeneland service.
Time is ticking.
We're due in the paddock in about five minutes.
We are the top bidders at $35,000.
Thirty-five thousand.
Our assessment was right.
This exceptional individual was being discounted because of the “scary vet report.”
We got him.
$35,000.
I felt like we'd just stolen the damn horse.
We didn't give away an arm and a leg.
We did our homework.
We did our due diligence.
We bought smart.
Now...
Let's go win a race.
I get down to the paddock.
Well, I didn't exactly get down there.
I hobbled down there.
Kaitlyn Benson asks me for an interview about Banksy's and our KentuckyBred.org video library.
Everything was happening so fast I forgot about my sore feet and ankle.
Or maybe it was the sugar rush from the German chocolate cake upstairs.
And the velvet cookies.
Which I may or may not have stolen from our assistant trainer Eric Gary.
Then the race goes off.
Banksy's and Tyler Gaffalione are way back early.
I'm thinking...
Okay.
Then Banksy's starts rolling.
He made up ten lengths.
He catches a horse that isn't stopping.
And then he goes right on by.
GOING AWAY.
And he gallops out ten lengths in front.
Wow.
Just...
WOW.
It was surreal.
Forty years in this game and those 15 minutes may have been the most amazing 15 minutes I've ever experienced.
One of our partners went full Chris Farley.
Just completely lost his mind.
And I loved every second of it.
We got our picture taken.
And in the middle of all of it, I was so overwhelmed I didn't even get a chance to pat my boy Banksy's on the neck.
Our little homebred.
What a high.
Today, my feet are killing me.
My ankle is killing me.
My body is reminding me that I'm not 21 anymore.
But all I can think about is HIP 4101...
and Banksy's...
and how damn lucky I am to be able to do this.
I'll be 65 on October 1.
But yesterday?
I felt 21.
Thank you, HIP 4101.
Thank you, Banksy's.
And thank you to all of our partners who make this crazy journey what it is.
What a day.
What a game.
What a life.
