Sound? Really?

Anyone who has been around horses for any length of time has likely heard it said just how amazing it is that a horse’s full weight (averaging around 1000 pounds) can be supported on a single leg with an ankle whose size averages that of a man’s ankle. When a horse is galloping, that is exactly what happens. For each of the four beats of that gait, its weight is alternately supported by each of its legs.

My semi-educated quess-timate is that a normal Thoroughbred reaches speeds of around 40 mph in a race. And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that as a jockey, the absolute worst place to be when your horse breaks down is on the lead.

If a horse is running sore—and by that I mean that they can feel some pain—it will often be their good leg that goes when they break down. The reason for this is that they are getting off of their sore leg, and putting the majority of their weight on their pain-free leg. I suppose that at top speeds, this inequitable distribution of weight can’t be sustained for long.

Long before I ever met Mark Johnston, I remember being at a gathering that included many racetrackers, a good number of them current and ex-jockeys. Charlie Woods, a long-time Kentucky rider who had at that point hung up his tack to become a jockey’s agent, was talking about a rider that had just moved his tack back to the Bluegrass.

That jockey was Mark, and Charlie was relaying a story about how Mark had marveled at just how sound the Kentucky horses were. Coming here from Maryland, Mark told Charlie, the difference in his mounts was marked. He said that in pre-race warm-ups at East Coast tracks, horses would sometimes be a little “off.” Sometimes they warmed up out of it, and sometimes the jockeys would call it to the attention of the state vet, who might then have the animal scratched. But here in Kentucky, Mark said, the horses were all so sound!

A few years later, as Mark, Jerry and I traveled around the Midwest racing Joe’s horses, I asked Mark about this conversation with Charlie Woods. He shook his head at his naivety back then.

“It’s not that they were truly sound,” Mark said. “It’s more like they didn’t even know they had legs. And as jockeys, we didn’t stand a chance. There was no chance to feel them take a bad step and pull them up. They were running flat out, and when the leg blew, the horse went down.

Daily Notes: Still examining the possible reasons that our tithing “harvest” may be delayed, Dr. Hood, in Rich Toward God, lists reason number 6 as:

Perspective—For now, let’s simply summarize this reason as “learning the secret to contentment.” Again, you may be doing all the Lord wants you to do but, since he knows all of our hearts better than we know ourselves, he may be seeing an area where we’re not as sensitive to the reality of our blessings as we need to be. Waiting on God will also heighten our sense of appreciation, especially in the area of giving. They story of the widow who gave her two copper coins (all she had to live on) humbles me and shows me that I have a lot to learn about generosity.

Well, amen to that, Dr. Hood! That story is found in Luke 21: 1-4. But I’m going to back up to the prior paragraph, where Jesus is once again dogging the religious hoity-toities. Starting at Luke 20: 45 and continuing through 21: 4, The Message reads:

With everybody listening, Jesus spoke to his disciples. “Watch out for the religion scholars. They love to walk around in academic gowns, preen in the radiance of public flattery, bask in prominent positions, sit at the head table at every church function. And all the time they are exploiting the weak and helpless. The longer their prayers, the worse they get. But they’ll pay for it in the end.”

Just then he looked up and saw the rich people dropping offerings in the collection plate. Then he saw a poor widow put in two pennies. He said, “The plain truth is that this widow has given by far the largest offering today. All these others made offerings they’ll never miss; she gave extravagantly what she couldn’t afford—she gave her all!”

I am often guilty of feeling sorry for myself, moping around thinking about all that I don’t have. But never in my life have I been down to my last two cents—and God gets the credit for that! And if I’m being honest, My prayer today is that if I was down to my last two cents, I would find the faith to give ‘my all.’

Testing God - Nosey By Nature

I wish I didn’t know as much about breakdowns as I do. But the many and varied positions that I have filled on the track brought me in contact with them over and over.

Working on the backside with the horses during the 80s and 90s, it became more and more common during the races to see the ‘meat wagon’ headed over to pick up a DNF (Did Not Finish) on the day’s card. Sometimes the animal came off the trailer lame; others were winched off dead and left in the area designated for carcass removal.

Back in the day, cheaper tracks were where you would find the majority of breakdowns. That was because the horses with the majority of the problems could be found running on the ‘bottom,’ at the lower claiming levels.

One of my earlier jobs on the ‘frontside’ of the track was in the press box, high atop the grandstand. My task was operating the section of the tote board that posts changes, results and congratulations to the connections of the winning horses. Eventually, I joined the PR department and my duties were expanded to include writing the feature race wrap-up every day.

This birds’ eye perch also housed the chart callers and writers from Equibase and the Daily Racing Form, the track announcer, the photo finish guy and the stewards, who officiated over all races.

Nosey as I am, I loved working in this racetrack nerve center. With radios that could be tuned to the frequencies of everyone from the track maintenance crew to the ambulance drivers, we were among the first to know everything. I could even keep an eye on Jerry (with binoculars) who was at that time training horses in the morning and working on the starting gate during the races.

It was up to the stewards to keep track of riding infractions during a race, and dole out punishments if the jockeys’ actions warranted them. They are the high court of racing, and anyone that holds a racing license in their jurisdiction is must answer to them.

When a problem arose in a race, the guys down in the video room were contacted to queue up the race in question while the stewards deliberated. It would play over and over, from a variety of angles—side view, head-on, slow-mo. And so it was when there was a breakdown.

Daily Notes: I am really, really struggling with telling this story—perhaps that is evident as it has greatly slowed down my blogging. The happy, funny stuff comes easily, but watching this video back in the interest of giving an accurate description has been difficult.

As far as tithing goes, I am happy to report that ‘mind over money’ has taken place. Before I started this test, I think I was of the mindset that when I tithed, I was somehow doing something noble. I was giving away something of mine, and therefore should be commended. I felt pretty proud of myself when I put a check in the collection plate, as if I had really done something for God. (Hey, just for grins, check out the number of times I said “I” in this paragraph!)

But the interesting thing is, once I finally wrapped my noggin around the idea that 10% (at least!) of “my” money doesn’t even belong to me, my whole attitude when I drop that check in the plate has changed.

I take that money off the top, and find myself wishing it could be much more. Right now, it would seem that that will need to remain a wish. And that’s where the devil, and Rich Toward God’s number 4 and 5 reasons for a delayed harvest come in:

Motivation—The rich fool is proof enough of this reason. We must always see financial blessing as an additional way to grow in giving, too.

This one is no problem for me. As I stated above, I am motivated!

Satan—I know some of you reading this right now are definitely in this situation. You are following God, faithful to him in every way that you can be, but are still facing hardship. Who do you think might be trying to stop you? Obviously, when you take steps of faith in any area, the enemy will oppose you. The more you do right, the more he will want to derail you. So, stay on your guard and take your stand. Four times in Ephesians 6: 11-14, we are told that when the day of evil arrives, we are to stand—stand against the devil’s schemes, stand our ground, and after everything else is done to stand, and to stand firm. Do you think the Lord is trying to get a crucial message across? Don’t back up. Don’t give in. Stand. The Lord will provide the grace and power for victory.

Hee hee. Yup. This is where I am right now. Bathroom gutted. Fence in need of repair. Car needs tires, and the crap truck has developed an oil leak. I guess at close to 300,000 miles, that's not so unual. Porch roof has developed an odd leak, too. And the bills, oy vey! Oh, yeah. Tax time. I’m not belly-aching, though. My problems remind me of a current country song—Sounds Like Life To Me. To be honest, my problems are so small compared to those of others, but as Dr. Hood points out, this is what is to be expected when you take steps towards God.

So the obvious question from those readers who are not Christians would be “why in the world would anyone do this?”

I think it is equally obvious to the Christian readers that taking these steps is a no-brainer. Having faith that if God has “brought us to it, he’ll bring us through it,” our prayer is that God’s will be done. Because throughout this testing, we’re getting stronger and stronger in our faith. Just ask Job.

This back in the day pic is of one of our grooms, John Sullivan, just after Jerry and I were married. He's pictured here with Smokey, our beautiful paint stable pony.

Testing God - The Breaking Point

The stacks of papers covering the island in my kitchen produced conflicting emotions. I desperately wanted to see justice done for all the horses that had suffered and died because they were pushed beyond what their fragile bodies could take. But I also hated to provide one more nail in the coffin of a dying sport that I still, inexplicably, loved.

The sport of horse racing, even conducted under the best of conditions, is inherently dangerous. Breakdowns happen even under optimal conditions. Horses take bad steps and not all breakdowns are sinister—they’re just, well, accidents.

But knowing what I now knew, I was heartsick. And the really f*ed up part was that it was the animals who loved to compete—loved their jobs and ran for the sheer joy of running—that were at the greatest risk. Because they wanted to run, owners and trainers would take advantage of that and, as we say, 'run them into the ground.'

It would be like taking a Formula One race car, loosening all the lug nuts and sending it onto the track to compete. Sooner or later, at high speeds, wheels are going to fly off and a crash will take place. Can you really call that an accident?

I had the feeling that buried in this paper trail was a very convincing argument that a horse that never should have been on the track that cold night in February caused the death of its rider and serious injury to another.

For close to 10 years, ReRun as an organization had been doing all we could to convince the Thoroughbred industry that changes needed to be made. Response to our pleas was varied: We were told by some that there was no problem. We were told by others to keep our noses out of it. We were told by still others that, since we were a non-profit that needed funding from the Thoroughbred industry to survive, to speak of such things was ‘biting the hand that feeds us.’

Eying the video tape that came in the reporter’s shipment, I debated whether or not to watch it. I knew the carnage that it would contain; I had seen similar scenes played out on the TV screen many times over the years.

Finally, in the interest of giving the reporter the best ammo I could, I popped the tape into the VCR.

Daily Notes: I guess many of you thought I had indeed thrown in the towel since it’s been several days since I’ve posted anything. It has just been a wild and crazy week and with springtime close at hand, things may only get worse. But I have resolved to muddle through this commitment as best I can.

I am happy to report that I have remained on track with my tithing, so no worries there. And we (Jerry and I) have been able to accomplish some RAKs over the past week, which has lifted our winter-weary spirits quite a bit.

But the devil’s been busy, too, and since my attitude about money is becoming less of a problem, he’s had to become more imaginative to get under my skin.

Many of you know that we have a flock of free range chickens. Since there are lots more eggs than we can use, we sell the overflow to individuals and area restaurants.

Over the weekend as I was writing this blog, my husband was in the kitchen making French toast for breakfast. On the counter was an egg that had a funny look to it, and so was set aside from the eggs packaged for sale. Generally, if an egg is oddly shaped or too small, we use it ourselves or mix it in the dogs’ dinner. Waste not, want not, I always say!

Jerry had no sooner tapped the shell to break it open when I heard what sounded like a small explosion. Running toward the kitchen, I was stopped in my tracks by the most noxious odor I have ever smelled. Just so you get the idea, it smelled like a dirty diaper, vomit and a dead thing all rolled into one. To make matters worse, there stood Jerry, putrid green goo dripping from his hair, nose and hands and covering his shirt. If that wasn’t bad enough, the cupboards, kitchen window, curtains, stove and rack of wine glasses had also been splattered. The floor had its fair share as well.

I realize now that to call someone a ‘bad egg’ is indeed an insult of the worst kind. And on a day when I was already chasing my tail, I was forced to drop everything and clean my kitchen top to bottom.

The odor would gag a maggot, and even after I had cleaned everything with soapy water and bleach, the smell still lingered faintly. Jerry thought I had gone crazy—I sniffed absolutely everywhere but could not find where the persistent odor was hiding. Jerry said he couldn’t smell it anymore, as did one of our clients. Jerry has no sense of smell, and I was afraid the client was just being nice. I’m sure the devil was having a good chuckle.

And, back to Rich Toward God and reason number 3 that our “havest” may be delayed when we get serious about tithing.

Maturity—How prepared are you to manage a financial increase? For many people, expenses rise along with income so, if you’re not ready, you might be in the same situation again really soon. If you are not prepared, greed can reemerge as an adversary. The Lord may be allowing you to fell the financial pinch so that you will never forget the valuable lessons of having to get by on less.

Yup, I can certainly see the value in this lesson. And it seems that in today’s economy, the ‘new normal’ had people re-learning lessons that perhaps their parents, way back in the day tried to instill in them.

Another back in the day pic--this one may have been taken by our good friend John Engelhardt at River Downs. This is Champagne Casey (bred by John E.) who won many races for us and in fact helped to buy the farm where we now live. She's an old curmudgeon-y lady now, bossing everyone else around the field.

Testing God - Seeking Answers

After hanging up with Nate, I put in a phone call to another veterinarian that did a lot of work for the Kentucky chapter of ReRun. This guy is a phenomenal vet, and I knew that he would be able to answer my question. But because he does work directly with some clients at the track, I wanted to be careful not to put him in a bad spot.

“Hey Chris, I need to access your super human brain cells,” I joked when I finally got him on the phone. “I’ve got a question, but remember to dummy down the answer for me.”

“No problem,” the good doctor said, but I knew it would be, because speaking in medical-eze is just the way he rolls. “What’s up?”

“I came across a drug that I’m unfamiliar with,” I started, “and I want to know what it would be used for.”

“Uh oh, did a new ReRun disaster ship in?” the doc wanted to know.

“Um, no, not exactly,” I hedged, giving him the name of the drug.

“Oh, that’s an antibiotic,” Chris said.

“What? I thought it was illegal to run on antibiotics!” Realizing a little too late that I might have just blurted out a bit too much.

“No, not all of ‘em, just some of ‘em, It can also depend on how they’re used.” Chris returned, obviously eating and driving while we spoke. “But…”

“But what?” I wanted to know. “Your ‘but’ sounded a little weird.”

“Well, that antibiotic is fairly use-specific,” Chris continued. “In fact, I can only think of one use for it.” A long pause while the chewing continued.

“Which would be…?” I prompted.

“That antibiotic would be mixed in with cortisone or whatever was getting put into a joint. They would be using it if the joint had already been injected a lot, and they had a pretty good idea that there may be some infection.”

Daily Notes: I’ve had the oddest feeling all day today. I’ve not gotten much accomplished, either. I can’t seem to think straight. When I turned on the TV this morning at 5:45, the breaking news story was about yet another earthquake and the resulting tsunami warnings for the entire Pacific Rim.

That, on top of Haiti, on top of a small quake near Chicago and record-breaking snowstorms. I think somebody is trying to get our attention.

If you have a Bible, flip to Matthew 24 and Luke 21.

I’m cutting to the chase here, folks. For those of you reading along that don’t know what I’m talking about when I say ‘end times,’ (or even if you do) check out the following:

http://www.joelrosenberg.com/

From the home page, click on Blog and then look for the February 27th postings. Then check out the Four Spiritual Truths that you can access with a mouse click.

All I’m asking you to do is think about it. Then make an assessment. I made my assessment a long time ago, and the more I study about the Tribulation, the more certain I am that I don’t want to be here for that party. I’ll take Jesus, thank you very much.

Testing God - Anatomy of a Breakdown, con't

As I perused the paperwork that now completely covered the island in my kitchen, I tried to piece together the racing career of the horse that had broken down. I was also trying to match the drug records to each of the horse’s races.

I found a notation in the horse’s not too distant past performances of “DNF.” This stands for Did Not Finish, and indicates that the horse did not make the full course before being eased. Not good, for sure.

Much of what I saw was pretty much what I had expected, but there was something that puzzled me. On the list of medications along with several drugs that I was familiar with there was one that I had never heard of.

I decided to make a couple phone calls. Luckily, through my ReRun connections I had ties to the best vets in the biz. These vets work for world renowned equine hospitals here in Lexington and the majority of their clients are Thoroughbred owners and breeders. Because of this, I kept all of my questions general.

The first call I made was to a young vet who had a reputation as somewhat of a wiz kid. This guy was indeed brilliant. Nate had become a personal friend of ours, as he had devoted much time to the cause of equine rescue. He and I served together on the board of a group whose goal was to try to standardize Thoroughbred rescue groups. He was often my sounding board for much of the frustration I felt dealing with an industry who adamantly denied that there was any sort of problem with misuse of drugs.

“Nate, hey, thanks for taking my call,” I began. “I know you’re busy, so I won’t take much of your time. I just have a quick question for you.”

“Fire when ready,” he said, which is code for ‘hurry it up.’

“I have a list of race-day medications that I’m looking at, and…” That was as far as I got before my friend jumped in.

“You want to know what they do?” Nate interrupted. “Read me the list…I’m curious to see what all these horses run on.”

My buddy is a little hyper, to say the least. And always, always in a hurry. But that’s likely because his talents are in such high demand. When he’s not working hands-on on a horse, he’s doing research and writing articles to be published in some equine medical journal, so I don’t blame him a bit for being a bit on-the-muscle.

“Oh, OK.” I said. I really hadn’t planned to mention what I thought were the run-of-the-mill drugs that I already knew about. But I started at the top of the list. “Bute, lasix, banamine, Vetalog,”

“Vetalog?” Nate virtually hollered. “VET-A-LOG??? They let horses race on that???”

“Well, I guess so. It's on this list.” I said, not quite sure what had him so fired up. “That’s bad?”

“I’ve studied that drug, Shon. I can’t really see where it would have any legitimate application on race day. Do you have any idea how powerful that drug is?”

“I guess I don’t…” I began, but Nate was on a roll.

“That drug is so powerful that it could literally tighten down a fresh bowed tendon to where a vet wouldn’t even be able to tell there was an injury! You’re not serious…horses are allowed to RACE on that??? Oh, hey, I’m getting an emergency page…can we talk about this later?” Nate asked.

“Of course, and thanks for your help!” I answered. Wow, I thought. Who knew? But I still needed my main question answered.

Daily Notes: According to Rich Toward God, the second reason that there might be a delay in the harvest is …

Learning—You may be obeying God and holding true to everything he has called you to. Keep it up, but also remember that sometimes, especially when it comes to the are of financial blessings, you may need to learn new skills before you will have more income. Could it be that your problem is a spending problem? Has credit card debt trapped you? Do you follow good principles of money management? Or do you need a raise badly enough to learn new skills that might open the door to a raise, a promotion, or even a new job? Don’t let yourself be trapped. Look for new opportunities and get ready. God will help you.

Oh my goodness…this one has me all over it. It is a running joke in our family that I am afflicted with career A-D-D. I have re-invented my work life numerous times over the years. In fact, I’m still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up.

I do love to learn new things, and I can definitely look back and see where God has used this to help us financially. It took a huge leap of faith to leave what at the time seemed very secure positions to start a Thoroughbred adoption program.

When it was time to move on from ReRun, I knew that I wanted to be self-employed. It was God that pushed me in the direction I eventually took. Working with animals was a no-brainer, but adding in the dog grooming was all God’s doing. I was so blessed that a friend of mine from high school has run a successful grooming business for years, and agreed to teach me.

Ronda’s kindness saved me thousands in tuition and a whole lotta time in schooling. She was tough and she was thorough, and with her help, I was able to bring in enough money to pay the bills while I got the pet and farm watch business up and running.

Over the past few years, with God’s help, I’ve learned to raise chickens, milk my dairy goats, store the milk and make cheese. I bake bread, store food for the winter and even make the kind of icing that you normally only get at the bakery.

On the agenda for this year is learning to sew and raising an heirloom garden to begin seed saving. This weekend, I’m registered for a beekeeping course, and Jerry and I are visiting with some dear old friends to learn about wine making. Instead of having a penchant for making money, perhaps some of us are better at saving it.

Testing God - Anatomy of a Breakdown

The Unbelievable’s first race for us was in November of 2006. It was just shy of two years earlier that I was awaiting arrival of the documents concerning the deadly spill at Turfway Park.

At this time, it had been awhile since Jerry had been actively training. That was heartbreaking to me, because that was what he loved to do. And he was so good at figuring out and caring for the horses. But things had changed so radically on the racetrack, and every day we were faced with the living, breathing proof of that downhill slide.

Jerry had begun to feel that if he refused to give the horses that he trained the drugs that so many seemed to be using, his clients were at a serious disadvantage. If his horses were racing steroid-free against horses that had the “benefit” of those drugs, even if it was to their detriment in the long run, he was competing on a very un-level playing field.

And, it was difficult to attract clients when your way of doing things (fixing problems and giving horses time to heal) was so much more expensive than the inject-and-run solution that other trainers were offering.

Obviously, it wasn’t all trainers that were throwing their horses under the bus. Two trainers—Buff Bradley and Paul McGee—could be counted on to send horses to ReRun that were good candidates for a second career. If the horses they sent had problems at all, they were problems that could be fixed, and there wasn’t any ‘wait and see’ while the drugs wore off.

Within a day the FedEx guy delivered a good sized box, and I began sorting through the paperwork to see exactly what it was the reporter was dealing with.

Contained in the packet were past performances for the horse that initially broke down, causing the deadly accident. Also included were pages of drug records on the race day medications that had been administered, as well as a video tape.

Race day medications are the drugs that horses are allowed to have in their systems when they race. In Kentucky, at the time of this spill, they included Bute and Lasix, as well as Banamine. These are all common medications that are still in use in racing today, but now there are “levels.” That simply means there is a limit to how much of the drug can be present in a horse’s system at race time. Back then, although many other states had levels in place, in Kentucky there were none.

There were other medications that were allowed as well—different types of bleeder medications, anabolic steroids, and the thing I came to see as the biggest problem of all—cortisone injections into joints. Let me clarify the above statement—when I said that steroids were “allowed,” it probably would be more accurate to say that they weren’t tested for, so they were used. A lot.

As it is for humans, some drugs are necessary and can be a good thing. The potential is always there for a good thing to go bad, and that was the path that the racing industry had taken.

Drugs absolutely have their place—to be used for treatment of an injury and to heal. Drugs should never, ever, EVER be used to cover up a problem, or to artificially enhance a horse’s performance. Misuse of drugs seemed to be rampant.

Let me go on record here as saying that in my opinion, race day medications are not the problem. I would imagine that it would be difficult to mask significant pain solely with the use of Bute or Banamine.

Why, you may ask, would it be good for a horse to feel pain? So that they stand a fighting chance to live through a race. If a horse can feel pain, they would have the chance to pull themselves up before suffering a catastrophic injury. If a horse is going “off” while warming up before a race, the jockey can feel it and try to have the animal scratched, potentially avoiding disaster.

Bute, in lesser amounts given just on race day would be like taking aspirin for muscle aches. In large amounts used day after day, its affect can be harmful—slowly eating away at the stomach until it is damaged beyond repair.

Judging by what we had seen and documented in horses entering the ReRun program, our industry had taken a flying leap over the ethical line.

Daily Notes: Sorry about the recent lack of posts…to be honest, some of this stuff is very hard for me to write about. It would be easier to not include what I am about to talk about over the next couple of days, but I will, for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that it plays an integral part in The Unbelievable’s story. And the second reason is that, if I gloss over the ugly bits, it seems that a whole lot of horses have suffered and died in vain.

In making my way through Rich Toward God, I have arrived at the part where Dr. Hood discusses the inevitable—You’ve been tithing faithfully but nothing is happening. You’ve been sowing, but the harvest seems to be delayed. Does this mean that God has failed? Or lied? What’s he waiting on?

I bet if you readers are being honest, that very thought has already crossed your minds. It certainly crossed mine! Because much like UB, I’m not a patient person. Ah—maybe that’s it! God is trying to teach me some patience! (Actually, I suppose that could be a reason!)

Over the next few posts, I’m going to look at Dr. Hood’s potential reasons for delay one at a time.

Reason 1: Timing—You may be prepared and ready for a blessing, but God may still be preparing the situation for you. Or, he may be preparing someone else who is not yet ready. But don’t forget, you are part of the solution, too. So keep waiting until the Lord completes his work because the end result will always be much better.

Today back in the day pic shows me with my good friend Christine Gabriel. I believe this was taken at Monmouth Park in NJ where we were working on the notes team for the Haskell.

Testing God - Please Let's Just Get Through This Race!

The horse hopped right back on to the trailer, which now had all partitions tied back to leave just one large, open box. The rest of the trip to Turfway was quiet, and as soon as he was unloaded, UB was checked head to tail for any injuries. No one, and certainly not the vet, could fathom how this horse could completely upend himself and be flat on his back in such a tiny space in a trailer with absolutely no ill effects. Not even a scratch.

I arrived at the track a basket case, but determined to not let my nerves get the best of me. I somehow had to make sure that I gave UB no additional reasons to pull any more stunts. But I have to admit, my confidence was fading.

The horse was settled into a stall with his hay net, but nibbling hay was the furthest thing from his mind. The bright lights from the racetrack and the blare of the PA system had UB visibly agitated.

As race time drew closer, UB and I practiced going to our “happy place.” When the call came over the PA to get the horses ready for his race, I vowed to only let scenarios with a positive outcome roll through my mind on the walk over to the paddock.

Getting UB ready took a little longer than normal, as we had to put in his ear plugs and pull the netting over his ears before tying his tongue and putting on his bridle. The finishing touch was his dog collar nose band. Jerry had already run bandages on his legs for support and protection.

Even though someone else was hired to “run” him, (lead him over to where he would be saddled for the race) I had promised UB that I would always be right there with him. In this case, that meant a half mile walk each way in frigid temperatures. Yup, ya gotta love night racing at Turfway Park in the winter.

As the three of us neared the grandstand we had to pass directly in front of the starting gate, at that point standing empty on the track. The tractor used to pull the gate was idling loudly, and UB threw on the brakes. Eyes big, tail up and snorting with nostrils flaring the horse froze, staring at the ominous metal monster casting long shadows in the grandstand lights.

“UB, c’mon man.” I said in my head. “This gate is no different than the one you have no problem with in the mornings. I know you can do this!

As quickly as he stopped UB started again, dancing and prancing sideways past the gate and all the way to the paddock.

The saddling went off without a hitch, the call to the post was sounded and The Unbelievable and his rider were handed off to the pony person to be warmed up.

Thankfully, the distance on this race was a mile, so the start would be directly in front of the grandstand. That meant that (in theory) I would be able to position myself so that UB could see me at all times, right up until the break. A security guard thought differently, however, but he must have had bigger fish to fry, as he only hassled me briefly before heading back inside where it was warm. I circled back around, taking my place just as the line of horses reached the starting gate to begin loading. I searched out Joe’s white and teal polka-dotted silks on UB’s jockey.

As the pony person handed The Unbelievable off to the assistant starter, I noticed that it was indeed Jeremy that would be handling him in the gate. Jeremy quickly slipped his leather lead-up through the small loop in the dog collar noseband.

In one fluid motion, the horse was loaded and the rear doors slammed shut. Jeremy jumped up on the ledge in the stall, perching in cramped quarters and looking for any sign that UB was about to blow. As always, there was shouting and banging, but for UB the sounds were now significantly muffled.

As I was the only person nuts enough to be standing on the grandstand apron on the rail in the whipping wind and freezing cold, UB had no trouble finding me. We locked eyes briefly, and in my head I reiterated to him that he could do this.

I closed my eyes, and immediately the image of UB’s pastoral setting “happy place” popped in. I smiled, because I knew that the scene was coming from him. I could feel my heart beating rapidly, but it wasn’t nearly so terrifying and out-of-control as before.

Blessedly within moments the gates sprang open, and the race was off! I kept my eyes closed, feeling UB beginning to get his act together through the first turn. From where I was situated down on the rail, I lost sight of the field as they disappeared behind the tote board.

I remember screaming (in my head) “Now run, UB!” and he did. In retrospect, I should have waited until I could see where the horses were before giving such forceful instructions.

Jerry was watching the race on a television in the grandstand so that with the split screen view he could see what was happening throughout the race. As the horses rounded the turn and headed into the stretch, I ran to the finish line. I was thrilled to see The Unbelievable finish third!

As soon as the horses crossed the wire, I ran to meet Jerry heading toward where UB would be unsaddled.

“I don’t know what the heck got into him down the backside, but he took off like a rocket.” Jerry said, shaking his head. “That was way too early to make a run like that. There was no way he could sustain that all the way to the wire without getting tired.”

As the jockey pulled up and dismounted, Jerry questioned him about the bold move down the backside.

“I don’t know, boss. I didn’t ask him for nothin’ yet…he just took off!”

I didn’t say a word, and UB, though puffing and blowing and dead tired, looked pretty pleased that he got through the whole ordeal in relatively good order.

And me? I was so happy, you’d have thought we won!

I felt we’d made a tremendous amount of progress. UB picked up a check and I figured the owner would be thrilled. But if Joe was happy, he wasn’t sayin’.

Daily Notes: Some days when I pray, I ask God to show me something I need to see and randomly open my Bible. Today I landed on 1 Peter 3: 8-12:

Summing up: Be agreeable, be sympathetic, be loving, be compassionate, be humble. That goes for all of you, no exceptions. No retaliation. No sharp-tongued sarcasm. Instead, bless—that’s your job, to bless. You’ll be a blessing and also get a blessing.

Whoever wants to embrace life
And see the day fill up with good,
Here’s what you do:
Say nothing evil or hurtful;
Snub evil and cultivate good;
Run after peace for all you’re worth.
God looks on all this with approval,
Listening and responding well to what he’s asked;
But he turns his back
On those who do evil things.

The Message

Personally, I probably do several of the things that God says not to each and every day. Usually several times a day. I especially struggle with the ‘being agreeable’ and ‘no sarcasm’ mandates.

But it is becoming plain to me that while I’m testing God, he’s doing a little testing of his own. This experiment isn’t ‘all about the Benjamins, baby.’ Because the blessings I’m receiving don’t all come in financial form, neither should my blessings to others be only monetary.

I’m trying to get it, Lord. Please be patient with me.