It was a throwaway line, a token gesture.
If you need anything, I’m around.
I sent it to Emme Fullilove, who was helping with Jack Fisher’s runners for Wednesday’s Beverly R. Steinman Stakes at Saratoga. A longtime steeplechase ally, Fullilove has a full-time job galloping flat horses for trainer Tom Proctor. She’ll take you up on throwaway lines.
“I have Lorna coming to get on Rocket first thing in the morning to jog him once around the track if you want to help tack/throw her up! (But that’s so early so I understand if you don’t want to do that).
Without a choice, that was the end of my throwaway lines.
I’ll be there.
“Thank you so much!!! I’ll have the tack set out.”
That was Tuesday night. And not for the first time in Saratoga, an idea hatched at night felt a lot different when played out in the morning.
The texts began to read more like demands.
“Good morning! Tack is hanging on the cross bar of the stall next door to Rocket.”
Sent at 4:53 a.m. I read it sometime after that. I was already up. I swear.
The alarm had rattled early. Like old-days early. Back when Mike Hushion wanted – needed – to have the first horse on the track every morning. Rosenose, a white bullet through Oklahoma black. At least my heart wasn’t pounding like it did back then. No boots, no helmet, no flak jacket these days. And no time for coffee, no time for idle thought, no time for life-choices regret.
Right on Lake, left on East, right on Union, left on Nelson. The race-tracker’s car in the morning, the first self-driving car.
Slip pad, black quilted pad, foam pad, green saddle towel, full-tree exercise saddle, rubber girth and neck strap are indeed hanging on the cross bar of the stall next to Rocket One. The 7-year-old gelding raises his head, pricks his ears like he knows the time of day. I give him a pat, slide the hay-net rope through a screw eye and look for a hoof pick.
It’s 5:16. Time is ticking. Nine minutes before another longtime steeplechase ally, Lorna Chavez, arrives. The former steeplechase jockey and freelance rider of the stars expects the horse to be tacked up and ready to go. I get to work.
Rocket’s feet were already picked (thanks, Emme) as I ducked under the webbing with the tack. A couple of handfuls of sweet feed lay untouched in the corner feed tub. By rote, my fingers, stiff from the morning chill, begin to work. Buckling, buttoning. Tightening, tinkering. I try to fold the saddle towel back over the pads and decide it’s too short, I lay it flat and long. Not sure Dad, the retired horse trainer, would go for that. Saddle in place, two holes still to go on the right and four on the left billet. Perfect. I grab the ring bit, figure eight and neck strap and wonder where they were when I rode for the 16-time champion trainer. Egg-butt snaffle, an open mouth and a hunk of mane was all I had. Times change. Chavez will be happy.
Her pink and black jeep rolls into a spot in the center of the courtyard, between the receiving barn and Linda Rice’s barn. It’s 5:25 a.m.
“Who’s here?…Sean’s here…” Chavez squeals with delight. Surely more for the valet service than the company, but I’ll take it.
I grab the left rein and escort Rocket for a circuit of the long, wide, tall, once-white, old-school barn. My mind wanders for the first time all morning; whose barn was this originally (the Sanfords) . . . which champions made this very walk . . . will Rocket One add his name to the storied list?
“Whoa, look at him. He’s a giant,” Chavez says as I slow the $600,000 yearling purchase from six years ago to a stop.
Chavez enlists a groom of another horse to hold the big bay gelding while I give her a leg up. It’s a long way up there. She launches like a toddler in a bouncy house.
“I’ve got him,” Chavez says as Rocket walks on cue.
Rocket and Chavez loop once around the barn while I wait. We start the long, slow, circuitous walk to the main track. Across Nelson Avenue, security guards scurrying into place, stopping traffic that doesn’t exist. We cross Clare Court, angle left, cut through the trees. There is chill in the air.
“Like the old days at Saratoga,” I reminisce.
“Morning, my lovelies,” Chavez says to guards and grooms.
Rocket One holds his head high, the white rim of his left eye looking down at me and ahead at others all at the same time. I remember how hard it is to keep up with a horse’s walk. We walk along the horse path, past the empty Morning Line Kitchen and past a few lifers. Austin Trites, Bob Giordano, Robin Smullen. Rocket is composed, alert, all class on his first trip to Saratoga. We stop a few strides inside the gap. Chavez is as patient as a newborn’s mother. They stand, breathe, chill.
Chavez and Rocket melt into a trot behind a Brad Cox trainee. I watch. Straight and true. I catch glimpses, in between the trees, the tote board before they come back into view. A mile and an eighth, done and dusted. The final preparation. I meet them at the gap. Chavez squeals again.
“He feels like a million dollars.”
On a million-dollar morning.
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