Joe Clancy

Billy Meister put a hand on Twill Do’s back, laughed and started talking.

“You know he had four broken ribs and is missing part of a lung, don’t you? You’d have never known it,” the trainer said as his horse walked past at the barn after Saturday’s Maryland Hunt Cup. “We turned him out every day and he bucked and played like normal. Like there was nothing wrong with him. How’d you like to run the Maryland Hunt Cup with only two-thirds of your lung function on one side?”

Sam Waley-Cohen won the Cheltenham Gold Cup. He’s ridden in the English Grand National at Aintree. But now he’s really getting into this steeplechase thing.

You know the race is just a little bit different when horsemen are taking about practice, not workouts, not schooling sessions, practice.

Barbaro, Perfect Drift, Riskaverse, Film Maker, Americain, Lucarno . . . the list of Dynaformer’s quality sons and daughters could go on and on, circling racetracks from California to Kentucky to Europe and beyond.

Ross Geraghty answered the phone, listened to a simple question – “What’s it like to ride in the Grand National?” – and off he went.

And that makes three . . . and four . . . and six . . . and nine. Eclipse Award winner Black Jack Blues won his third race in America, fourth in a row, sixth of his last seven and ninth overall with another compelling and controlling victory on the front end, wiring five rivals in the first open stakes of the year, the Carolina Cup.

Ten horses in a field. They bite, kick, run, play, sleep, eat, then they go to work.

They’re talking Kentucky Derby again at the Fair Hill Deli. Pretty fun. Union Rags, who spent much of his 2-year-old season at Fair Hill Training Center, won Sunday’s Fountain of Youth Stakes, firmly placing himself at the head of the class of 2012 3-year-olds. The Michael Matz trainee sures looks the part.

“Every time Sean or the Maryland Horse wrote about me, it never worked out well. But it’s nice to have the good horses to write about.” That text came through on my phone at 5:28 Monday evening. It was forwarded from Tim Keefe. I was washing lettuce.

By day, he trains a barn full of horses at Laurel Park. By night, he’s a chauffeur. Like any good father, Tim Keefe shuttles the kids to and from practice, pony club, school functions, pretty much anything.