Sean Clancy

Kevin Plank asked for the floor. The Sagamore Farm team quieted, the Under Armour squad hushed, the Graham Motion crew stood at attention, the NYRA brass turned and listened. Plank raised his glass of champagne to salute Lake Placid winner Shared Account.

OK, we got motivated.

Ryan, Joe and I were humbled in the Fasig-Tipton 5K. Not necessarily by our time, Ryan and I made the first page of results, but by how we felt.

OK, we got motivated. Ryan, Joe and I were humbled in the Fasig-Tipton 5K. Not necessarily by our time, Ryan and I made the first page of results, but by how we felt. I felt like a lead pony by the last race; hot, tired, getting bumped around, spur marks on my side, steel shoes heavier by the step, wishing for the finish.

Nick Zito heard the magic words. John Hettinger. “Sit down,” Zito says.

Ideally, a man provides for his family while living with his family. But sometimes it’s not an ideal world. What if a man can’t do both? What if home is here and work is there?

Like saying goodbye to old friends.

My Stable Mail account, the one that e-mails entries and results, reached the top of the can again; 200 horses clogged the system as I tried to file number 201. Periodically, this happens. Time to clean house.

Morning hasn’t really come yet. Brisk. Puddles glisten at the Oklahoma Annex. Tom Voss complains about the traffic because of a 5K in town, it took half an hour to get to the barn. Danielle Hodsdon walks Forever Together around the trees in front of Jonathan Sheppard’s barn. A girl and her pony. Sheppard stands under the awning of his shedrow and follows his champion; hat pulled down nearly over his eyes, a jacket bracing the cold and his mind wrestling instinct and fact.
Hodsdon puts Forever Together in her stall and Sheppard takes the shank.

Jonathan Kiser is smiling.

His buddies Arch Kingsley and Todd Wyatt pulled off a shocker in his race, the Jonathan Kiser Memorial, the opening jump race of this Saratoga season. Kiser used to ride against Kingsley, while working wheelbarrow to wheelbarrow with Wyatt in Tom Voss’ engine room. Kingsley and Kiser tied for champion jockey in 1997. Kiser died, after falling off a rope swing. Kingsley retired after too many concussions. Wyatt went out on his own.

As always, I started agonizing over my column somewhere between the turf works and the Schuylerville. What to write that’s important? Pertinent? Crucial? Meaningful? It wasn’t hard to figure it out. As Joe wrote yesterday, I had a son in December (well, Joe wrote November but never mind that). Miles Alexander Clancy. I haven’t seen him in a week.

Angel Penna, Tom Bush and Tom Bellhouse take the keys to their golfcarts, Penna nearly backs over Kip from Satch Sales as he learns the difference between forward and reverse. Tom Voss wins two races on Sunday and Mimi Voss orders flowers and ferns for their shedrow. Melissa at Rick Violette’s rakes the straw covering off the fledgling grass outside their overflow barn. Rusty Arnold stands outside his new digs on the Oklahoma side, a long way from the far turn of day’s gone past. The Chief’s horses still pull just like they have for the past 50 years. Eleven cases of Diet Mountain Dew await Mark Hennig in his tackroom. Nancy the Paper Lady fights for her cut and rallies her allies to the cause. Little Jose Santos has grown to Big Jose Santos, “I guess I have to be a jump jockey,” he says to his Hall of Fame dad. Brook Ledge, Sallee, Ralph Smith, Ebert . . . they’re the ones making money a day before the 141st Saratoga racemeet.