Opinion

My friends at HRTV asked me to come on the show and talk about the Eclipse Awards for steeplechasing. They asked me to talk about the three finalists – this was before the finalists were announced – and I quickly told them there were only two. Demonstrative and Divine Fortune. 

Winter is back in the Northeast. Actually it never left, with temperatures down into the single-digits some nights and a consistent layer of snow covering the ground since just after the New Year.

Jockeys smeared Vaseline over their hands, then baby powder, then Latex gloves, then insulated gloves and headed to the paddock at Laurel Park Thursday. The temperature hovered at 15 degrees, at least that’s what was registered. Wind chill, ‘feels-like’ temperature, forget it, that was Shackleton.

Night check. Every night, after dinner, we trek to the barn. Some days, it’s comforting, almost therapeutic, a stroll, past the apple tree on the left, winding between the fence rows of the front field and back field, along the stone driveway, down the incline to the bank barn built in 1890. Tonight, it’s anything but comforting, the wind whips like it’s finishing a grudge, my nose instantly drips, on command. I don’t dare check a thermometer. I pull my wool hat down, over my ears, and zip my down jacket to my chin. A stray cat, well, once-a-stray cat meows – more like a screech – from his makeshift bed next to the door. I walk head-on into the wind, the sky is bright for this time of night, one lone light shines from across two cow fields, I wonder if our neighbor is doing night check too.

Glad that’s over. Christmas is gone, New Year’s Eve complete. The only thing left to do is drag the Christmas tree to the woods and pay the credit card bills. The former is bittersweet, the latter is bitter. But think of all the fun we had.

Every once in a while, in mid-sentence or mid-battle of mid sentence, when the words aren’t coming and I’m toiling, I lean back and grab a book off the shelf to the right of my desk. It’s a wide variety – the Red Smith Reader, Paul Theroux’s To the Ends of the Earth, Kerouac’s On the Road, The Art of Fielding, Tesio’s Breeding the Racehorse…some I’ve even read.

Miles turns 6 today. What a journey.

Before Miles, I used to think there was a chance of getting hurt, of feeling pain. Now I realize the true potential of getting hurt, of feeling pain. When he was born, everything changed. I guess it’s like this for all parents – I hope it’s like this for all parents. I remember lying on a hospital cot, next to Annie, the night after he was born, I folded my hands across my chest and recited this crazy prayer that I had recited for so many years. I started it and it had changed, just like that, the first person I blessed was Miles, didn’t think about it, just came out. I realized then how different things would be from that day forward.

Over the years, I’ve written about Miles, his laughs, his fears, his sayings. Here are a few.

Who knew the less than half-mile walk from home to the Saratoga Springs Public Library could produce so much fodder for the brain.

Here’s the third and final chapter of my final days as a jockey. Written in 2000 and somehow discovered again in 2014. Enjoy the ride. 

It was the coldest, wettest, most miserable (weather-wise) day of racing in my 13-year career. No one who didn’t have to be there was there. Every person at the races had a job at the races. There weren’t any spectators. Camden usually offers mild, warm weather. On this day, it was brutal. It rained for two days straight and got colder by the hour. What a fitting way to end it. A book should always end with a lightning strike rather than a sunset.