The Inside Rail

The jockeys have always intrigued me the most. Flat or jump, doesn’t matter. I’ve been there, I guess that’s part of it, trying to control adrenaline, normalize risk, temper hunger, stymie pressure, quell fear, stave off the simple march of time that gets all jockeys in the end. 

I’ve written about their good days, their bad days, their good sides, their bad sides, all of their good rides, a few of their bad rides. I’ve written about some of their beginnings and most of their endings. I’ve written about their crescendos and their crashes, their stakes and their suicides, their favorite horses and their least favorite races.

Bill Mott doesn’t remember saying it. It was March 1998, I was just getting started as a writer, I mean just getting started, when I asked Mott if he thought Favorite Trick could get a mile and a quarter in the Kentucky Derby in two months time. Bred to be a sprinter, built like a … Read more

Jason Servis stood along the outside rail of the Oklahoma track Thursday morning as Alabama hopeful Actress enjoyed her first morning at the Spa. Arriving earlier that day, the gray daughter of Tapit jogged the wrong way, turned around and loped easily past Servis, his wife Natalie and a few gawkers on a crisp and clear morning.

“She hits 16s like nothing, like nothing,” Servis said, referring to the seconds it takes for her to cover a furlong. “Every once in a while I’ll put my watch on her and she just hits 16s. I don’t usually get these horses.”

Kip Elser called John Servis about a kid who wanted to go from teaching school in South Carolina to walking horses at Delaware Park.

“Does he know anything?” Servis asked.

“Yeah, he can walk a horse.” Elser said.

“Sure, send him up, I’ll put him to work,” Servis said.

As Servis had learned, he handed the responsibility of dealing with the new hotwalker to his right-hand man, Bill Foster. Six foot, six inches, college educated, a crossword genius, a born horseman, a bust-or-boon gambler, Foster spent all

Sometimes, you feel guilty. Guilty for enjoying Saratoga. We complain about rainy days, lost photos and restaurant lines. We worry about races going, horses staying sound and pick-four sequences. We lament short fields, bad trips and long Hall of Fame speeches. We debate about Saturday stakes, the next best 2-year-old and which Ortiz is going to be leading rider. We fret over buying expensive yearlings, getting reservations for Saturday night and having enough beds for friends and family coming to town.

Norm Casse watched the Fourstardave like he was waiting in line at the DMV, silent, standing, emotionless, killing time in a time-killing vacuum. When World Approval, owned by Charlotte Weber’s Live Oak Plantation, powered through the rain-soaked turf to win the Grade 1 stakes, Casse walked toward the winner’s circle, still silent. And then he spoke, just a few words, he was a long way from the DMV.

Owning horses goes something like this…

You buy or breed the horse. Lift off. There’s a rush around that. Making a deal, creating a life. You get to name him. Design your silks. Dream the dream. All the world is young, the horizon unreachable, the freedom of expectation. You are in the game.

Chip Miller hopped off his 3-speed Red Hot bicycle at the East Avenue Café, swinging his right leg back and across like he had done three thousand times before, snapping the white pole in half, like a chopstick, the bottom part wangling back and forth behind the back tire, the other half, the one with the florescent orange flag flew halfway across Lake Avenue and laid in the street like a dead bird. I laughed, pointing at the flag. Chip walked over to my bike, a girl’s Schwinn borrowed from a garage, and snapped my flag in half, throwing the top half like a Frisbee.

Boyd Browning Jr. looked at The Saratoga Special display case in the front of the old feed store on East Avenue and smiled at the copy of Recollections of a Life with Horses, by Humphrey S. Finney.

Fasig-Tipton’s president reads the book from time to time, just as a refresher, just as a reminder of Finney, the man they named the pavilion for and for whom we owe pretty much everything that happens in the next two days.

The world didn’t end, I didn’t get hit by lightning, I didn’t blow the turn and wind up at Siro’s. Despite the byline, “In the Paddock, by Tom Law,” I wrote yesterday’s column in the spot. It was about Eddie Arcaro’s son, Bobby. Never fear, the Cup of Coffee streak, going back to Wednesday, July 25, 2001, is still intact. We rolled past 500 last summer, next stop, 1,000.

Look out, Cal Ripken.