Six days.
That’s how long it took Leigh Delacour to get back on a horse after giving birth to her third child March 16.
“I rode one. I got on the jogger,” she said with a laugh. “But it felt a little funny, so I waited a couple of days.”
A couple of days later, Delacour was back galloping at Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland, where she and her husband Arnaud base their stable and their sons Julien, Luca, and newly born Alistair.
Four months later, Delacour is back for the second year to head up the barn’s Saratoga string. She has six horses stabled at the end of Carlos Martin’s shedrow in Barn 31 on the far turn of the main track. Seven if you count the lead pony.
Delacour has the same help as last year, what she terms “the A team.”
At around 11 Friday morning as the picnic tables along the horse path to the paddock started to fill up, two members of that A team led two equine members of the Delacour stable to paddock school.
Esequiel Martinez kept today’s Grade 1 Diana entrant Hawksmoor calm as patrons looked on while Maurilio Ramirez led No Dozing, who makes his first start of the year in the day’s third race.
Delacour had another helper in Alistair, who was strapped to her in a baby carrier.
Don’t worry, Delacour didn’t go in the paddock saddling stall with the horses.
She was assisted by Sara Schneider, who is summering in Saratoga for the first time after working for the Delacours at Delaware Park the past few months.
To read the rest of the Diana preview, download Saturday’s digital edition of The Saratoga Special presented by EasyFix Stable Solutions.
