My apologies! Some have asked, “where are the horsie e-mails?” No doubt the frequency has fallen. That’s because of the need for me to go to religious services each afternoon/evening to say Kaddish for my mother that cuts my work day down substantially. I really love sharing my experiences with the horses.
Before we get to the babies who became yearlings on January 1st, let’s start with Executive Office, one of the horses we acquired through claiming (hope you remember how that works, but if not let me know and I’ll explain it again), who ran second on January 2nd. In that race, he was “getting out” coming around the stretch turn and in the stretch. That means he wasn’t running straight, trying to run to the outside and losing ground, as well as fighting his rider. On Monday, Linda put a “run-out blinker” on his right eye, so he couldn’t see what was on his right side.
Shortly after the start, Executive Office took the lead and slowly started drawing away. By the time they got into the stretch, he was 3 1/2 lengths in front… but Aqueduct has a long stretch and the favorite, American Creed, was coming fast on the outside. Taylor Rice, Linda’s niece who is an apprentice jockey, was riding Executive Office. She tried to keep him together as American Creed kept closing to within a length but she held the challenger at bay and won by most of that length, which the chart shows as 3/4 length. This race had been scheduled for last Friday. We were going to go but Aqueduct canceled racing that day because it was too cold. Unfortunately, we couldn’t make it on Monday. We always feel badly when we miss such an opportunity… but we’ll take the “W!”
We have a few babies on the way. Most important of all is the two-legged boy being carried by our daughter, Arielle. He is due in the beginning of June. We already love his brother, Hanan, so much, I’m sure we’ll be overwhelmed when the new one arrives. May it all go with relative ease and good health to Arielle and the baby.
On the four-legged front, Ahvee’s Destiny is “bagging up.” She is starting to carry milk for her baby who is due in February. This is also very exciting. We saw her less than two weeks ago (she looked great!) and we’re going to run up there (10 minutes outside of Saratoga) as close to the foaling as possible. Hopefully, all will go well here too and we’ll get to meet her four-legged progeny very soon! In the meantime, we’re already working on a new mating for Ahvee’s Destiny later this Spring.
In addition, we have four yearlings (all racehorses jump to the next year old on January 1st of each year).
The Einstein filly was born last January. She’s the “alpha” of the 20 or so yearlings on Pat’s farm. Her tentative name is “Another Genius.” It’s funny seeing her boss around the others, just like Jess Not Jesse does with the older horses.
The Flatter filly may be named, Flatter Me Ahvee. She was born in February and has three “white socks.”
An idea for a name for the Haynesfield filly is “Hay, Ahvee!” She too was born last February and is filling out nicely. She has a red cast to her coat, like her daddy.
The Girolamo filly will be called “Blitzer Too” after Jim’s father. There was Holy Blitzer and now there is Blitzer Too.
We had a lot of fun playing with them at Pat’s and seeing the older boys, Jess Not Jesse and Hear the Footsteps, running around. The yearlings are too young to appreciate snacks but not so for the old men. They enjoyed carrots and cookies and we enjoyed feeding them!
We got to visit with Hidden Music a few weeks ago in Greenwich… not the one in CT but the Greenwich in NY which is pronounced, Green Wich. She is still snuggly.
We’re hoping to snuggle soon with Little Ahvee. That sounds like lots of fun!
