Prologue
Crimson Streak, second out of the gate, sat just off the pace set by the favorite, took command on the turn, moved out to a two-length advantage at the eighth pole, and held off two fast-closing horses to win by a nose at the wire. Basically, we returned to a sprint, went back to the original jockey, opened up his blinkers and dropped to a $12,500 race. Even then, we needed help. My friend Sharon from the gym said a prayer for the horse and it obviously did the trick. We told her next time we would like oh, say three prayers to make the margin of victory a little less nervewracking. The race for Cosmic Song, scheduled for tomorrow (Oct. 8) did not go. We’ll keep you posted. And yes, when you look at the picture to the right, it looks like the horse wins a little more comfortably, by a neck or at least a head….the angle is deceiving.
Letters We Like (from Leslie Logan in Portland, Oregon):
Oooooh, what a good story! (Marilyn, September 30) I never knew about Marilyn. Actually, I guess I haven’t heard most of the Austin stories and I love them all. This one is just soooo romantic.
After I read Thursday’s blog, and sometimes previous segments ('cause I don’t want it to be over), I wish I didn’t have to wait a week for the next installment. Then my life takes over again and before I know it there is Siobhan’s e-mail signature brightening up the end of the week.
Leslie
Thanks for the kind words. It’s nice to know someone enjoys an article so much. If we ever quit writing the blog, maybe we’ll do articles just for you.
Karen Brown
A long time ago, on a planet far, far away, Siobhan made a scientific breakthrough. Sarcocystis neurona is a disease that causes nerve damage in horses. To develop drugs for treatment of Sarcocystis neurona, a way to induce the disease was needed. This was a big step that had eluded universities, but it didn’t elude Siobhan. After discovering an important S. neurona gene, she cold-called Bayer (yeh, that Bayer) Animal Health and was introduced to Karen Brown. Karen took the information and said she would get back to us in a few days. After showing it to her superiors, she was back on the phone in an hour. And flying down post-haste. A deal was promptly worked out and Karen became a regular visitor.
To say the least, Karen Brown was not your normal everyday buttoned-down science company exec. Matter of fact, in a previous life—or maybe in this one—she might have been a biker chick. Anyway, she was a lot of fun. She had never been to Disney, so we took her there, and she rode all the roller-coasters. Siobhan doesn’t much like roller-coasters so you know who had to ride with her. You know that line about the post office—neither rain, nor snow, etc.—well, rain didn’t stop Karen Brown, either. We rode a lot of those roller-coasters in a downpour. Most of our corporate pals were fairly tepid (okay, Tariq from Schering-Plough did wrestle an alligator, but it was a very small alligator), but not Karen.
Finally, the day came when Bayer was sending Siobhan her first Very Large Check. I am not allowed to say how much this check was due to a silly confidentiality agreement, but it was VERY Large. You could buy a small house with it. To celebrate, we all went over to St. Augustine Beach. Now, Siobhan doesn’t like to go out very far in the ocean (Siobhan doesn’t seem like much fun, does she?), so Karen and I were banging around in the waves when I noticed a Very Large Shark about 100 yards further out. I think Karen saw it too, but nobody said anything. It’s not really all that unusual to see sharks off the coast, so nobody was all that excited, but still. I gradually slogged my way to shore, Karen remaining in the ocean, and made my way back to Siobhan.
“There’s a gi-normous shark out there….maybe about 100 yards.”
This is when Siobhan usually demonstrates her care and concern for fellow human beings.
“WHAT?” she yells, jumping off her blanket. “Get her out of there NOW! She hasn’t given me my Very Large Check yet!”
Juggernaut
It seems like every time the funds get low one horse or another comes through for us. So it was with Juggernaut. His mother, Mito’s Touch, had been a stakes-placed runner for me in her racing career and her first foal, Black Bolt, was a good allowance horse. But for some reason, she went through a period of three years during which she would become pregnant but then abort after three or four months. They say that continuing to do the same thing and expecting different result is nuts, so we did something different and sent her to Kentucky to breed to a horse called Is It True, a sire of sprinters. The result was Juggernaut, a smallish colt, but wide and muscular. We sent him to Larry Pilotti at Calder and he worked well enough to fit in a maiden allowance race. Larry called one day and said Juggernaut was on the verge of bucking a shin, however, and might not last until the allowance. There was a $32,000 maiden race coming up shortly, though, which he might win and after which he could be rested for a couple of months (bucked shins is a condition of many tiny microfractures in the cannon bone of a horse, which heal soon enough with stall rest). We sent him out in the $32,000 race and he was winning until bumped by another horse in the stretch, whereupon he finished second. Larry was volcanic when they didn’t disqualify the opponent, but the purse for a maiden special race was much larger so we were okay. The shin settled down without time off and Juggernaut came back to win easy next out. With no other spots available, we entered him next in the $100,000 Criterium Stakes, an ambitious placement, but what the hell. As they say in raceland, “You can’t win it if you’re not in it.” Karen Brown came down for the race.
It was a murky day for the old Criterium. The rain stopped before the race, but the track was muddy. Nobody could really tell how well the horses would take to it because few of them had raced on a wet track. Undefeated Pure Precision was the top-heavy favorite, Juggernaut was 11-1. The race began inauspiciously, Pure Precision going to the lead and Juggernaut trailing the field. Karen Brown was not one to give up easily, however, screaming encouragement as if she had ten grand on the race. Juggernaut fell eleven lengths behind before they hit the turn, a prohibitive deficit in a short five-and-a-half furlong race. Karen just yelled louder. Everyone at the track assumed she was just a deluded owner, unaware of the impossibility of the situation. As the horses reached the turn, Juggernaut began gaining a little. He was on the outside now, with nothing to impede him, but giving up strides to the horses closer to the rail. Coming out of the turn, he was five wide but running fastest of all. Pure Precision was hopelessly far ahead, but as I surveyed the field with my binoculars, third place looked possible. Karen was making so much noise the people around her considered calling the police. Juggernaut kept gaining through the slop and it soon became apparent that he would pass another horse for second. I was thrilled—second in a $100,000 stakes race was nothing to sneeze at. I had never won any kind of stakes race before, Vaunted Vamp having run second a mind-boggling six times without winning. But Juggernaut was not through. He kept flying through the stretch and Pure Precision’s safe margin kept dwindling—three lengths, two lengths, barely a length. Just before the sixteenth pole, Juggernaut passed him like he was standing still and went on to win by 2 ½ lengths. Karen was so low in her stance by this time, she was almost on the floor. I was so stunned, I had to ask a guy who won for reinforcement on the way to the winner’s circle. He looked at me like I was a moron—the horse had won by 2 ½ lengths, after all. A spectacular time was celebrated by all. Karen wouldn’t have been a whole lot happier if it were her horse. Some people just know how to have a good time.
Juggernaut ran in the Sapling in New Jersey, a major two-year-old race, on a super-fast track which did not suit his closing sprinter style. He came back to win the $100,000 Foolish Pleasure Stakes, run at a mile and 70 yards, opening up an 8 length lead (remember—longer races have slower fractions) and holding on for a 2 ½ length win. We tried him in a $400,000 mile-and-a-sixteenth stakes at Keeneland against the best two-year-olds in the country and he was in close contention heading into the turn when his sprinter genes betrayed him and he dropped out of it. He won another small stakes at Calder before an ankle injury caused his retirement. He lives with us now in Fairfield where he sires an occasional offspring and insists on his daily carrot. Crimson Streak is his first son or daughter to race, so with the win last week he is one for one, winners from starters. But whatever subsequent offspring do, it will take a lot to surpass the memories provided by their father.
Karen Brown still resides just outside Kansas City, where she is undoubtedly raising some kind of hell.
That’s all, folks.
