Well, now that we’ve got The Fastest Horse In The World, our troubles are over, right? Truth be told, they’re just beginning. It is always exciting to send a promising horse to the racetrack but when a horse works the way Cosmic Flash works, expectations are bound to be elevated. Barry Eisaman, the Wizard of Eisaman Equine, tells us the work performances of this horse place him in the top 5% of horses he has trained in the history of the facility. So right away you assume you’ve got a stakes horse, at least. This is telling people like us we’ve got the Hope Diamond sitting around the yard. The first thing you start looking for is insurance. Not financial insurance, in this case. Based on this horse’s pedigree and the fact that he hasn’t passed through a sale and brought a high price, it would be impossible to insure him for his perceived (by us) value. Not to mention the very high cost of insuring thoroughbred horses or the fact they are generally insurable only for mortality and not loss of use. Usually, your horse doesn’t actually go and die on you, he just bows a tendon or commits some other form of racing suicide, rendering his value somewhere in the neighborhood of that of a liverwurst sandwich. The insurance that you want is everything you can think of that will keep this from happening.
First, you send him to a trainer you can trust and have him assigned to a specific groom who will take exceptional care of the horse and notice budding problems before they bloom. Cosmic Flash is going to our long-time friend, Larry Pilotti, and will be rubbed by Juggernaut’s old groom, Jose, who, like Pele, is so distinguished at his trade he only requires one name. Instead of working every Saturday and risking bucked shins, Cosmic Flash will work only every ten or fourteen days. This doesn’t guarantee the problem will not occur anyway, it just lessens the chances. Eisaman’s current feeding regimen will be explained to Larry and a bag of his grain will be dispatched with the horse. Cosmic Flash colicked as a weanling and was put on a low-carbohydrate diet after surgery and this diet must be adhered to. The horse will ship to Miami on March 4th only if the weather is good. Current and future trainer will communicate to better familiarize the latter with the horse and any idiosyncrasies he might have. This should be a short conversation.
Larry has skilled, professional riders who understand how to get a horse ready and keep him out of trouble. They know how much is too much, too soon. The fact that Cosmic Flash behaves like a professional will be a boon to everyone, trainer, groom and rider. When it comes time to choose a jockey, we will find one who is not afraid to ride a two-year-old for the first time and one who will hopefully remember he is not running in a quarter-horse race. Every trip to the track, morning or afternoon, is a learning experience for the horse, one way or the other. We’d like those experiences to be positive. Larry will observe even the daily gallops. Based on the anticipated work schedule and no delays, Cosmic Flash should have his first race sometime between April 20th and the end of that month.
Reasons For Optimism
It is not an absolute prerequisite, but it helps a lot if a horse displays Intelligence. All of us have seen horses, even prominent stakes-quality competitors, who are fruitcakes in the paddock, the walking ring or, more often, in the gate. It is more facile to clean the Augean Stables to get some horses into the starting gate and, once enclosed, to keep them from pitching a fit or, in a worst case scenario, upending themselves. Horses like this often emerge from the gate in a tangle or jumping left or right, often smack into another horse, frequently knocking themselves and others out of contention and/or injuring somebody. You can have the smartest horse in the world, doing everything right, and he can still fall victim to the lunatic in the next stall gate, which is why it also helps if your horse has Composure.
Barring being injured by an errant horse, your horse can be knocked out of a race by all the early bumping and intimidation. It is one thing to break from the gate with two or three other horses in the morning when everyone is minding their manners, another thing to withstand the intimidation of a cavalry charge and all the noise and bustle attendant. Many horses are not psychologically up to the melee, especially the first couple of times out. It helps if your horse has Intelligence and Composure, which we believe ours does, though the real Test remains. It is also a prerequisite that he is Competitive. Horses we have run like Juggernaut and Clockwork Orange, a burly filly, could not be intimidated. Bump into them, they bump you back, and harder. After which, they are mightily pissed off and beat you down the track just to teach a lesson. In his early training, Cosmic Flash has the look of a competitive horse. What happens when the bullets fly remains to be seen.
All horses are helped in their efforts by possessing good Conformation. Horses who are built correctly are not invulnerable but they have a better chance of withstanding the rigors of racing. Super Chief would have been a very good horse had he not been significantly back at the knee. Juggernaut had an ankle chip as a yearling, won a couple of $100,000 stakes races with it, was operated on to remove it and came back to win later. The ankle flared up again, finally causing his retirement at an early age. The mother of Cosmic Flash, Cosmic Light, was back in the knee and sustained a slab fracture during a race , which she had the courage to win, anyway. Her son, however, has no knee issues, perhaps inheriting them from his father, Hear No Evil, nor any other conformation problems we have noticed. He is average-sized, which we feel is better than gigantic or tiny, very athletic and well-balanced. While his pedigree suggests he might best like races a mile-and-a-sixteenth and under, a famous Hear No Evil offspring named Jackson Bend managed to be third in the mile-and-three-sixteenths Preakness, so you never know.
I have made it to 72 years and this may be my best horse so if he measures up to expectations I don’t expect to be selling him, whatever the inducements. People wave a lot of money at you for horses like this, but what would I do with money—buy another horse? We’ll keep everybody appraised weekly of his progress so you can better understand the agony and ecstasy of the horse business—the vale of tears it is for some, the unequalled high for others. It’s only a few weeks until late April, so keep your fingers crossed. There may be grievous sunspots that day or even the eruption of Yellowstone. Asteroid pellets may rain from the sky, terrorists may blow up Disney World, there may be a deluge superseding the one experienced by Noah. Unimpeded, we’ll have binoculars raised at Calder Race Course—hoping for the birth of a New Star.
Ex Benedict
Where did you come from, where did you go?
Where did you come from, Cotton-Eyed Joe?
Gee. Easy come, easy go. Benedict, we hardly knew ye. And that’s the trouble with these popes. They’re so old when they take over, the demands of the job quickly shove them over the cliff. It’s a lot of responsibility you know, being the latest incarnation of the head of a giant church, inheriting power from no less than St. Peter….and you know who HE got it from. That’s right, the Big Guy, himself. Until now, however, popehood was only cancelled by death. Benedict probably thought he’d hang on a little longer if he wasn’t under the gun anymore. I mean, how much fun can it be having to explain away on a daily basis thousands of diddling priests, not to mention having to sweat the decreasing Vatican bank account constantly being drained by clergical misbehavior? Not much. Besides, if you’re Pope, everybody is constantly watching you. That means there can be No Girls. No Boys’ Night Out. You can’t even go to Vegas. All that’s left is Miniature Golf, f’chrissakes. Why would anybody even take the job? Well. There are a few nifty perks, when you come to think of it.
First of all, the Pope gets to Pick A New Name. Wow! Who wouldn’t like to do that? A guy like Bosley Milquetoast could rename himself Mike HAMMER or something like that. AND the Pope gets to be Sovereign Ruler of his own country, don’t forget. Hell, he can skateboard naked through the streets and piazzas and stuff and nobody can do anything about it. Have you ever seen the Pope’s Hat? Well, let me tell you, it’s nothing to sneeze at. If somebody with a hat like that told you to do something, you would probably do it in a hurry.
What about the Popemobile? The only other guy with a car named after him is Batman, how about THAT? And I’m not sure Batman’s car is bullet-proof, like the Pope’s is. Hey, and PRADA makes your damn red shoes, that’s a status-booster. And when you wear all those fancy white duds like the Pope does, you don’t even really have to have the hat, everybody naturally defers to you. And why the hell shouldn’t they—you’re goddam Infallible, after all.
“Now, look, Benedict, we can’t be going around saying the world is square, everybody knows it’s not".”
“Oh YEAH, Cardinal Bumpkin—who’s the Infallible Guy around here, you or me?” See what I mean.
The Pope, of course, also gets to define faith issues. Like, when we were kids, you couldn’t eat meat on Fridays. Then, one day, the Pope issued a Papal Dispensation, which stated that on one particular Friday it would be okay for some reason to eat meat. This pissed off my Father a lot. “Who the hell does he think HE is?” Well, Dad, he’s the Pope, infallible in matters of religion and such. “I don’t give a damn WHO it is, you can either eat meat on Friday or you can’t. Papal Dispensation, my ass!” My Father like to keep things simple. Everybody else listened to the Pope.
How would you like to have Audiences, like the Pope does? First, you get to approve some famous bohunk coming to see you and then the famous guy has to come in, kneel down and kiss your ring. Well, unless you’re Queen Elizabeth or something. Queen Elizabeth isn’t kneeling down for anybody. If you asked Queen Elizabeth to kneel down, she’d probably give you a good swat upside the head. I think the Pope is too smart for that.
ANOTHER great thing popes get to do is name saints! Wow again! “I hearby name Joe Dimaggio 'Saint Joe'!" How much fun would that be? And, if you were pope, you would get to have MINIONS! Lots and lots of minions. If you’re a president of something, you go to the balcony and somebody might shoot you. The Pope goes out there and brings down the house. It’s easy to get an inflated ego being pope, everybody kissing your ass, answering to no one. It’s almost a comedown when you die and ascend to heaven, as all popes surely do. In heaven, you’ve got a Boss, again.
“Hey, New Guy—go get the broccoli slicer!”
“Just a damned minute! This is the friggen POPE you’re talking to!”
“Not up here, it isn’t! Hey, and while you’re at it, make sure you get over to wardrobe and turn in those red shoes!”
Previews Of Coming Attractions
Next week, Bill and Siobhan must venture back to D.C. to do renewed battle with the FDA. That means we’re running an old blog, 2010 vintage, which most of you may not have seen before. You’ll love it. After that, we’ll be back with more news of Cosmic Flash as he fights the battle for truth, justice and the American Way. All the while, trying to earn a couple of bucks on the side. Take heart, those of you in the Hinterlands. It’s almost Spring!
That’s all, folks….
First, you send him to a trainer you can trust and have him assigned to a specific groom who will take exceptional care of the horse and notice budding problems before they bloom. Cosmic Flash is going to our long-time friend, Larry Pilotti, and will be rubbed by Juggernaut’s old groom, Jose, who, like Pele, is so distinguished at his trade he only requires one name. Instead of working every Saturday and risking bucked shins, Cosmic Flash will work only every ten or fourteen days. This doesn’t guarantee the problem will not occur anyway, it just lessens the chances. Eisaman’s current feeding regimen will be explained to Larry and a bag of his grain will be dispatched with the horse. Cosmic Flash colicked as a weanling and was put on a low-carbohydrate diet after surgery and this diet must be adhered to. The horse will ship to Miami on March 4th only if the weather is good. Current and future trainer will communicate to better familiarize the latter with the horse and any idiosyncrasies he might have. This should be a short conversation.
Larry has skilled, professional riders who understand how to get a horse ready and keep him out of trouble. They know how much is too much, too soon. The fact that Cosmic Flash behaves like a professional will be a boon to everyone, trainer, groom and rider. When it comes time to choose a jockey, we will find one who is not afraid to ride a two-year-old for the first time and one who will hopefully remember he is not running in a quarter-horse race. Every trip to the track, morning or afternoon, is a learning experience for the horse, one way or the other. We’d like those experiences to be positive. Larry will observe even the daily gallops. Based on the anticipated work schedule and no delays, Cosmic Flash should have his first race sometime between April 20th and the end of that month.
Reasons For Optimism
It is not an absolute prerequisite, but it helps a lot if a horse displays Intelligence. All of us have seen horses, even prominent stakes-quality competitors, who are fruitcakes in the paddock, the walking ring or, more often, in the gate. It is more facile to clean the Augean Stables to get some horses into the starting gate and, once enclosed, to keep them from pitching a fit or, in a worst case scenario, upending themselves. Horses like this often emerge from the gate in a tangle or jumping left or right, often smack into another horse, frequently knocking themselves and others out of contention and/or injuring somebody. You can have the smartest horse in the world, doing everything right, and he can still fall victim to the lunatic in the next stall gate, which is why it also helps if your horse has Composure.
Barring being injured by an errant horse, your horse can be knocked out of a race by all the early bumping and intimidation. It is one thing to break from the gate with two or three other horses in the morning when everyone is minding their manners, another thing to withstand the intimidation of a cavalry charge and all the noise and bustle attendant. Many horses are not psychologically up to the melee, especially the first couple of times out. It helps if your horse has Intelligence and Composure, which we believe ours does, though the real Test remains. It is also a prerequisite that he is Competitive. Horses we have run like Juggernaut and Clockwork Orange, a burly filly, could not be intimidated. Bump into them, they bump you back, and harder. After which, they are mightily pissed off and beat you down the track just to teach a lesson. In his early training, Cosmic Flash has the look of a competitive horse. What happens when the bullets fly remains to be seen.
All horses are helped in their efforts by possessing good Conformation. Horses who are built correctly are not invulnerable but they have a better chance of withstanding the rigors of racing. Super Chief would have been a very good horse had he not been significantly back at the knee. Juggernaut had an ankle chip as a yearling, won a couple of $100,000 stakes races with it, was operated on to remove it and came back to win later. The ankle flared up again, finally causing his retirement at an early age. The mother of Cosmic Flash, Cosmic Light, was back in the knee and sustained a slab fracture during a race , which she had the courage to win, anyway. Her son, however, has no knee issues, perhaps inheriting them from his father, Hear No Evil, nor any other conformation problems we have noticed. He is average-sized, which we feel is better than gigantic or tiny, very athletic and well-balanced. While his pedigree suggests he might best like races a mile-and-a-sixteenth and under, a famous Hear No Evil offspring named Jackson Bend managed to be third in the mile-and-three-sixteenths Preakness, so you never know.
I have made it to 72 years and this may be my best horse so if he measures up to expectations I don’t expect to be selling him, whatever the inducements. People wave a lot of money at you for horses like this, but what would I do with money—buy another horse? We’ll keep everybody appraised weekly of his progress so you can better understand the agony and ecstasy of the horse business—the vale of tears it is for some, the unequalled high for others. It’s only a few weeks until late April, so keep your fingers crossed. There may be grievous sunspots that day or even the eruption of Yellowstone. Asteroid pellets may rain from the sky, terrorists may blow up Disney World, there may be a deluge superseding the one experienced by Noah. Unimpeded, we’ll have binoculars raised at Calder Race Course—hoping for the birth of a New Star.
Ex Benedict
Where did you come from, where did you go?
Where did you come from, Cotton-Eyed Joe?
Gee. Easy come, easy go. Benedict, we hardly knew ye. And that’s the trouble with these popes. They’re so old when they take over, the demands of the job quickly shove them over the cliff. It’s a lot of responsibility you know, being the latest incarnation of the head of a giant church, inheriting power from no less than St. Peter….and you know who HE got it from. That’s right, the Big Guy, himself. Until now, however, popehood was only cancelled by death. Benedict probably thought he’d hang on a little longer if he wasn’t under the gun anymore. I mean, how much fun can it be having to explain away on a daily basis thousands of diddling priests, not to mention having to sweat the decreasing Vatican bank account constantly being drained by clergical misbehavior? Not much. Besides, if you’re Pope, everybody is constantly watching you. That means there can be No Girls. No Boys’ Night Out. You can’t even go to Vegas. All that’s left is Miniature Golf, f’chrissakes. Why would anybody even take the job? Well. There are a few nifty perks, when you come to think of it.
First of all, the Pope gets to Pick A New Name. Wow! Who wouldn’t like to do that? A guy like Bosley Milquetoast could rename himself Mike HAMMER or something like that. AND the Pope gets to be Sovereign Ruler of his own country, don’t forget. Hell, he can skateboard naked through the streets and piazzas and stuff and nobody can do anything about it. Have you ever seen the Pope’s Hat? Well, let me tell you, it’s nothing to sneeze at. If somebody with a hat like that told you to do something, you would probably do it in a hurry.
What about the Popemobile? The only other guy with a car named after him is Batman, how about THAT? And I’m not sure Batman’s car is bullet-proof, like the Pope’s is. Hey, and PRADA makes your damn red shoes, that’s a status-booster. And when you wear all those fancy white duds like the Pope does, you don’t even really have to have the hat, everybody naturally defers to you. And why the hell shouldn’t they—you’re goddam Infallible, after all.
“Now, look, Benedict, we can’t be going around saying the world is square, everybody knows it’s not".”
“Oh YEAH, Cardinal Bumpkin—who’s the Infallible Guy around here, you or me?” See what I mean.
The Pope, of course, also gets to define faith issues. Like, when we were kids, you couldn’t eat meat on Fridays. Then, one day, the Pope issued a Papal Dispensation, which stated that on one particular Friday it would be okay for some reason to eat meat. This pissed off my Father a lot. “Who the hell does he think HE is?” Well, Dad, he’s the Pope, infallible in matters of religion and such. “I don’t give a damn WHO it is, you can either eat meat on Friday or you can’t. Papal Dispensation, my ass!” My Father like to keep things simple. Everybody else listened to the Pope.
How would you like to have Audiences, like the Pope does? First, you get to approve some famous bohunk coming to see you and then the famous guy has to come in, kneel down and kiss your ring. Well, unless you’re Queen Elizabeth or something. Queen Elizabeth isn’t kneeling down for anybody. If you asked Queen Elizabeth to kneel down, she’d probably give you a good swat upside the head. I think the Pope is too smart for that.
ANOTHER great thing popes get to do is name saints! Wow again! “I hearby name Joe Dimaggio 'Saint Joe'!" How much fun would that be? And, if you were pope, you would get to have MINIONS! Lots and lots of minions. If you’re a president of something, you go to the balcony and somebody might shoot you. The Pope goes out there and brings down the house. It’s easy to get an inflated ego being pope, everybody kissing your ass, answering to no one. It’s almost a comedown when you die and ascend to heaven, as all popes surely do. In heaven, you’ve got a Boss, again.
“Hey, New Guy—go get the broccoli slicer!”
“Just a damned minute! This is the friggen POPE you’re talking to!”
“Not up here, it isn’t! Hey, and while you’re at it, make sure you get over to wardrobe and turn in those red shoes!”
Previews Of Coming Attractions
Next week, Bill and Siobhan must venture back to D.C. to do renewed battle with the FDA. That means we’re running an old blog, 2010 vintage, which most of you may not have seen before. You’ll love it. After that, we’ll be back with more news of Cosmic Flash as he fights the battle for truth, justice and the American Way. All the while, trying to earn a couple of bucks on the side. Take heart, those of you in the Hinterlands. It’s almost Spring!
That’s all, folks….
