Cousin Ricky...my fast four legged friend.

Today 'Cousin Ricky' is running in the third race at Los Alamitos Race Course.  Five years ago I owned a mare named "Impressive Flight." She was a very fast racehorse who won her first two races in England.  I paid to have a stud named "Council Member" sire her.  He was the last standing son of "Seattle Slew"--so you can imagine I had high hopes. 
  'Cousin Ricky' was born on March 30, 2011.  He had a brown coat with a white star on his forehead.  He was beautiful! I named him after my favorite cousin from St. Louis.  My REAL Cousin Ricky is the funniest, nicest, most "down to earth" man you will ever meet and he means the world to me. I usually named my horses after my children, but this horse seemed different. My Cousin Ricky is different (in a good way.) I was hoping this little colt would be too.
   As Cousin Ricky (the horse) grew, I would go and visit him every few weeks.  He would come up to me and sniff my hand to see if I had any treats for him.  I would brush his coat and pet his long nose. If I was in a happy mood he would act like a puppy by jumping around and being goofy with me.  If I was sad he would know it and would come over to me slowly and put his head on my shoulder as if to give my a hug. He was very intuitive.  Well, I would put my arms around him and hug him back. We were friends.  
   It's funny when you go into horse racing you do so for a variety of reasons, but one of them is to make money.  A business requires a certain number of hard decisions to stay profitable.  One of them involves the sale of assets.  Sometimes we would have to sell a horse to cover the expense of another, or to make a profit for that tax year. In 2012 I sold Cousin Ricky to some friends (a group of three people.)  Luckily they were close friends so it wasn't like I lost him at all.  In fact, I went to every race. Cheered him on until my voice became "hoarse." As you you know from previous blogs I also enjoy meeting interesting people at the races such as Dick Van Patten, Mel Brooks, Joel Grey and Bo Derek the star of the movie "Ten."
   In May of 2014 Cousin Ricky was coming off of two straight wins.  The trainer (Jeff Mullins) was concerned about his knees and felt that group needed to put him in a low claiming race.  If you knew that you had an asset that was not going to perform in the future, as a businessman you would have a fire sale to get rid of the merchandise.  That is exactly what this trainer was telling the owners--it was time to put him in a claiming race. Because of how costly it is to feed and train a racehorse, they agreed to the race.  When you enter a claiming race you are putting up your horse for a particular price.  If someone wants to buy your horse they need to fill out a claiming ticket and place it in a special box more than 15 minutes before the race.  As an owner of the horse, you do not know if someone claimed your horse until the end of the race when the box gets opened.  
   Cousin Ricky was the favorite in this particular claiming race.  He tripped coming out of the gate, but Drayden Van Dyke, the jockey, pulled him up quickly and raced him to the front. It looked as if he would win easily until the last 100 yards when he started to slow down.  "Runaway Que" ran past him and won by a "neck." I don't know what happened.  Maybe his knees started to hurt him, maybe the jockey didn't see the other horse coming.  It was over and he came in Second...  
    Then they opened the box.  And his name was on the claiming ticket.  A worker at the track placed a red tag on his halter which meant Cousin Ricky had been sold.  The new trainer sent over his groom to take Cousin Ricky to his new home.  We weren't even allowed to say goodbye.  This is the business.  
I drove home thinking about him. My thoughts revolved around how odd it would be that he would be in a different stall.  They may give him a different brand of feed.  The horses next to him would be strangers.  The groom who took care of him the past year wouldn't be there for him any more. 
He wouldn't see me ever again! He wouldn't hear my voice, he wouldn't feel my touch, he wouldn't sniff my hand.  I wouldn't feel his head rest on my shoulders again.  I was very sad at this loss. The drive home was very blurry, as my eyes were filled with the by-products of these thoughts.  It was a business, but a hard one.
   Cousin Ricky ran a couple of more times after that, but didn't do well.  Then we didn't see him in a race at all for eight months. My guess is they fixed his knees and gave him time to recuperate.  Cousin Ricky finally came back but didn't do well going long distances, so they shortened him up--and he got back to his winning ways last month at Los Alamitos!  
I will be cheering for him even though he belongs to somebody else. He will be on the far outside post when the gates open at 3:13 pm today. He will be wearing the #10 saddle cloth.  In my book he will always be a "Ten!" 

p.s. my birthday is 3-13

Drayden Van Dyke 

Cousin Ricky Ready to Run at Santa Anita

Cousin Ricky winning at Santa Anita

                                                Cousin Ricky as a baby sniffing my hand
                                                                         

Julie's seven year old nephew Elijah with Drayden Van Dyke

The REAL Cousin Ricky meets Cousin Ricky