Australia
Dans La Famille
Ryan Goldberg profiles the remarkable Criquette Head-Maarek:
… as far back as the age of 5, Head-Maarek said, she told her father she wanted to be a trainer. “One day he said to me, ‘You marry a trainer, but you won’t be a trainer because there are no women trainers,â€â€™ she recalled.
But in 1978, after four years as her father’s assistant, Head-Maarek was granted a training license by the French racing authorities, the first for a woman. Her father gave her 35 of his own horses, and success quickly followed. Owners such as Prince Khalid bin Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the late emir of Dubai, sent her horses. She remains the only woman to train an Arc winner.
This part of her story reminds me a bit of trainer Linda Rice:
A proud “my father’s daughter,” she’s the youngest of trainer Clyde Rice’s four children and the only girl. She began helping at her dad’s stable in grammar school. She walked horses, then exercised them. At 17, as they drove back from a Keeneland horse sale, a major accident blocked their route for hours.
That’s when Rice revealed her career path. She turned to her dad and confessed, “I want to be a trainer, just like you.”
Clyde Rice measured his response before speaking it. He told her, “That career would be a lot easier if you were one of my sons.”
Rice won the Easy Goer Stakes with Kid Cruz, eighth in the Preakness Stakes and a former $50K claimer, on Belmont Stakes day.
More Head-Maarek in the Guardian: “We’ll take my Rolls-Royce …”
6/10/15 Addendum: Gai Waterhouse, daughter of Australian trainer T.J. Smith, shares a similar story as Head-Maarek and Rice about going out on her own:
Over the next 10 years I saw the likes of Kingston Town and Red Anchor come and go from my father’s stable, Tulloch Lodge, and eventually I decided I could take the next step and become a horse trainer in my own right. TJ was very reserved about me becoming a trainer; he felt it would be too hard for me to obtain owners, purchase yearlings and make my mark. My father thought I would be much better off working under him for the time being as his PR girl and trackwork supervisor. But like most young people, I could not be swayed. I had an idea in my head and I could not be stopped. TJ was telling the truth, and he knew it would be an uphill battle for me to forge a career on my own.
She has succeeded.
Related: Miss Mary, Licensed Trainer (7/8/10).
Nobody’s Clean
Responding to the British turf press, which has become somewhat obsessed with the idea — in the wake of the Zarooni steroids scandal that shook their island nation last week — that Australian raiders on ‘roids might have, or might in the future, run off with Royal Ascot prizes, trainer Peter Moody denied that undefeated Black Caviar was treated with steroids before she won the 2012 Golden Jubilee Stakes or at any other time in her illustrious career, and then dragged in America to make a point:
Moody took a swipe at “lilywhite” English trainers.
“They bang on about steroids but they are the first to use Lasix when they campaign horses in the US,” he said.
Lasix is an anti-bleeding drug outlawed everywhere bar some states in the US.
“Maybe the Poms might start looking at themselves rather than looking at us,” he said.
Moody isn’t the only Australian trainer getting fed up with the chatter.
(Link to Moody’s comments via @claimsfive.)
Reverberations
Trainer Mahmood al Zarooni’s swift downfall may reverberate beyond Britain:
“We will certainly be using this case as an opportunity to put the consistent use of drugs internationally back on the agenda of the IFHA.”
Pull the Pocket is already contrasting the resolve of the British Horseracing Authority and Godolphin to get to the bottom of what was going on at Moulton Paddocks under Zarooni with the California Horse Racing Board’s response to unexplained sudden cardiac death in racehorses.
More on the Zarooni case collected here.
4/28/13 Addendum: Hong Kong Jockey Club CEO Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges, reacting to the Godolphin scandal, also calls for the IFHA to consider a worldwide ban on steroid use. Anabolic steroids are still legal in Australia and some other jurisdictions, a fact taking on more prominence with horses such as Black Caviar’s stakes-winning half-brother All Too Hard expected to ship to Britain for the Royal Ascot meeting in June. “After this past week’s events,” writes Sue Montgomery, “his presence may be an uncomfortable reminder that the drugs playing field for horses is not level worldwide.”
A Perfect 25
Why Black Caviar is the right horse for this moment:
In short, the vibe when you watch a Black Caviar race is one of assurance. The absolute certainty that Black Caviar is indisputably better than those around her.
This is no small thing. In this age of online commentary and social media, everything is up for debate. Everything can and will be refuted by someone, somewhere, and with venom.
You can’t troll Black Caviar.
She’s so freaky good, she converts even the skeptical: “[Black Caviar] takes us away from our daily grind … like some 21st century Pegasus.”
And now she’s 25-for-25, the winner of a record 15 Group 1 races in Australia after the T. J. Smith Stakes. “Her odds of $1.14 made her unbackable.” Did anyone care? “You’re beautiful,” they shouted when she entered the paddock.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTWPSdWcIKk
More Black Caviar at Randwick on Saturday here, in this fantastic album posted to Facebook by photographer Bronwen Healy.
4/17/13 Update: Black Caviar has been retired.
– – – – –
On Friday, Horse of the Year Wise Dan (pictured here in the post parade) returned a winner in the Maker’s 46 Mile at Keeneland (the odds were in his favor). He looked eager on the backstretch, but waited for rider Jose Lezcano’s cue to go. “He wanted to go on, but I wanted to slow him down,” said Lezcano. “I waited as long as I could, but he’s a champion, you know.”
The win was a relief to trainer Charles LoPresti: “I did not want this horse to get beat today. I would have been really sad if he got beat today.”
1:00 PM Addendum: Beyer speed figure of 99 for Wise Dan, via Dan Illman.
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Jessica Chapel writes and edits in Massachusetts. Railbird is a Thoroughbred horse racing blog published from June 2004 to July 2019. More / Contact
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