JC / Railbird

Readings Archive

Readings: Barich II

“Losers walking around with money in their pockets are always dangerous, not to be trusted. Some horse always reaches out and grabs them. In my case it was Plumb Dumb Bandit, sixth race, June 8, five furlongs on the turf. There was something about the way she looked, the feeling I got as she crossed over the main track and planted her hoofs confidently on the turf course. Confidently? How could I be falling into that trap again? On the other hand, how could the mare be going off at thirteen to one? She had three thirds in four starts, was five years old and Kentucky-bred; I was captured by the heartwarming suspicion that if her entire racing history were spread out before me, instead of just the most recent portion given in the Form, I’d discover in her past a victory or two in the grass. Yes, I was convinced she was a turf horse (anyone could see it), and I made my bet and watched her move confidently from seventh to first to take the race, winning by an indisputable length and returning $26.80. I won’t say how much I collected, but it brought me close to even again, or maybe a little better, which meant, of course, that I had to make further bets to break the stalemate. The process is endless, I thought happily, endless.” — From “Laughing in the Hills,” by Bill Barich

Posted in Readings on February 14, 2006

Readings: Barich I

“All week long I kept winning. It had nothing to do with systems, I was just in touch. When I walked through the grandstand I projected the winner’s aura, blue and enticing. Women smiled openly as I passed. I drank good whiskey and ate well. One night I went to a Japanese restaurant and sat at a table opposite Country Joe McDonald, the singer who’d been a fixture at rallies in the sixties. Joe had a new wife with him, and a new baby who refused to sit still and instead threw an order of sushi around the room. A chunk of tuna flew past my ear. Even this seemed revelatory, the domestic roundness of a star’s life, his interrupted meal, carrying the baby crying into the night, and I knew that someday soon Tuna or Seaweed or Riceball would appear on the menu at Golden Gate and I’d play the horse and win. Things fleshed themselves out before my eyes. In a liquor store I bought two bottles of Sapporo Black and went back to sit on the Terrace steps and listen to my upstairs neighbor’s piano exercises, the dusky fastness of ivory. This tune, I thought, will never end.” — From “Laughing in the Hills,” by Bill Barich

Posted in Readings on January 18, 2006

Readings: Aunt Jinny’s Trainer

From “This Was Racing,” by Joe Palmer:

The Daily Racing Form’s poll of experts — and mostly genuine experts, too — picked Aunt Jinny as the best two-year-old filly of the year. This was a satisfaction, because she was bred, owned and trained by Duval Headley, about whom, now that the years have dimmed the performance, I am going to tell you a story. I hope it doesn’t get him in trouble.

Back in the 1938 he was training Menow for his uncle, Hal Price Headley, hereinafter known as Uncle Price. Menow, which had won the Futurity the previous year, was at Delaware Park getting ready for the Massachusetts Handicap. He was to have one last hard work and then ship to Boston, and Uncle Price was coming up to supervise it. As a matter of fact we rode up on the train together, and I still remember that though he spoke favorably of the weights on some of the horses, he never mentioned that he had a horse in the race.

Well, Duval wanted to work the horse a lot faster than his uncle would approve, so he went and caught the exercise boy and gave him orders in advance, to wit:

‘Now look here, boy,’ he said, ‘you get that horse off fast. And when you turn into the stretch, I’m going to be in the infield waving you down. But don’t you pay a damned bit of attention to me. You come on down with that horse.’

Menow broke from the gate. He was always a generous horse, and he was doing his best. When he’d gone six furlongs Uncle Price looked up from his watch and said, ‘Isn’t he going a little fast, Duval?’

‘My gracious, yes,’ (this has to go through the mail) said his nephew. ‘What’s that boy thinking about?’

He plucked a handkerchief from his pocket and began waving the horse down. The boy settled down and rode like the devil was at his throat-latch, and Menow broke Delaware Park’s track record for a mile and a furlong.

He came back and was received by the trainer in what might be called an extreme state of agitation.

‘Didn’t you see me waving at you?’ he demanded.

‘No, I didn’t, Mr. Headley,’ said the boy. ‘I got some dirt in my eye coming into the turn and I couldn’t see anything. I’m sorry if I worked him too fast.’

‘Well, he you did work him too fast,’ said the trainer. ‘You may have ruined this horse. Do that one more time and you’re through.’

Then he took Menow to Suffolk Downs, where the management was so sure that War Admiral would gallop in, that they had the winner’s blanket of flowers worked out in the gold and black of Glen Riddle Stable. Menow popped out of the gate in front, and he beat War Admiral by ten panels of fence.

Posted in Readings on November 22, 2005