Stolicknaya
Tuesday, Stolicknaya became the first horse of the f5 stable. Thank you, Charrette Hill for your vote of confidence in Randy Weidner.
Maybe this time I will be able to see "our" horse run in a race at Hialeah Park in December, or at Canterbury, or Prairie Meadows, or the North Dakota Horse Park.
I met Randy and Lindsey at Hialeah Park a couple of years ago. They had a couple of quarter horses at Hialeah, and we struck up a conversation while waiting in line for a beer at the concession stand. I doubt that it would have ever happened in the days of Citation, Seattle Slew, or Devil's Bag.
Hialeah Park had reopened with a thirty day quarter horse meet, the year earlier. If I was going to play the horses at Hialeah I figured I'd better suck up all the information from everybody as close to the game as possible. I spoke to everyone I could who had a cowboy hat and in the process got to talk to owners, trainers, jockey agents, jockeys, and even the track announcer and his father. I had some difficulty betting on horse races that looked more like drag racing and races were timed down to 1/1000 of a second and tail winds, head winds, and cross winds are part of the past performance information in the form.
Randy and Lindsey invited me to see their operation. The backside at Hialeah and shed row where the horses were stabled was always kind of a magical place for me. It was featured in the movie The Champ and this might be a close as I was going to get to see what happens before the races and get a little closer to revisiting a time when my Dad would take me to the races at Arlington Park and we would go visit the horses owned by Doc Hasbrouck et al.
Randy had five or six runners that year and I made an effort to be at the track to watch his horses run. His horses hit the board, I cashed some good tickets, lost a few bets while Ditto learned how to be a race horse and got up early a few mornings to watch the horses work out. Luckily, I missed a race when one of his horses broke down. The jockey survived the spill with a few bruises, the horse was put down. Had I been on the rail that afternoon, I might have needed a serious time out before returning to the races. I spoke to Randy the next week. I thought he would be more shook up, but he felt the horse had been sound and that it was just bad racing luck.
He had entered his best horse next Saturday. Mitch Rapp would run and they would be going back north and they would start breaking some babies and be back after racing in Minnesota and Iowa during the summer. I guess for them spring break was over. We joked about every week about how cold it was back north and how nice it was to spend time here from December to March.
I gave Randy a check for $500 and told him to keep me in mind in case he had an idea and could set up a partnership that I might be interested in being in. Oh well. What if he never comes back to Florida. I gave him the money figuring he might need it to fix his truck or van for that ride back to Northfield, MN. If he got lucky he could use it for diesel on the road.
The season was over. I had a good time and in a rare stroke of luck had been chosen for some lagniappie from the track, not once, twice, but three times. Two times I hit the board in handicapping contests and got cold hard cash for some serious handicapping, and another time a radio station I listened to gave me $100, paid for lunch in the club house and gave me an HP baseball cap to wear proudly.
Friday morning 7/19/2013 I learned that Stolicknaya will be running Sunday at the North Dakota Horse Park. My next task will be to find a program and past performances for this race.
Maybe this time I will be able to see "our" horse run in a race at Hialeah Park in December, or at Canterbury, or Prairie Meadows, or the North Dakota Horse Park.
I met Randy and Lindsey at Hialeah Park a couple of years ago. They had a couple of quarter horses at Hialeah, and we struck up a conversation while waiting in line for a beer at the concession stand. I doubt that it would have ever happened in the days of Citation, Seattle Slew, or Devil's Bag.
Hialeah Park had reopened with a thirty day quarter horse meet, the year earlier. If I was going to play the horses at Hialeah I figured I'd better suck up all the information from everybody as close to the game as possible. I spoke to everyone I could who had a cowboy hat and in the process got to talk to owners, trainers, jockey agents, jockeys, and even the track announcer and his father. I had some difficulty betting on horse races that looked more like drag racing and races were timed down to 1/1000 of a second and tail winds, head winds, and cross winds are part of the past performance information in the form.
Randy and Lindsey invited me to see their operation. The backside at Hialeah and shed row where the horses were stabled was always kind of a magical place for me. It was featured in the movie The Champ and this might be a close as I was going to get to see what happens before the races and get a little closer to revisiting a time when my Dad would take me to the races at Arlington Park and we would go visit the horses owned by Doc Hasbrouck et al.
Randy had five or six runners that year and I made an effort to be at the track to watch his horses run. His horses hit the board, I cashed some good tickets, lost a few bets while Ditto learned how to be a race horse and got up early a few mornings to watch the horses work out. Luckily, I missed a race when one of his horses broke down. The jockey survived the spill with a few bruises, the horse was put down. Had I been on the rail that afternoon, I might have needed a serious time out before returning to the races. I spoke to Randy the next week. I thought he would be more shook up, but he felt the horse had been sound and that it was just bad racing luck.
He had entered his best horse next Saturday. Mitch Rapp would run and they would be going back north and they would start breaking some babies and be back after racing in Minnesota and Iowa during the summer. I guess for them spring break was over. We joked about every week about how cold it was back north and how nice it was to spend time here from December to March.
I gave Randy a check for $500 and told him to keep me in mind in case he had an idea and could set up a partnership that I might be interested in being in. Oh well. What if he never comes back to Florida. I gave him the money figuring he might need it to fix his truck or van for that ride back to Northfield, MN. If he got lucky he could use it for diesel on the road.
The season was over. I had a good time and in a rare stroke of luck had been chosen for some lagniappie from the track, not once, twice, but three times. Two times I hit the board in handicapping contests and got cold hard cash for some serious handicapping, and another time a radio station I listened to gave me $100, paid for lunch in the club house and gave me an HP baseball cap to wear proudly.
Friday morning 7/19/2013 I learned that Stolicknaya will be running Sunday at the North Dakota Horse Park. My next task will be to find a program and past performances for this race.
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