Own A Racehorse
Cinematic trips to the horse track often end in high-profile feats: Secretariat wins the Triple Crown; Seabiscuit becomes Horse of the Year; Liz Taylor rides in Britain’s Grand National in National Velvet. But offscreen, thoroughbred racing leaves much more room for the more common Slip Mahoney scenario. In the 1951 short feature Crazy Over Horses, Slip, along with Satch and the rest of the Bowery Boys, hilariously enter an unheralded nag in one of the thousand or so humbler races that go off unnoticed each year.
CFC Stables (a.ka. some friends and I who pooled a few thousand dollars each) took a similar route. While buying horses with regal pedigrees or paying usurious stud fees will quickly put you in nosebleed territory, we entered the game comparatively on the cheap. Claiming races, which represent most of the action at race tracks, allow anyone (you may need to be licensed) who can meet a preset price to buy any of the horses that are entered. The purpose is to match up entrants that are close in value, but if you do your research right, you may be able to scoop up a sleeper with strong potential.
Just as important is to choose a wise and brutally honest trainer. At $4,000+ per month for feed and care, you’ll want realistic advice on how to proceed. There are no pink clouds or unicorns in horse racing. Manage your dreams. Seattle Slew may have been picked up for $17,000 before winning the Triple Crown and becoming a sire of champions, but having that kind of success is like winning the Powerball.
Nevertheless, your investments bring other joys that aren’t measured in purses. You get a pass to what’s called the backstretch, where the horses are stabled. There you can talk to your trainer and watch your horse work out. You’ll also be soaking up an atmosphere rich in tradition that exists nowhere else. Things haven’t changed much in the last 100 years. Carrots are still accepted by your equine friends.
Occasionally, you bask in your own triple crown of sorts, as CFC did in August of 2013, when our two horses won a remarkable three times at Saratoga. Besides gaining some much-needed liquidity, we received the glorious rush of standing next to our horses in the winner’s circle. And it gave us the optimism to go on. Next stop: steeplechase racing.
