No Demasiado Picante?
The first thing I do when I get a horse's registered name is I look them up on a pedigree query site. The second thing I do is search them on Equibase.
Typically, the pedigree is more of interest to me; although Equibase can shed light on other things. For example, after sleuthing on Equibase my trainer and I figured out that her old horse had a bowed tendon that his connections attempted to rehab using stem cell (long story on that, but we figured it out). Later on, he had another injury where stem cell was suggested as a treatment and she was able to find some from the original harvest and buy it from them which is WAY CHEAPER than doing the surgery yourself.
I looked up Spicy, but he was so far removed from racing I didn't think it was super relevant beyond his number of total starts. He was bred in Florida, and I got him from an OTTB rescue in MD. Case closed, so I didn't click the results button.
Well last week I finally clicked it.
His race results are all really old, so there weren't any charts available. Lame, but not unexpected. But the track name... was not familiar to me.
A cursory google search revealed Presidente Remon is a person, but adding in 'racetrack' brought me to an actual Thoroughbred racecourse. In Panama. So apparently all of Spicy's starts were not in the US, but a track in Panama City. A track with a kind of weird history.
Typically, the pedigree is more of interest to me; although Equibase can shed light on other things. For example, after sleuthing on Equibase my trainer and I figured out that her old horse had a bowed tendon that his connections attempted to rehab using stem cell (long story on that, but we figured it out). Later on, he had another injury where stem cell was suggested as a treatment and she was able to find some from the original harvest and buy it from them which is WAY CHEAPER than doing the surgery yourself.
I looked up Spicy, but he was so far removed from racing I didn't think it was super relevant beyond his number of total starts. He was bred in Florida, and I got him from an OTTB rescue in MD. Case closed, so I didn't click the results button.
Well last week I finally clicked it.
His race results are all really old, so there weren't any charts available. Lame, but not unexpected. But the track name... was not familiar to me.
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| Presidente... Remon...? |
A cursory google search revealed Presidente Remon is a person, but adding in 'racetrack' brought me to an actual Thoroughbred racecourse. In Panama. So apparently all of Spicy's starts were not in the US, but a track in Panama City. A track with a kind of weird history.
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| Snippet from an article on ESPN |
The whole thing made me laugh. This poor animal. He was bred in Florida, sold to someone who appears to have had operations in both Florida and Panama, raced until it looks like this certain trainer's luck ran out, somehow ended up at Laurel Park, kind of got abandoned, rescued by a generous woman where he hung out in a paddock for nine years, had a couple attempts at restarting at a few different training facilities over a 90 day period, before he finally ended up with me.
Suffice to say, his life has been very strange. He's probably seen some shit. But maybe I'll try talking to him in Spanish to see if I have better results?
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| dios mio, picante. |
That is fascinating!
ReplyDeletethe things you can learn with a little internet and a registered name..
DeleteDios mio indeed!
ReplyDeleteI forgot to speak spanish to him yet but we'll see if it gives him PTSD :P
DeleteOmg that's so cool! I mean, poor Spicy probably didn't think it was all that cool, but what an interesting back story!
ReplyDeleteI know! I can't decide if it totally justifies or totally blows up his trailering issues. On the one hand, he was no stranger to trailering. On the other... maybe he gets worried because he has no idea where he's gonna end up when he gets off..
DeleteThat's crazy! What a life Spicy has had. I love Equibase and the fact that they put the race comments on the horse's record. Leo raced 9 times, won 1, and my favorite comment was "Dark Harbor was unhurried." P raced 11 times, won 1, and according to the comments he only ever passed "tired rivals." But at least they both stayed in the U.S.!
ReplyDeletehahah yeah my favorite is when they're like "failed to challenge" or one of runkles where they mentioned he didn't leave the gate. I wish I could write post race comments.
DeleteWhoa! Spicy has had quite the international life! I do like that it's pretty easy to track down a TB's history.
ReplyDeleteI know it's sooooo fun. The things I don't know about my own family's history and I can trace my reject TB's bloodlines back to the 1700's. I'm glad the thoroughbred industry got so intense because we have all this weird fun info.
Deleteha i would bet anything that he probably does know spanish LOL
ReplyDeletealso i can't believe it took you this long to go poking around equibase!! i'm OBSESSED with that stuff and have read through alllllllll of charlie's old sheets haha. i esp like the race sheets where each horse gets their own dedicated little description on how they ran. tho maybe that's what you mean by Spicy's records being too old for those links??
I had friends who worked at Equibase and Jockey Club which is how I was able to get all of Carlos' paperwork and win photo from south america. That coupled with the jockey club's tattoo look up tool are amazing advancements in horse tracking technology. The internet is one hell of a drug.
ReplyDelete