600 Hundred Horses In Just 3 Days

It’s 4:30 in the morning and my alarm clock goes off. I’ve barely slept two hours and, yet, I jump out of bed more than eager to seize the day. Charlie is laying on his bed at the foot of my bed, looking at me; the sound of my alarm has disrupted his beauty sleep. He’s a bit thrown off because it’s still dark outside, so he knows it’s definitely not morning. Something is up, but my sleeping habits over the last few nights have been odd, to say the least, and at this point he’s too exhausted to interrogate me. He stares at me long enough to let me know he is annoyed and completely unimpressed with my behavior. It’s like he’s saying, “I saw you pack and even though I’m not happy with you, I’m going to miss you, mommy.”

For those of you that do not follow me on twitter, Charlie is my one-year-old collie puppy that people often call Lassie. The look in his eye breaks my heart a little because we are so attached and over the last several months he has learned that mommy travels quite a lot. I think he’s starting to get used to it, or maybe that’s what I want to believe to make it easier on myself. This trip is a little different, I’ll be attending my first Ocala Breeders Sale Breeze Show and even though it’s only an hour and a half away from home, I’ll be staying in Ocala for the next three days. After a moment of puppy snuggle time, I realize I need to get on the road to make it there on time. Grabbing my bags, I give Charlie a kiss and head out.

I’m not a morning person unless there are horses involved, and that is the only reason I have a smile on my face before the sun is up. After years of driving down to West Palm Beach nearly every weekend from January through the end of March for the Winter Equestrian Festival, and this year for the winter meet at Gulfstream Park, the drive from Orlando to Ocala is a piece of cake. Before I know it, an hour and a half flies by and I arrive at OBS.

I drive past the security gate and around back to the track. If you’ve never been to an OBS breeze show, finding the location where all the bloodstock agents, clockers, horses and riders are is a bit tricky. I drive up to the grandstand and then go right, following the paved road along the track which is on my left. When the paved road ends, it’s a bit discerning. There’s a dirt road ahead, it’s a little narrow and I hesitate a bit because I have no idea where I’m going. Will I get in trouble? Am I supposed to go this way? Maybe I should back up? YOLO! I’ll take my chances! I drive up the dirt road and just a few yards away I can see a bunch of cars and people. The horses are walking out of the shoot and onto the track, with riders and trainers standing by—I’m in the right place.

It’s now 8:00 in the morning and a few horses have already worked. I came prepared with a note pad, lots of pens, binoculars, water, and a chair in case I need to sit down. My job for the day is to watch the horses walk off the track after their work, note how they move, pay close attention to body language, and pick them apart as they pass by; are there any noticeable conformation issues that will jeopardize soundness in the future; are they moving well or a bit stiff; do they look like they can run another lap or are they overworked and uninterested in their surroundings. This is what I’ll be looking at over the course of the next six hours. No big deal, picking apart conformation is second nature for me. However, there are three sets, each approximately one hour and forty-five minutes in length, and each set has roughly 67 horses for a total of 200 or so horses in just six hours. I love horses, but 200 is a LARGE amount and it’s not like you get five minutes to examine each one as they step off the track. No, they walk off quickly, they don’t stop for you, and sometimes they walk off in groups with their cloths flipped awkwardly to where you cannot see their numbers. If you don’t have a strong passion for picking apart a horse and you don’t live and breathe this sport, I don’t recommend you get involved in this aspect of the industry. Tired eyes miss little details, and those little details can result in detrimental complications.

Day two of the breeze show is not very good. It’s hot and we’re all out by the chute. The track is bad and the crop of horses is not living up to my high expectations. I didn’t sleep much the night before, but I’m feeling extremely sociable and I make friends with a gentleman everyone calls Bo. Bo is in charge of asking each rider how far they will be working on the track and radioing it over to the announcer in the grandstand. He used to play polo and resides in Palm Beach, but he makes the trip to the Ocala Breeders Sale every time because he loves the horses. Bo is a fantastic multi-tasker, taking notes, communicating with riders, radioing distances and talking to me at the same time. When the breeze show is done he’ll head back down south and return the following week to work the auction, where he’ll spend two days taking bids in the crowd.

The excitement of day two came in the form of a dark bay colt, who got a little studdish and reared straight up into the air. Scary enough, right? It gets worse. Not only does he continue to rear, he’s now jumping like a pogo stick on his hind legs and he’s got a rider on board grabbing mane for dear life. “I’m going to jump,” yells the rider to the handler, who is trying to calm the colt, as he yells back to the rider, “don’t do it!” He didn’t jump and finally got the colt to move out onto the track on all four legs. It’s rather unfortunate that I was on the phone and could not video the situation. I’m more than positive it would have been quite the sensation.

By day three, I’m running on just eight hours of sleep and the thought of looking at another 200 horses is daunting. The good news is I’m watching the horses work as opposed to walking off the track. It’s a nice little switch that makes all the difference and, to top it off, the track is running much better and this crop of horses is on point. Today, binoculars are my best friend and I set out looking for a beautiful mover that’s very straight through the knees, floats over the track so stealthy I wouldn’t believe there was contact with the ground, and the look in his/her eye makes me wonder, who is that?! What can I say, I’m a sucker for a beautiful mover with a big heart. Today has several lookers, but Hip #550 is the only one to leave me utterly speechless—he worked four furlongs in 46.83! He’s a dark bay son of High Cotton and Act Out, and it’s a good thing I’m not aware of his bloodlines at the moment because, had I known, I wouldn’t have paid him much attention. I make a note, “Mover++, reach++, eye+++, LOOK!!!!!”

It’s Friday and the time is now 1:30 pm. I’ve taken a novel of notes on 95% of the horses and my brain feels like it’s going to explode from everything I’ve taken in over the course of the last three days. Everyone is thrilled to wrap things up and within five minutes the area is completely deserted. I’m one of the last ones to leave and as I walk to my car my skin feels a little hot. Sure enough the Florida sun has left me with a mild sunburn and an awful farmers tan. Regardless, I’m not complaining because I can proudly say I survived my first OBS Breeze Show. It was a great experience and I’ll definitely be back again.

While I realize horse racing is very much a business, I’m not here for the money. I’m here because I love the horses; because I love equestrian sports; because when I was ten years old I fell in love with a pony and never looked back. Seventeen years later, here I am doing what I love and what others only imagine. It’s times like these I realize how truly fortunate I am to be living my dreams.

Photo: © EverythingEq.com


 Follow me on Twitter @Claudia_WMS