Tanzanite Cat and Walt in the Smarty Jones Stakes

January 22, 2014

Dear Readers,

            Today I pulled up the race video on Tanzanite Cat winning the one mile Smarty Jones Stakes which was run at Oaklawn Park on January 20^th. A big good looking horse, the son of Graeme Hall was well placed throughout the race. When Walt made an early move on the backside and scooted past him on the rail, Tanzanite Cat stayed relaxed and up in the bit. When the running started down the lane, he looked professional and got the job done.

            I couldn’t help myself when I saw Walt floundering around; I had to take a closer look at the replay. I’m not sure why he made that big move on the backside, I can surmise, after the way he ran in his last race; that perhaps his connections thought he would run better on the front end. For whatever reason he made that move, once Walt was on the lead, he seemed to be controllable and was moving along well in hand.

            The problem comes when the rider asked him as they’d turned for home and he gave the colt a tap or two with the whip. Each tap resulted in the rider having to check the colt. Walt was lugging in and away from the whip. So the jockey switched to a left handed whip, which didn’t fix the problem. Where the real problem came to the fore was when he switched back to the right handed whip. The colt ducked for the rail, switched leads violently and started climbing. Ken Tohill, the jockey and a veteran rider I know well, wisely put the whip away and hand rode Walt to the wire, saving second for his connections. Hopefully Walt didn’t hurt himself switching leads in the manner in which he did it, or that an injury didn’t cause him to do it in the first place, rather than the whip being the causal factor.

            Clearly Walt is a speedy little devil, still green and he’ll surely improve with racing. Now what about that whip? One hates to take the whip off, and it was clear Ken wasn’t pounding on this colt, but it’s also clear that the whip and Walt’s reaction to it, took away any chance he had of winning the race.

            Barring injury, they might try working Walt with blinkers to find out if the whip, in his peripheral vision, is what’s troubling him. Some horses just won’t tolerate a whip. But a whip is an important tool in horseracing and not just to encourage the horse, but to help control him. For example a horse lugging, either in or out, can often be corrected with a good tap of the whip on a shoulder or neck. The problem is, if the jockey is carrying a whip, the racing officials expect him to use it. Any jockey can make it look like he’s hitting the horse, when in fact he is just waving it around. But if Walt is concerned enough about being hit, he’s going react to any movement.

            All in all, I hope both horse’s came out of the race in good shape. I’ll be looking forward to seeing both of them on the Road to the Kentucky Derby.

Take care,

Shelley Riley Author of Casual Lies – A Triple Crown Adventure

www.shelleyriley.com