This story has JORR written all over it. The real life drama playing out has to tickle a memorable yarn from my favorite story teller. Bonus points if said story involves the jockey/trainer/horse breeder breaking his/her back and being saved by the good folks at Rush University Medical Center.

Family: Arlington Park jockey found dead in garage fire
Family members believe the victim was longtime horse jockey Eusebio "Eddie" Razo Jr., but authorities declined to confirm the victim's identity.

Longtime Arlington Park horse jockey Eusebio "Eddie" Razo Jr. was found dead in a garage fire in Long Grove, according to his family.

Lake County authorities said the body was burned beyond recognition and declined to confirm the victim's identity until further tests are done. But Razo's brother-in-law said family members believe the victim was Razo, 46.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... 2142.story

I'm sorry to hear about Razo. I've cashed a few with him in the irons over the years.

There are all kinds of sordid backstretch tales and a bunch of racing message boards loaded with people who traffic in them. I've heard a lot more stuff than I've actually seen. Two harness guys that come to mind were named Eddie Lutes and Jim Wondergem. This is going back a long time, but I think Wondergem was killed with his own gun and Lutes got the shit kicked out of him in Aurora. I'm not sure if he died, but he was fucked up pretty bad.

Here's a story I do know. My stepfather was friends with a guy named Richard Ortiz. Everyone just called the guy Chico. Chico owned a bar on Cermak Road in Cicero. I think it was called the 1-2-3. But most people just called it Chico's. After the races at Sportsman's Park my stepfather would often drink at Chico's.

At the time one of the better drivers in Chicago was named Carmen Alessi. Carmen would get fucked up with these guys. Sometimes before the races. My stepfather told me that one time they were all drunk at Chico's and they headed over to the track. Alessi told them he was driving a mortal lock. So their whole crew bet heavy on this motherfucker. Standing on the apron my stepfather said he could see right away that Carmen was in no shape for driving. The horse locked up on one line leaving the gate and drifted toward the grandstand. Carmen couldn't even steer the sonuvabitch. They were all so fucked up nobody even got angry.

Now, my stepfather was a lot of things- a professional shoplifter, a nasty drunk, a sick fucking gambler- but he wasn't a cokehead. But one year on his birthday Chico cut six giant rails out on the bar for my stepfather. His birthday was December 6. He didn't even know what to do with the lines. He told me he felt like a goddamn snowblower. Not too long after that Chico and a guy with a Polish name got whacked in a car in front of the bar.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Thank you sir. I figured there would be a fair number of weird stories but it might be due to my reading habits. There used to be a writer out of the U.K. that based many of his murder mysteries around the track. The titles were typically one(1) word. Nothing earth shattering, but good for that rainy day read.

Dick Francis?

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Yup, that's him...and he's dead now. Used to read some of his stuff in the 80's.

I really enjoyed his books. Good pull Hank!

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Reminds me of Walter Case Jr from the harness racing world. I bet Joe Orr has a Case story for us that somehow involves cocaine or kicking horses.

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Back off, Warchild. Seriously.

Walter Case is an asshole. He married a sweet girl named Nadine. She worked for Dave Stratton and Virgil Morgan in Ohio. Fucking cokehead Case tried to kill her with a kitchen knife.

I've heard Case was a straight arrow until John Carver brought him to Chicago to drive. I'm not sure if that's true or not. One of my friends is Carver's "racing manager". Let's just say we've had some wild times together and leave it at that. Carver's dad invented the retread or some shit to do with tires. He's got a stadium in Iowa City named after him. Carver's got money to burn. And he burned a lot of it buying a huge package of broken down horses from Lou Guida. He did get the great Anniecrombie though.

Case was a hell of a race driver. He did have a habit of taking his feet out of the stirrups and kicking the shit out of horses. I don't care how good a guy like that is, I'm not using him. Morons make fun of Dean Magee, but he takes care of a horse in a race. He's a kind driver and he gets the job done if he's got the stock. I've got to look at the horse and treat his welts while Case is snorting blow and getting loaded at the Yellow House on the cash he made while beating the hell out of my colt.

Zizou, you probably remember a mediocre Chicago driver named Jeff Kroninger. I'm pretty sure Case is now married to his ex-wife, Luanne.

I think the catch driver is one of the things that has fucked up harness racing. These guys don't give a shit about anything but their paycheck. One of my friends used to use Dale Hiteman all the time. Hiteman would cut those things with the whip. One day we were standing by the paddock at Sportsman's when they were coming onto the track for the post parade. Hiteman was driving a little filly for my buddy. My friend said, "Hey Dale, take it easy on her here, will you?" And Hiteman turned to him and said, "If you want a pet, buy a fucking parakeet."

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

JORR, I want you to organize a CSFMB outing to Arlington this year. I'd love to bet alongside you, buy you as much alcohol as you desire, and just listen to all your great stories.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

I have an irrational hate of Dean Magee just because I would never win with him driving, it wasnt my fault for picking shitty horses . On the flipside I seemed to always win with Tetrick, he was my guy.

When I go to Balmoral now, I barely recognize any of the names of the drivers.

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Dean drove most of my best horses. And we did really well. I like Dave too. He's probably the greatest driver in Chicago history. I wouldn't compare Dean to him. There's only one Dave Magee. But he's about ten years older than we are and the relationships just aren't the same. It's a lot harder to make suggestions to a living legend than to a guy you grew up with.

When you're racing babies, two and three year olds, they have to be brought along correctly. You have to either drive them yourself in their early races or you have to have guys who you trust to go along with your program. You're trying to teach these horses to be tractable in a race so you can use their speed when you want to rather than when they want to. It's the horse's nature to run away from everything. He's a herd animal and he behaves accordingly.

I know the gambler doesn't want to hear this, but early in a horse's career there are things more important than winning. The horse needs to learn in each race. You have some goof put a young horse on the front end every time in his first several races, you'll probably never get him off the front end. That isn't a recipe for a good career unless he's a super horse. The horse needs to learn to relax behind other horses and wait until you ask him to go. Some never learn.

You'll see Chuck Sylvester use John Campbell on his babies. Ronnie Gurfein uses Mike LaChance. A guy like Homer Hochstetler can get them going himself. Dean would always do exactly what we wanted. He's a seriously underrated driver and excellent with a young horse.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

That isnt what a dope like me wants to hear but it is interesting to hear. I want them out there winning every race for me

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+1, and I've never bet a horse in my entire life.

Don't even need all the great stories.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

Over the weekend I watched "Buck" which is about Buck Brannaman. Apparently the movie Horse Whisperer was inspired by Buck. So the guy gives clinics on "natural horsemanship". The gist being abusing/breaking a horse to get it to accept a rider is verboten and a detriment to what you can do with a horse. Interesting movie that delved more into family issues than I cared for but still good. It sounds like his methods are not used by the majority or horsemen. Is that true? The question is for anyone. I close to zero about horse training.

I congratulate Ivan for not creating a "Open Request to JORR: Fav Player who Haslem Fouled" thread.

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Kid Cairo's Boers & Bernstein YouTube Channel

Kid Cairo: 2013 March Madness Tournament Winner!

"Cowabunga? Cowa fucking piece of dog shit! This game is diarrhea coming out of my dick!"

+1. Way to go, Ivan!

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I don't remember half the time if I'm hiding or I'm lost

There are more and more people in the racing industry subscribing to concepts of "natural horsemanship", but I wouldn't say it's widespread. Just like there are "coaching trees" in the NFL and Laurence has his "tree" over at the Score, their are "training trees" in racing. Guys are going to use the methods they have been taught and that they have seen work.

From what I've seen, there are a lot of racehorse trainers I would consider ignorant of herd dynamics and the way a horse's instincts work. For the most part, we're talking about an industry full of people that don't put much value on education. For example, I've heard Mike Oosting, the top driver at Balmoral Park, argue with a guy who was attempting to explain to him why a horse is traveling further when he is on the outside. Oosting's position was that he still has to go a mile. And people actually look to drivers for "hot tips".

Anyway, it's just like any other field. When there's money to be made, smart guys will show up to make it. Many of these young horsemen are college-educated and open-minded when it comes to new concepts. But you don't have to be formally educated to at least listen to new or different ideas. Erv Miller is a guy who doesn't automatically dismiss a new idea out of hand simply because it "wasn't the way he was taught". And he's a former Amishman with an eighth grade education maybe. But he's a sharp guy who is willing to try something new to see if it works better than what he was doing.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Do these guys share (borrow or steal) information on what works and what doesn't? If the Epstein of horse racing or quarter horse training came along and started winning a whole bunch, do others pay attention and adjust to what the new guy is doing?

Oh god And to think he is one of the best there.

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I went to Arlington a handful of times and only bet on Earlie Fires on account of I liked the name.

I never won shit.

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Sex isn't dirty, sex isn't a crime. It's a loving act between two or more consenting adults.

-Hank Kingsley

Oh yeah, it's just like football with the "Wildcat" or "Cover-2" or "46". If someone has success with something, everyone else will soon be doing it. The late Stan Bergstein, who was kind of an ambassador for harness racing, liked to call it the "Blue Balloon Theory". If a horse won the Hambletonian with a blue balloon tied to his tail on the first Saturday in August, the following Monday horses across the country would be heading to the starting gate with blue balloons ties to their tails. You saw that in practice a few years back when a D. Wayne Lukas horse won a Breeder's Cup race wearing a Breathe-Right strip on its nose and soon thereafter lots of guys had their horses looking ridiculous with big band-aids on their noses. It didn't do shit and nobody uses them anymore.

The drugs have evolved just like in other sports too. The top guys are always one step ahead of the testing. When I first started in the business a lot of the drugging was to mask pain. For example, guys would numb up legs with snake venom. Then someone created what we call a "mikshake". There's nothing illegal about the ingredients of a milkshake. It's pretty much just baking soda and brown sugar. The concept is simple carbo-loading like you or I would eat pasta or pancakes before a marathon. It's the method of delivery that breaks the rules, as a worming tube is used to put the stuff directly in the horse's stomach so it begins working quickly without breaking down. This became highly problematic when some goof down in Florida put the tube into a horse's lung and drown the poor creature. Then bronchodilators like Clenbuterol came into fashion. The latest and greatest drugs tend to be blood builders like EPO, pretty much the same stuff that cyclists take.

All of this shit puts the guy that loves animals in a precarious position. I'm not going to say I'm a choir boy, but I'm not going to hurt a horse. There's a line there that shouldn't be crossed. So sometimes you get your brains beaten in and keep your mouth shut and take it. Or you get out of the business. The saving grace for us was that we had a reputation for racing cold (not all juiced up) so people had confidence when buying horses from us that they weren't purchasing drug addicts. I was able to sell a few horses for real top dollar and that kept me going.

That's one thing about harness racing. People seem to have this notion that it's lower than thoroughbred racing and more corrupt. Harness racing at least tries to address the doping. Thoroughbred racing seems to prefer acting as if it doesn't exist.

Back to the ideas behind "natural horsemanship", it's really as simple as trying to communicate with the horse in the horse's own "language" rather than attempting to force him to communicate on human terms which he really isn't capable of doing. A horse will try to dominate you. He's a herd animal with a life that revolves around grazing, drinking water, and escaping predation. He is fighting other horses in the herd for space. He is going to fight you for space. But when you show him you are dominant within the "herd", he will acquiesce and allow you to direct his actions without a fight. He knows he needs the herd. His life depends upon it.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

This is really interesting stuff. Thanks for taking the time out to drop a little knowledge on us.

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Even before seeing "Buck", I was always under the impression that training a horse initially involved inflicting pain upon the horse so it would accept a rider. Is that a fair assessment? Obviously, each trainer/owner will have different methods with varied results. But in terms of the industry in general, is that accurate? It always surprised me given the expense of the animal. Seemed you run a risk of the horse breaking bad or getting hurt in the process.

Good info on the looking for an "edge". Around 1980 I had a barber that bet on the races, not local. He knew the jockeys and trainers pretty well or at least talked like he did. Always was looking for inside information. Toward the end of my using him, he still bet a lot and was successful, but was sick of how horses would clearly be drugged. The game became show up pre-race and determine who was drugged more or less relative to the field. He actually did it quite well, but wasn't nearly as willing to phone in a bet.

I'd be up for that too. It would be interesting.

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You know me like that.

I don't have any experience with breaking a horse to ride. I'm sure a colt isn't amenable to accepting a rider at first. My understanding of natural horsemanship methodology as opposed to what we might call traditional horsemanship is not necessarily the elimination of "cruelty". It's more about the way the horse receives your actions. If you're breaking a horse in a round pen using natural horsemanship, you may not be using a whip, but you are attempting to direct that horse's actions. If the horse acts like a horse and challenges you for space by striking or biting, you're going to respond violently. The main difference is the violence is something the horse understands. He challenged you for space and you responded the way the lead mare in the herd would if he did it to her. He's going to get kicked or bitten. It's nature. He will accept his beat down and fall back in line. You're not initiating violence but responding to his challenge. He sees you as a horse- or at least as someone who is acting like a horse, as opposed to just some human beating him with a whip.

I see you used the term "pre-race" in your next post. Technically, I don't think any pre-race is legal. At least not what I would call a pre-race. I guess filling his water bucket with Gatorade is okay. Pretty much all jurisdictions specify nothing on race day except regulated drugs like Lasix or Bute. But you aren't going to win many races without some type of pre-race. And so it becomes a dance to see how close to post time you can administer the pre-race without it coming up positive of the post-race test.

A CSFMB Arlington outing would be totally cool.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

So Who should I place a few bucks on for the Derby? I told Tora to pick a horse out of the list and was curious if there is one I should guide her towards?

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