COLONIAL DOWNS: Day In, Day Out By Anna Sitzler

Anna and pal Corey

Up and Out        

At home, I was used to waking up around, oh, 7:45, 8:00am. At Colonial Downs, the alarm went buzzing off at 5:00 in the morning, and you got up when it went off, or you wouldn't be ready in time to leave. The ideal morning would be getting up at five o'clock, dressing, and leaving the house by 5:15am. In reality, we got up at 5:00am, dressed, and left the house by 5:30am. Hectic at times, but when you stop for a minute to catch your breath, you realize no one else is rushing around with you.

 

Like smart people, they’re all still sleeping.

 

Barn 3

            I arrived at the track most mornings no later than 6:00am. First stop was Barn 3, to the front of the shedrow, where four fillies were stabled. These were Bill Turner’s horses, the fillies that were more or less trainer by Bill’s stepdaughter, Jess Rich. Two grays and two bays, one darker than the other. No matter what anyone ever tells you, hotwalking horses is not an easy job. My first stay, I basically got shin buck, and my feet had never hurt so much in my life. Hotwalking is not for those people who break down easily and complain and quit when something hurts a little bit. The bottoms of my feet hurt to the extreme, and my shins…every step I would take, I winced. I was proud of myself in the end though, for not collapsing from pain and exhaustion at the end of my first day working for Jess. My first day on the job, I hotwalked, ‘round and ‘round we walked, for literally hours. I walked all four of Jess’ fillies, even Wild Punch, who is one of the strongest horses I dealt with the entire time I was at Colonial Downs.

 

I won’t lie, and I’m not going to pretend hotwalking is a glamorous job. Time to face facts. It isn’t. Hotwalking is one of the lowest jobs on the racetrack, but for someone like me, who just enjoys being around racehorses, hotwalking is a great way to start and end every morning. I would do it daily without pay and ever complain. And the pain in my feet, I still felt it every morning after I had walked for hours and hours, but even then, it was almost a kind of happy and content pain. Along with walks hots, I helped bathe the horses every day. Jess had a hired groom, Francisco, who basically knew everything =D In Turner’s barn, I would hold the horse while Francisco did the bathing, but I found it very useful to watch him bathe the girls carefully, because when I started working in Ricky Hendrik’s barn, it really came in handy.

 

Barn 4         

In Barn 4, Ricky Hendrix was stabled. He had anywhere from eight horses at a time, to six horses in the two and a half weeks I was at CNL. Ricky, however, was hardly ever there, maybe once the entire time I was at CNL. I basically worked for Ricky’s assistant trainer, Booth. It was usually just Booth over there, no one else helping him, so I didn’t do just hotwalking. I did everything under the sun. Sure, I walked hots every morning, usually at least five, but I also either held them for their baths, or bathed them myself. I also mucked stalls, scrubbed and filled water buckets, learned the proper way to wrap polos, and then wrapped some horses, put ice in one horse’s ice boots…then put his ice boots on his legs.

 

The longer I worked for Booth, and the harder he saw me work, the more he trusted me things. I noticed this especially when on my last full day at CNL, Booth asked me to unload and load horses for him, because he wasn’t going to be there. Amazing, it seemed to me, that he would ask a small 15 year old from Ohio to do this task, when easily he could have asked someone with far more experience. But he asked me, and I told him that I’d do it. I managed just fine, and didn’t have a single problem. Earlier that day too, it happened to be one of the occasions when there was another girl helping out. She had shedrowed for Booth before. But I was walking I’m Hit Sarge, my favorite horse, out from his bath, he was nearly dry, and Booth asked me if I wanted to shedrow a horse. I didn’t even think, “YEAH!” The horse was Sippin Jack, not the brightest horse, but a racehorse all the same. I walked and jogged him for maybe 20 minutes. I wore a trainer’s helmet and exercise vest, and for those 20 minutes, I was easily the tallest person at Colonial Downs.

 

The greatest part was hearing everyone, not just grooms, but trainers too, tell me how good I looked on Jack. Chucky Lawrence said, “Looks like a jock to me!” And even when you know exactly what you were made to do, born to do, and destined to do, it’s the biggest confidence booster to hear someone tell you that you look the part, especially someone who would know it when they it.

 

Personal Test     

From a personal standpoint, Colonial Downs was not just an internship to work with horses. For me, it was a test. It was a test to see if jockey-dom was something I did truly want, or just a childish dream. After one day hotwalking, I knew the answer. I was actually afraid that I wouldn’t like the answer I got. I was afraid I’d get there and realize it wasn’t something I wanted for real, but something I wanted only in my head. But after that first horse, the first one I hotwalked, it became ever so clear that this was something I didn’t want. I was something I had to have. It’s not a hobby or a pastime, it was an obsession and a passion and a need. I understood after walking my first horse that horse racing was something that I needed if I hoped to continue breathing. And then riding Jack… Booth wasn’t fond of Jack, because Jack wasn’t the most intelligent horse in the world, but after riding him, I loved him. He was a tad uncoordinated, but he was my first ride at the racetrack, and that makes him special to me. I sat on Jack, and the minute my foot hit the stirrup, I felt so free and light and happy. I told Booth that he had made me the happiest person alive.

 

            Colonial will hold memories that are forever special to me. Like some, I didn’t cry when I left. I earned a new nickname that I now go by: Jock (thanks to Nik Goodwin and Chucky Lawrence). I rode my first horse under the shed. I hotwalked or the first time. So many first times and so many new things. Now, when I ask Greg Foley if he needs an exercise rider, I’ll have recommendations from those I worked with at Colonial. I’ll miss Colonial. What I’d give for one more round in the shed with Jack, one more bandage to wrap, one more turn around the shed holding Sarge’s lead shank… Pictures fade and crack, but memories last forever.