I read that James Doohan, Mr. Scott of Starship Enterprise fame, recently joined Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s final resting place – the final frontier if you will – when his ashes were transported via rocket into space. I’ve never given much thought about my own resting place, be it in a box buried in the ground or thrown to the winds of the cosmos, but my family did have to give the matter some consideration when our dad passed away in July. A few ideas were tossed around right after his death, but it took a short while to physically receive the package that contains his ashes. There are several ideas that still hang on among the family, but our first real opportunity to carry out a plan transpired yesterday, Friday the 16th of September, 2005.
Those that knew my father well were aware of his main hobby and the source of much of his satisfaction in the world of sports – thoroughbred horse racing. Now it just so happens that his next-door neighbor of the past several years has been horse trainer of note Greg Gilchrist. Greg, his delightful wife Patty and my parents became friends because of their mutually amiable nature, the fact that they’re just plain old good folks, and their common interest in the ponies. Not so much my mom, but she’s been in the know about the who’s who of racing through my dad.
I’m not sure if my brother Mark gets the credit for thinking it up, but I recall him mentioning that one appropriate place to have my dad’s ashes scattered would be on the home stretch at Golden Gate Fields, a venue with which he was intimately familiar. I don’t know a lot about when he first became so interested in horse racing, but some of my own richest memories came from times when we accompanied him to the track, and how he would alternately study races and a horse’s history, consult with his buddies on why a pick was good or not, and act as a kind of apostle of the Daily Racing Form – also known as the “bible.”
A golden opportunity arose one week ago tonight. My mom, now living in the house of my childhood all alone, was invited to dinner with her neighbors, the Gilchrists among them. My mom shared with Greg our idea of having the ashes disbursed at the track, and Greg graciously agreed to arrange an event that will live forever in my memory.
As I write this, the thoroughbred Lost in the Fog is the probably hottest race horse in the U.S. He’s a 3 year old, undefeated in 8 major races, and set to run in the Breeders Cup next month. Greg is the horse’s trainer, owned by an absolute gentleman by the name of Harry Aleo.
Apparently, when he works out there’s usually some kind of media circus that shows up, workouts are filmed, interviews with Greg and Harry are commonplace. This particular week, Greg had been somewhat secretive, not announcing the workout until Thursday evening, when he’d apparently been planning on it all week.
So arrangements are made to have Russell Baze, 1999 inductee to the Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame (and second only to the legendary Lafit Pincay in career wins) in the saddle for this session, and to have Russell spread a small container of ashes as he crossed the finish line at Golden Gate Fields.
Friday morning comes along cold and gray, a steady breeze sending cool air and a blanket of fog through the Golden Gate, directly in line with the track at the foot of Gilman Street. Jeanne and Drake were right behind me as I pulled into the stable parking lot, I entered the stables and with the help of the gate attendant I located Greg who introduced me to Russell. We soon encountered Mark, Suzanne and Elizabeth parking their cars when my mom showed up with Patty and we were all set to witness the event. Within a half hour we found ourselves in the box seat section of an empty grandstand, perched directly across from the red and white pole that is the finish line, below us the finely manicured winners circle. In fact, the infield is just as meticulously manicured, the preparations for the upcoming meet are well underway.
Thoroughbred horses are magnificent animals. I haven’t had too much opportunity to spend time around horses, we occasionally go riding at Bonnie and Jeff’s ranch in Yuba City, where they board about a dozen at a time, more when a polo match is taking place in their arena. There the horses are fit and healthy, but just common horses. The animals at a track on par with GGF – even the ponies the trainers keep for work out assistants – are powerful and athletic. They’re all high strung, but some horses are trotting out to the track with a herky-jerky nervousness, their mounts doing all they can to keep the animal in control until it’s time to do what they were bred for – run with all out abandon on the soft dirt of an oval course. But with Lost in the Fog there’s a difference, he’s got a sort of sophisticated and confident presence on the track, a little bit like a veteran slugger calmly making his way from dugout to on deck circle. Not a tall horse, but sturdy and somewhat thickly muscled.
Russell is riding him from the stable gate on the southern end of the oval with a training assistant riding alongside. They’re part of a small procession of horses heading out for a morning workout, deliberately make their way heading against the grain on the home stretch. They turn around before the end of this straight segment of track and embark on a warm up trot as if they’re heading home toward the finish line. Russell reaches into his jacket pocket, pulls out a plastic medicine container, deftly flips the lid open with his thumb and empties its contents in a short white puff of dust.
It’s pulled off perfectly, we’re both content and proud to have witnessed this, but there’s still the matter of the workout. Now the horse continues a moderate trot around the first turn and ramps up to a gallop and full sprint around the back stretch. To see this orchestration of man and beast is awe inspiring. To a casual observer, one might think that a horse race is littlle more than a dozen horses breaking free, running full tilt to the finish, but a closer look reveals much, much more. The combination of grace and power was a beauty to behold, both Russell’s and Lost in the Fog’s head are almost still as the horse glidingly streaked alongside the same ground where my dad had just been honored.