Lucy's Home and Nothing Will Ever Be the Same

Lucy, the horse, came home from the clinic last week. Pregnant. Barely. The zygot is literally the size of half a dime. But it’s there. Getting slightly bigger every day.

It took some doing. Because Lucy was 15 when we bred her there was concern about whether she’d actually get knocked up. Obviously, the younger the horse, the great the chance for the pregnancy to take. 

But since Lucy was competing until she was 14, breeding when she was younger wasn’t an option. I wasn’t about to harvest her eggs and get a surrogate.  I’m crazy but not that nuts.

After her initial stay at the clinic I was told to bring her back for a recheck in 14 days. Apparently she had double ovulated, which meant there was a possibility of twins. In horses that is not good. Rarely do both survive and if they do, they generally have issues.

So if there are twins, they do something that is oh-so-clinically called a ‘twin reduction.’ That is, they abort the least viable embryo.

Wednesday was Lucy’s re-check. She was not pleased to be back at the clinic. After she got off the trailer she looked around and chomped me. Hard. She was pissed. The last time she’d been there had involved a week of daily ovulation checks, which were invasive and annoying. She’s not dumb and she has a very good memory.

The check-up was clinical. With barely a howdoyoudo, the vet pulled on a pair of plastic gloves and whipped out an ultrasound wand to check her out.

“Yup,’ he said, “Look there are two.”  I looked at the ultrasound and initially couldn’t see anything, but found myself agreeing anyway.

 “Oh, yeah, it’s right there.” Of course I was looking at two spots on the screen that had nothing to do with why we were there.

The doctor kindly pointed out the correct tiny specks. “She needs to stay here for a day for us to take care one of them.” At this point that I wanted to ask him to make sure he left the one that was a great jumper; the colt with the white feet, but he didn’t seem like he had much of a sense of humor, so I just nodded.

A day later I got a text that the ‘twin reduction’ had been completed, and to pick up my girl. Lucy’s life—and mine—was about to change. I wasn’t bringing her back to the boarding stable where she’s been for 11 years. Instead, she was coming home to my back yard to live with the boys until her due date approaches.

I wasn’t worried that Murphy or Dezi would hurt her—they are 28 and 22 respectively—but I was concerned she might kill them. She was none too fond of Dezi when he was still competing and they lived next to each other.

To that end I had her back shoes pulled off. That way if she kicked them, she wouldn’t hurt them too badly.

I was a wreck when I brought her into the back yard. She took one look at the boys and started eating grass. They, on the other hand, looked like their eyes might pop out of their heads. Fresh blood! For the past two years they’d lived in the yard alone with nothing more exciting than a sprinkler main breaking. Now there was another horse! Whee!

I popped her out with them and they were all off trotting around the paddock. The boys couldn’t get close enough to her. Every time they came within smelling distance she cocked a back leg and kicked them. So they stayed a respectful hoof length away.  After 15 minutes they all settled down—sort of.

My two ancient geldings had erections and were still staring at Lucy like a cat eyes mice.  But they didn’t get close. She pretty much ignored them and started eating the hay. Murphy, in particular, wanted to get near her and hovered just out of reach. She let him.

I went into the house for a glass of wine. By the time I had finished my first glass of Malbec, the boys had chilled out and all three horses were lined up, eating and minding their business.

I had decided for safety’s sake that for the first week Lucy would stay in a stall at night. She hasn’t been out since she was a foal, and I didn’t want her to get panicked or hurt in the dark. So I led her to a stall and carefully double snapped the chain, leaving her inside with her dinner.

The next morning at 6:30 I went out to feed the horses as usual.  And as usual they came galloping up to me to get fed. Except there were three of them. One of the boys (probably Murphy, he’s good at opening double end snaps) had unlocked the door and she’d pushed it open.

The inmates were running the asylum. 

Coachella and Families; How Not to Attend a Music Festival

The Coachella Festival was this past couple of weekends and I’ll admit it got me thinking. Not that I wanted to go—the Replacements and a couple of other bands were the only ones I really wanted to see. What got me really buzzing, and I admit a little nauseated, were the photos.

Not of the skimpily dressed, perfectly accessorized, fashion -brand sponsored girls, or the drunken boys, but the pictures my friends were posting on Facebook and Instagram. Of them with their children.

What. The.  F***. There is so much wrong with these photos that I barely know where to start. But I’ll take a stab at it anyway.

Say I was hit on the head by a bottle, and as result of the subsequent concussion decided to attend to Coachella.  Maybe then I would be willing, nay, required to fork over the many thousands of dollars that a “VIP” or concierge ticket costs. It might be a pleasant way to visit a multi-day music festival in the desert.  

Apparently these passes get you into comfortably air-conditioned tents (nice in the desert) away from the sun and the wind (again, really excellent in the desert) but most importantly keep you far apart from the riff-raff and the stinky masses.  I.e. the people.

‘Course that kind of privacy also keeps you away from the music.  But face it, if you’re shelling out for a helicopter to take you to Indio, access to a privately curated wine bar and custom, waitress-served meals, you’ve got to admit you’re not there for the music. It’s an afterthought. You’re there to say you were there.

But okay, if that’s the way a geezer wants to roll at a music festival. It’s bizarre to me, but most boomers have done their time in the mosh pit and may want to try something different. At least most of my friends have spent time moshing. Some still do. But I digress. If folks want to take a step back I get it. It’s not very punk rock, more AARP, but I am trying to understand here.

But who the hell takes their children with them? And what kid would want to attend with their parents? This is a music festival, not Disneyland, no matter how gussied up and VIPed they make the experience.

I can almost understand how, if the whole family wants to go to the festival, it would make sense to share a ride to Indio, and maybe even hit up the parents for a hotel room.  But attending together? Taking selfies in the concierge suite as a group?  What’s next? Doing shots with the preteens for their Facebook page cred?

This simply doesn’t compute.  Music festivals are not meant to be inter-generational bonding experiences. They are supposed be about music first, which is usually not a shared family taste, and secondly about having a whole lot of perhaps not parentally supervised fun.

I always got along with my folks, and invited them to come by when I was working on Lollapalooza. They never came. It wasn’t their cup of tea, and I wouldn’t have the time to spend with them during the show anyway. But mostly, they had no desire to attend a music festival and really see up close what it was that I was doing there. And, more importantly, what everyone else was doing there while I was working.

Music festivals are crowded and dirty and filled with people doing irresponsibly stupid things between sets. Sometimes during sets. Occasionally even onstage during the show. It’s part of the fun and the experience, and it’s not always G-rated. It’s certainly not always predictable. That’s the point.

The spontaneity is what can make the music part of the festival so great (or awful). You just never know what’s going to happen. It might rain. The power might blow. The lead singer might be in jail and miss his set. Your BFF could do some bad mushrooms and you spend the whole festival babysitting him and end up skipping your favorite bands. It’s up for grabs.

Obviously there is a line between having fun and being dopey, and being reckless. But that’s why little kids shouldn’t go to music festivals. Because they don’t know the difference.  They are little kids.

If your kid is so young that they can’t attend the Coachella on their own, they probably shouldn’t be there. If your kid is old enough to attend Coachella on their own, they definitely should be hanging with their friends, not their parents. And if they are so spoiled that they’ll only attend Coachella with a VIP pass hanging from their neck, they need attend the festival on general admission ticket to see how the rest of the world lives.

The Birds and the Bees; Spring Hits 7 Hills Farm West

Spring has hit Seven Hills Farm West with a wallop. It started with the canaries.

I have four of them in a rather large flight cage that takes up a corner of my bedroom. The birds have a simple job—look pretty and sing. The two girls look pretty and the two boys sing. A lot.

I don’t expect anything more from them. They are after all, birds. But recently one of the girls, Rusty developed baby fever. She spent the last two weeks shredding up the newspaper that lines the bottom of the cage and ripping her pretty red feathers out to make a cute little nest. Which would be fine if she actually used one of the little wooden boxes that I keep in the cage for that purpose. But no…. she decided that the perfect house is one of the food containers.

It works out well for her. Since she rarely leaves the nest, she can eat where she lives. The other birds are a little bummed though. It doesn’t matter that they have four other choices for their dining pleasure. They want to eat out of that one. So they hover around the nest looking vaguely confused and chirping. I mean even more confounded than birds generally look. Rusty doesn’t seem to care. Every few hours she stands up, fluffs her feathers and with a small sigh, sits down on the eggs again.

I’d be more excited if we hadn’t been through this drill before. This is the third time Rusty has taken to a nest. The first time I was intrigued. I don’t’ really care if we have babies—actually I do. Canaries are such terrible parents it’s amazing that the species continues at all. Their parenting skills are non-existent. In the past the infants, which look more like pterodactyls than domestic birds, have survived only days before their moms have knocked them out of the nest and onto the ground.  By the time I find them, there are no more. It’s a little tragedy every time.

So I’d be perfectly content to have no eggs under Rusty’s butt. Sadly though, there are always eggs. She does take care of them—carefully turning them, fluffing over them and only leaving the nest long enough to eat and drink.  Nature is amazing though. Just when I’ve decided that it’s time to remove the eggs and let her move on, she does it herself. One morning she’s just over them, and kicks them out of the nest onto the cage floor. I always feel a little sad. She doesn’t seem to care.

Hopefully Lucy, the other mother-to-be in our farmette, will take parenthood a little more seriously. Lucy is my recently retired show horse.

Our partnership has lasted ten years. We had a good relationship—I gave her lots of snacks, the best possible care, and she saved my ass when it was in the saddle and only bit me occasionally. It seemed like a fair tradeoff.

Lucy is the most talented horse I’ve ever had. Together we have won dozens of championships and muddled through hundreds of horse shows. If she had a more capable, more moneyed partner, she’d probably be famous. Instead she had to put up with me.

Sadly she reinjured her leg at a horse show last year, and even with the best medical treatment (surgery, rest, stem cells and lasers) she didn’t heal well enough to return to work. So I decided to breed her.

Breeding a horse, unless it’s Zenyatta, is not a wise financial decision. By the time you’ve bred the horse, paid for the stallion and raised the baby, it’s cheaper to buy a trained adult. But for me it was about emotion. I wasn’t ready to let Lucy go yet. (It's not like she was going far- even if she doesn't get pregnant, she'll live in the backyard with the other retirees.)

Picking a stallion is a little like using Match.com—but there are no loser coffee dates. And unlike online dating, it’s fun.

I thumbed through the Chronicle of the Horse stallion issue the way some people look at the Tiffany catalog. I picked about six prospects. Finally my trainer stepped in and helped whittle my choices down to the winner. Like many of the nicest guys, he’s Canadian. He was campaigned by an amateur and is an amazing mover—which is Lucy’s biggest fault—and almost as good a jumper as she is. All in all a good choice.

Lucy went to the clinic last week to be bred —sport horse breeding is not romantic.  There are no candles, soft lights, or even another horse in the room. Think turkey baster and you have the picture.

She goes back for her recheck this week. If all goes well she’ll have a baby on the ground in 2015. And people keep telling me horses, unlike canaries, are great and natural mothers.

Hissing and Spitting, Tilly the Cat Joins the Family

My mom has always claimed that if there is a juvenile delinquent in the family, better your pet than your kid. Since I live in a house surrounded by fur-delinquents,  I question this theory.

                

Tilly is a mostly Siamese semi-feral cat who was abandoned at my stables. I worried that the coyotes, owls and bobcats viewed her as an hors d’oeuvre.  I was on a mission to capture and save her.

                

That involved going to the LA Department of Animal Services: i.e. the pound.  It’s a place I avoid at all costs as I have a disease known as a suckerous for doguses in cages. But I pulled on my big girl boots and went.  After tons of paperwork -in LA you can walk onto any street corner, hand over ten bucks and pick up a gun but you need a permit to rent a cat trap -- I was allowed to walk away with a Have-a-Heart trap.

                

The trap had immediate results. At daybreak the next morning I received a phone call from the stable instructing me to ‘come get your G**D**M screeching  cat.’

                

We went directly to the vet to get Tilly flea dipped, inoculated and spayed. Except, she didn’t need spaying.  Apparently she had been neutered in a feral cat program. The ear I thought had been torn in a cat fight was actually notched, which is how these program track which cats have been neutered. And Tilly was not entirely feral.  At the vet, she sat quietly purring in my lap.

                

I installed her in my den with a spanking new litter box and food (mmmm Fancy Feast) and water. For a few days she was thrilled, and soon came out to get patted, admired and stuffed with expensive cat food. She hid under the couch whenever the dogs approached, but that seemed wise—Murray the Dane is loud and fearful of cats, and the Poppy is just, well, a Brittany.

                

Soon we all reached a compromise. Tilly would appear from under the couch to be scratched and adored. When I left her door open , the dogs would stay out of her room in a huff. If they came in, she’d hide. When they were asleep in the other room, she’d carefully explore the house.  She did show a peculiar interest in sitting in the fireplace. All in all not a perfect situation, but livable. Until a workman accidently let her out.

                

I was devastated. I called her and called her: nada. I tacked fliers on every phone pole and slipped notes into all of my neighbors’ mailboxes. I searched everyone’s back yards. No Tilly.

                

At 11PM one of my neighbors had called to say Tilly was two doors down from my house hanging at an abandoned home. I flew out the door in my best flannel pjs, one hand clutching a flashlight and the other the cat trap. Tilly sat on a wall and howled at me. As I left to go home she was circling the trap warily.

An hour later I went back to check. There was a cat in the trap. It just wasn’t the right one. My next-door neighbor’s enormous furious tabby obviously couldn’t resist the smell of Seafood Delight. He was so huge it wasn’t easy for him to turn around get out when I opened the door. I reset the trap and stomped home.

At sunup I checked the trap. Success! I had a brief moment of superiority.  I celebrated far too soon.

As Tilly was terrified she hissed at me all the way home. But once I opened the cage in the den, she ran over for a cuddle before heading for breakfast and the litter box.

I was brushing my teeth when I heard a clink. With some trepidation I checked under the couch. No Tilly. The damn cat was gone. Again.

Now I was pissed. This cat was treating me like a bed and breakfast. Or more accurately, a potty and breakfast. She didn’t stick around long enough to sleep.

That evening I returned to her abandoned house and called and called. Nothing. I called around my house. No cat. But a few hours later the dogs started barking and trying to climb into the fireplace.  It finally dawned on me that the flue was broken and she was using the chimney as her own personal Holland tunnel. And was now attempting to return. Outside I trained my flashlight beam on a Tilly-sized lump on the roof. I called her and she turned her back to me.  If a cat could give the finger, I was getting it.

Inside the house I set up a complicated chute leading from the fireplace directly into the cat trap. I was proud of myself—it was a work of art. I locked myself and the dogs in my room convinced I had outsmarted Tilly. Ha! Take that smarty cat.

Before I retired for the night I checked on her.  She wasn’t in the trap but when I called she answered and it seemed awfully loud and close for a cat in the chimney or on the roof. I followed the yowls. Directly into her room where she was sitting on the couch demanding dinner. Loudly. She had already used her litter box of course

After that I put a baby gate in front of the fireplace. Eventually I am smarter than a feral cat.

                 

You May Have a Cold but I Have the Plague

I’m sick. Physically ill. And I blame it all on the fact that I flew home from New York last week. If I sound bitter, it’s because I am.

I did everything you’re supposed to do: I only drank bottled water, I washed my hands a million times and I didn’t touch the nasty tray tables. So why am I sick? Obviously I’m being punished.

I hate being sick; oh I don’t know anyone who exactly enjoys it, but I’m a terrible patient. For one thing, I’m not. Patient, that is. From the moment I suffer the first indignity of a sniffle I whine, carry on and kvetch to anyone who will listen.  I don’t let people do anything for me. Hell I don’t want to be near me, why would I subject anyone else to that affront?

Also, while I’m not a great beauty on my best days, when I’m sick, oh boy. The bright red nose, the runny eyes and feverish glaze all topped  by torn sweats….  I tell you if there’s an anti Scarlett Johannson, it’s me when I’m ill.

Some people, the bright ones, look at a cold or flu as a brief interruption in their daily life. A chance to actually kick back and watch Ellen or maybe a movie in the daytime. Not me. I think of it as a personal insult. A challenge.  ‘I am better than the cold,’  I think. I’m delusional.

So instead of hunkering down, when normal people take to their beds, I refuse to give in. which sometimes is okay, but occasionally, as in this recent case of the flu, makes me sicker.  By the time I actually stayed in bed with a box of tissues and a ginger ale I was down for the count and practically hallucinating.

Getting up to feed the horses in the morning took a fifteen minute pep talk with myself. When that didn’t work, I just reminded myself that nobody else was going to feed them, so I better get my butt moving. So I did. Barely.  I developed a kind of shuffle walk that so completely resembled the hunchback of Notre Dame it was eerie. Even the horses were impressed enough to stop complaining about their breakfast being  long enough to stare at me.

All I wanted to do is sleep. Now I like naps as much as the next person---actually probably more. I am a world class napper. But last week I set some records. Pretty much my only conscious moments were spent feeding animals or coughing. Believe me there was lots and lots of coughing.

For some reason, (maybe all that napping?) I was wide awake all night. Not awake enough to do anything useful, like read, but just alert enough to make myself miserable thinking about all the things I wasn’t doing during the daytime when I was sleeping.  I’m not terrible stable when I’m feeling okay, but last week I was in serious peril of crossing the tipping point into complete loony tunes.

Of course by the time morning came, I was too tired to study for my GREs, work on the screenplay or even just walk the dogs. And every time I sat up, I started coughing up a lung. I was a beautiful sight.

It’s at about this point that I began to self medicate. My motto is the phrase ‘better living through chemistry,’ so obviously  I’m not at all adverse to taking meds.  I live around the corner from a Walgreens ; I was there literally every day. I started with the usual stuff— a little NyQuil, a hit of DayQuil. Then I moved on to a combination of those with Sudafed.  Robittusan and Mucinex. Not only did those medications fail to deliver the way they do in the TV commercials, they made me sicker.

Meanwhile I was trying really hard to pretend all was right with the world, telling anybody who was foolish enough to ask, that I was perfectly fine. This would have been more believable if I could actually complete a sentence without dissolving into a coughing fit.

About now would have been the opportune time to have visited a doctor. Maybe I would have, if I had one. My doctor just quit practicing one day about three years ago and I’ve never really gotten around to getting another one.

Eventually something had to give. It was me. Somewhere around day five of the plague I just gave up. There is a walk-in clinic nearby that I decided to walk into. Fifteen minutes later I walked out clutching prescriptions for a whole battery of drugs. Ten minutes after that I left the Walgreens with a bunch of little pill containers. I am feeling better already.  

Shake, Rattle and Roll, It's Earthquake Season in LA

I had a great welcome home gift last week- an earthquake.  Literally, as the plane’s wheels touched the tarmac, the earth started shaking. Not that I could feel it—at LAX everything feels like the ground is moving.  But the word spread through the plane like lightening; someone had gotten a text. I love LA!

It was centered pretty far away from where I live, but by the time I had gotten home, there had been a couple of pretty sizable aftershocks. The dogs and the cat didn’t seem to care and the horses just wanted snacks, so I don’t think it was much felt in my neck of the far West Valley. That is a very good thing indeed.

On St. Patrick’s Day we also had a pretty decent rumbler, which the wags in the media immediately dubbed the Shamrock Shake. Oh so clever!  That one was based quite close to home. At six in the morning. It was quite a wake-up call.

I know that the powers that be that is the US Geological Survey, swears that there is no such thing as ‘earthquake weather.’ They are wrong.    Circumstantial evidence however, proves that in many cases, when we have really odd weather—like the 90 degree day that proceeded  the St. Patrick’s Day trembler,

we often have an earthquake. So there.

I did discover that Poppy, the Brittany is an accurate early warning system.  About a minute before the quake she woke up and started running around the house yapping. That in itself isn’t unusual, but it was early in the morning and she’d been fast asleep. I’ve had dogs that were predictors before; the downside is that they aren’t dependable. Every time they start acting weird, you think the Big One is about to hit. But most of the time, they are just acting odd. It’s impossible to tell if anything is going on until the ground starts to shake. Or not.  It does tend to make you a little paranoid.

The Danes didn’t notice the quake in advance.  It actually felt like both big dogs had hopped on the bed and started bouncing around. Except they were already on the bed. My true defender, Murray, woke up with the jolt and immediately started to bark at the quake. That was helpful.

I didn’t grow up in Southern California, and I truly hate earthquakes. They scare the crap out of me. After any sizable shaker, I start imagining that I’m feeling the earth move all the time. I live with giant dogs. When they run around the house it rattles and shakes. I find myself looking up at light fixtures a lot. If they are swaying it’s not good.

The first earthquake I really remember was Northridge. It was huge. Freeways feel down and broken gas lines blew up houses. That was when I knew I wasn’t living in Connecticut any more.  

Northridge is only about three miles away from where I now live. A lot of people helpfully brought that to my attention when I moved. But, perhaps naively, I believe that if my house survived that quake, it’ll be fine in the next one. Unless of course, we have the Big One. And then we’re all toast anyway. So what difference does it make?

The quakes in early March were the first sizable ones we’d had in several years, which meant that no one was as prepared as they should be. According to the Goddess of Quakes, the US Geological Survey’s Dr. Lucy Jones, everybody should have an earthquake kit.  I agree, at least in principal.

I dug mine out just to check. I found three gallons of bottled water, three cans of dog food, a 12-pack of Diet Pepsi Max, three cans of cat food and a can opener.  Oh, and some Girl Scout cookies.

There’s also a bunch of flashlights.  Somewhere there is a windup radio so I won’t have to sit in my car in my pajamas freezing, like I did after Northridge. If I can only remember where it is.

Dr. Jones recommends that you have enough in your kit to last you for five days. I figure I’m good for about a day and a half. If I throw a couple of cans of tuna in the bag.  And maybe a bottle of wine. Definitely a bottle of wine. And a bottle opener.

Right after the first March quake I heard from a lot of my East Coast friends and family, initially to check, and then to see if I’d had enough and was ready to return to solid ground.  I have spent a lot of time in New England this winter. The weather each visit has been horrid. Snowing, below zero and downright miserable. When I left last week people were positively giddy at the thought of a 40 degree day.

 I don’t think I’m moving back any time soon. But get back to me again after the next major quake.

Zenyatta and Me; A Freak and a Geek

A few years back there was a phenomenal race mare named Zenyatta. She is my hero.

Zenyatta is what the racing world calls a freak. In racing that’s a good thing. Of 20 starts, she won 19 in a 

row. I saw them all—including her maiden victory on Thanksgiving.

Zenyatta immediately appealed to a special group of fans—women.  That’s uncommon- most racing aficionados are men.  But when the Queen, as she was dubbed raced, women turned out in loud droves. They carried homemade signs and banners and often had friends and little girls in tow.  A Zenyatta race guaranteed a huge uptick in track attendance in a sport that badly needed it.

It was also a hoot. Her fans turned it into an occasion. Some dressed in her racing colors (a not particularly flattering combination of turquoise and pink), others wore hats with giant ‘Z’s on them.  I quickly discovered that these were my people. Nobody cared about age or gender.

Actually that’s not true. Zenyatta became a folk hero precisely because of her age and gender. She didn’t start racing until she was four—quite old for a Thoroughbred. That she was a mare made her even more special. The racing world reveres it’s stallions for the money they bring in the breeding shed when they are finished at the track.

From the moment she entered the walking ring before the race Zenyatta was on. While the other mares paced quietly, Zenyatta danced. She paraded around the ring, dragging her groom behind her.

When she came on track her rider, Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith, would take her to the eighth pole and let her just stop and gaze at the crowd. The fans went wild every time. 

When Zenyatta ran, she was a tease. She was a closer, so she’d always be far behind the pack –sometimes as much as 11 strides- as they came into the final turn. Then she’d just lengthen her step, and demolish the other horses. She didn’t like to win by a lot, just enough to rub her competition’s faces in the loss. Every race was dramatic.

When she was five, about halfway through her career, I decided to write a book about her. I knew there was a market—at the time Zenyatta had more than 75,000 Facebook friends. Queen Z had her own blog which her fans read and quoted it voraciously.

Also, everyone involved with the horse was interesting. Her connections, the owner, trainer and jockey, became rock stars to the fans. Zenyatta’s owner Jerome Moss, is the ‘M’ in A&M records and was used to dealing with real rock stars. Zenyatta is named for the Police album Zenyatta Mondatta.

John Sherriffs, the trainer, is understated but highly respected. He’d won the Kentucky Derby for the Mosses the year Zenyatta started her career. Mike Smith, the jockey, had his ups (a wonderkind, he set all sorts of records for stakes wins in New York) and downs (devastating falls that left him with a broken back among other things).

I spent the next year and a half interviewing people for the book. Meanwhile Zenyatta continued her assault on the best horses in the game. That included a breathtaking win in the Breeder’s Cup Classic, which was run against the best male horses in the world.

I acquired an agent who worried me when he asked me where he should submit the book. (Wasn’t that his job?) But I didn’t care where it went; I just wanted it published.  The fans wanted it out. Everyone but the Mosses, who were said to be doing something of their own, wanted it out.

Zenyatta’s last race was a big one—it was another shot at the Breeder’s Cup Classic. All of the outlets I had talked to—and who had refused to do a story on women and racing—suddenly were covering her. But not her fans.  Among  them was a Vogue shoot, a 60 Minutes feature and a piece on NPR. She may have been the Queen, but she had become the people’s horse.

I went to Kentucky to watch the Queen’s final race and was greeted by a banner across a street in downtown Louisville welcoming her. There are two days of Breeder’s Cup races but the Classic was the only one that people were talking about. A lot of Zenyatta fans had made the trip- about 30 had had gathered  for drinks and  gossip on Friday night before the race. Churchill Downs was sold-out and the crowd was pumped.

And then she lost. Only by a neck- if the race had been two strides longer she’d have caught the winner. You could literally hear a pin drop in the stands. The wind was sucked out of the place.

I was devastated. I felt like my best friend had just been defeated. And after two years of living with her daily, I guess she had been.

Zenyatta won Horse of the Year that year, an honor she’d been denied the previous one. She was bred to a fantastic stallion, and gave birth to a colt- CoZmic One, who at two has now begun his training.

As for my book? The few publishers who saw it, passed—most told me that it was because she didn’t win her last race. Really?  I think it’s because her fans --she now has about 100,000 Facebook followers- are faceless. And women.

But I’m as stubborn a competitor as Zenyatta.  I’m updating the book with CoZmic One, and will try again with a different agent and hopeful a small publisher