1. Freezing Point (nicknamed Snowball)
Her voice catches and tears threaten to observe, but Randy Gootzeit would like you to know about how a strapping grey colt nicknamed Snowball introduced a couple of horse lovers back to the monitor, and how they bought their hearts damaged.
Snowball, regarded on the keep track of as Freezing Place, suffered a lethal breakdown during an undercard race at Churchill Downs on Might 6, turning into the seventh horse to die in an agonizing 8 times top up to the Kentucky Derby. The fatalities, as nonetheless unexplained, have solid a pall about this year’s Triple Crown and renewed concerns about the safety of the animals as the activity prepares for Saturday’s Preakness Stakes in Baltimore.
But for Gootzeit and her trainer Joe Lejzerowicz, the problems in horse racing are just a backdrop to their private grief.
“We’d have done anything at all to preserve him, but we could not,” Gootzeit reported. “We miss out on him desperately.”
Gootzeit, 71, lives in close proximity to Phoenix. She galloped and educated horses in the 1970s and ’80s at Belmont Park, but remaining the racetrack to return to college and become a actual physical therapist. She functions on human beings, but has also applied what she acquired to horses.
She experienced not considered substantially about returning to the sport until finally she talked to Lejzerowicz about buying a 2011 Volkswagen from him. A veteran coach, he experienced discovered his horsemanship under the Corridor of Fame trainer Allen Jerkens and had labored for more than 30 years in barns from New York to California. Lejzerowicz was in Phoenix as nicely, promoting automobiles and getting a break from the activity whilst discovering to cope with Ménière’s illness, a dysfunction of the inner ear that will cause severe vertigo and ringing in the ears.
He and Gootzeit produced an speedy connection. Their like of horses designed them pals, but it was their shared check out of how to deal with the animals that created them organization companions: Never push them, continue to keep them seem, opt for relaxation more than medication.
“We have been coming out of the pandemic, and it was very clear no one’s timeline was confirmed,” Gootzeit said, “I instructed Joe that it was time to guess on ourselves.”
With Gootzeit offering a bankroll of just $20,000, it took the pair some time to get again in the activity. They struck out at a few auctions before Lejzerowicz fell in adore with No. 954 at the Ocala, Fla., 2-year-old instruction sale very last June. The colt was balanced, muscled and declared by a vet to be correctly sound.
Certainly, they thought, they couldn’t manage him.
“He’s ideal, but we really do not have a snowball’s possibility in hell of obtaining him,” Lejzerowicz instructed Gootzeit.
Lejzerowicz was so selected that their electronic bid would be topped that he was taking a nap in his truck when anyone knocked and instructed him the colt was his for $13,000.
The pair took their time with the colt, whose official name was Freezing Issue (a nod to his sire, Frosted), figuring out his eccentricities and admiring his operate ethic.
“He was a minimal spitfire,” Lejzerowicz, 53, stated. “He was playful. I’d shake my finger at him, and he’d attempt to drive it back at me.”
Lejzerowicz took Snowball to Keeneland in Kentucky to get him completely ready to race. Gootzeit flew in just about every few of weeks to support with coaching and are inclined to the colt. Snowball won when in 3 attempts as a 2-yr-aged and commenced catching the eye of further-pocketed outfits. Gootzeit turned down presents of $150,000, $480,000 and, right after Snowball concluded third final month in the Lafayette Stakes, $600,000.
1 of Gootzeit’s mentors experienced suggested her a long time previously to get an offer for a horse only if the funds was daily life-changing. This was a good deal of income, but Snowball was previously existence-transforming.
The grey colt had reconnected her to some of her happiest times and available an option to utilize her information of bodily therapy and take a look at her theories about what can make a content horse.
In Lejzerowicz, she experienced not only located a mate but also a horseman who shared her values. “We cherished the horse also considerably to consign him to any person else’s care,” Gootzeit explained.
And that is why the pair were at Churchill Downs on the to start with Saturday in May well. They viewed their horse run in the $500,000 Pat Working day Mile Stakes just a few of several hours prior to the Derby.
They viewed from the rail close to the winner’s circle. Snowball broke cleanly from the starting off gate, but in a quarter-mile, Gootzeit and Lejzerowicz acknowledged their horse was in distress.
“His head popped up in the air,” Gootzeit stated. “It swung still left. It swung ideal. Something transpired. I understood a thing undesirable transpired.”
Inside of 30 minutes, Snowball was diagnosed with a broken bone in his left front ankle. In an hour, Gootzeit and Lejzerowicz have been expressing tearful goodbyes to him. Soon after the colt was euthanized, the vet passed on a locket of hair from his mane as a talisman.
Snowball will in no way be changed, but the pair will push on. They are hunting for a further seem thoroughbred whose expertise they can enable surface area.
“We are not likely to be driven out of the activity,” Gootzeit explained. “We want to triumph truthfully and cleanly and give our horses the like and regard they should have. “
2. Wild on Ice
3-12 months-previous gelding
Wounded his still left hind leg for the duration of training and was euthanized
The jockey for this gritty Texas-bred horse, Ken Tohill, has received far more than 4,100 races, but the gelding’s victory in the Sunland Derby in March was his initial in a graded stakes race. At 60, Tohill was established to turn out to be the oldest rider in Derby record. “A present,” is how Tohill explained Wild on Ice a single morning very last thirty day period. He ongoing, “He’s very well bred adequate and his expertise is setting up to present.”
3. Code of Kings
3-yr-previous gelding
Flipped in the paddock and broke his neck
This son of Empire Maker was promising plenty of to debut in Saratoga, but he didn’t dwell up to his guarantee, failing to end greater than fifth in 6 begins. Code of Kings was getting saddled when he turned entranced by social gathering lights at a D.J. booth, according to his coach, and flipped once, 2 times and, finally, a deadly third time.
4. Moms and dads Pride
4-12 months-old filly
Collapsed and died on April 29 in the course of the eighth race at Churchill Downs
This filly had received two in a row and, with a lot more than $153,000 in earnings, experienced tripled her invest in rate. She was the 2nd betting alternative at odds of 2-1 and experienced Churchill’s leading rider, Tyler Gaffalione, aboard. Mom and dad Delight was sitting down a relaxed next in the backstretch when Gaffalione out of the blue pulled her up. She was vanned off the racetrack, then collapsed and died in Churchill’s backside.
5. Chasing Artie
5-calendar year-previous gelding
Collapsed and died on May 2 just after ending the eighth race, in which he finished past
This flexible gelding had stakes victories on grass and dirt. He designed a believer out of Albin Jimenez two summers back at Monmouth Park when the jockey rode him as a final-minute substitution. “It was a very good surprise to choose up this mount,” claimed Jimenez. “I explained, ‘Great. Let’s get the cash.’” They did, earning the initially-area examine in the My Frenchman Stakes.
Chasing Artie was properly trained by Saffie Joseph Jr., as was Parents Delight. Churchill and state regulators refused to permit Joseph’s colt Lord Miles race in the Derby.
“It crushes you. It knocks your self confidence, it helps make you doubt everything,” Joseph mentioned of the fatalities.
6. Acquire Charge Briana
3-calendar year-old filly
Was hurt and fell throughout a May perhaps 2 race and was euthanized
This filly was bred by Willis Horton, a rancher and builder who died previous yr. She was skilled by his longtime trainer, the Corridor of Famer D. Wayne Lukas: “He had a terrific eye for a horse himself and he recognized the game,” mentioned Lukas at the time of Horton’s dying previous 12 months. “He was match, and he was not fearful to move up and devote revenue on a good horse.”
Consider Charge Briana was ridden by Luis Saez, the very same jockey who was on Chasing Artie.
7. Chloe’s Dream
3-year-old gelding
Broke down throughout the second race on Kentucky Derby working day and was euthanized
Chloe’s Dream was named for the daughter of a organization associate of Brook Smith, who operates the Rocket Ship Racing syndicate. Smith and his wife, Pam, are associated with the Backside Finding out Center at Churchill, which presents education and wellness packages for racetrack personnel and their people. Rocket Ship donates 10 percent of its winnings to the center. Smith took Chloe and her family to the paddock wherever he reported Chloe’s Aspiration appeared “beautiful.” When the gelding faltered coming out of the very first transform, Smith claimed he and his celebration had been traumatized.
“It leaves a hole in your belly,” Smith said. He additional that he and his spouse ended up not completely ready to return to the racetrack. “I just cannot go as a result of it yet again.”
