Hi you guys-

Loopy's race was awful. It wasn't supposed to start raining until after 4pm. Loopster doesn't like any mud in her face - the surface has something in it that makes your eyes burn pretty bad- anyway, our regular jockey wasn't going to make it, so we used a bug girl and she followed instructions well and tried to give her a good trip.
In an effort to keep her out of traffic and avoid getting a face full of crap, she kept her wide. Loopy likes the rail and tried for it twice and had to be corrected. coming out of the turn, she was 4 wide, then went inside and ran last. Coming back she was pissed off, throwing her head (face and nose full of mud again), kept trying to run off while unsaddling and tried to kick the valet. She was tossing her head angrily the whole time I walked her back to the backside. She cooled down in 10 minutes (no wonder, she didn't exert herself worth a damn) and was still pissed off by the time we shuttled back to the training center. It was quite a feat to keep her from running off walking her back to the barn.

If I had had any idea that the rain was going to hit when it did, I would have scratched her. She didn't need to experience another race like this. She coughed up some mud again on the way back from the race, as well. I'm wondering if she may have had tie-back surgery at some point because I've really never seen a horse have this much muck going into her breathing apparatus during a race. Tie-back would explain why this is happening. course we don't know if she did because we claimed her. I'm not sure if a vet would be able to tell somehow if this is the case.

she's well today (still pissy) but healthy and high energy. We live to run another day.

Tre