A teachable moment…

One of the most important and most challenging decisions for an owner is where to run their horses. Many people are understandably worried that someone will claim their horse, and of course that can and does happen, particularly if the horse is in good form. Kenwood’s philosophy (along with most other successful racing stables) has always been “keep yourself in the best company and your horses in the worst company”. In other words, run them where they are comfortable and don’t worry about someone claiming them. By doing so you do make it easy on your horses and do right by your owners. On July 1^st, Selma Gayle made her first start since being claimed from us at Penn National last month. She was coming off three straight easy wins for Kenwood against lower level competition. As we stated after her last race when she was claimed “While she’s turned into a fun filly at a lower level and honestly we’d have been happy to keep her another race or two, the water gets deeper for her now having used up her conditions (maiden, non-winner 2, non-winner 3) and having to face proven horses with better records down the road”.  Tonight, instead of running in a similar level claiming race she was run in a tough allowance race, where she finished dead last, beaten 33 lengths. We wish all our horses well, wherever they go. While our trainer, Mark Salvaggio does an outstanding job and it’s frankly rare that any horse who leaves his barn does better elsewhere, raced at an appropriate level, she should have at least been competitive off three straight impressive wins. As we also frequently say, they are racehorses, not racecars. If placed properly next time she still may win, but after this race she may never return to her best form again.

By running Selma Gayle where she belonged, we turned a losing horse into a winning one, got three winner’s circle photos and our money back with a horse who was beaten 20 & 38 lengths in her first two races for us and appeared to be a total loss.  Tonight she was asked to face a level of company she just couldn’t handle. A valuable lesson to remember the next time one of your horses is claimed, particularly out of a winning race.