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Jessica Paquette talks Orb, sportswriter gig

By on May 14, 2013

Jessica Paquette enjoys a beautiful afternoon at Suffolk Downs

Jessica Paquette enjoys a beautiful afternoon at Suffolk Downs

Suffolk Downs racing analyst and handicapper Jessica Paquette has parlayed her talent for judging racehorses into an exciting racing column for online sports publication, The Bleacher Report.

Paquette debuted with the Turner Broadcasting affiliate in the weeks before the Kentucky Derby, offering a concise overview of the field of Derby hopefuls, ultimately choosing Kentucky Derby winner Orb as the one.

And, in the weeks leading up to the May 18th Preakness, Paquette will continue to prognosticate as horses are added and subtracted from the card of the second jewel of the Triple Crown.

In this week’s Clubhouse Q&A, the unfailingly optimistic horse fan discusses her online sports writing efforts, the Triple Crown, and horse racing.

Q: Jessica, you say you’re Orb obsessed this Triple Crown season. What’s different about this year for you?

I think Orb has just everything going for him. This, for the most part, I feel is a pretty soft group of three-year-olds and I think that since he was able to strongly defeat them in the Derby, he should have no issue doing it two more times. In addition, he is owned and trained by some of the greatest people in the sport. As a traditionalist with a love for racing history, it is impossible to root against the Phipps/Janney/McGaughey trifecta. They do everything the right way and it is about time they got rewarded with an elusive Derby winner.

Q: You picked Orb to win the Derby, despite not knowing how he’d do in the mud. Could you explain how your handicapping prowess pointed to him?

I thought he was head and shoulders the best horse in the race regardless of the surface. Luckily, his pedigree (he is by Malibu Moon, a son of AP Indy who has developed a reputation for producing off track proficient horses) aided my argument that the mud would not be an issue for him. Another strength for him on an off track was the fact he had already proven he could handle getting dirt kicked back at him. Some horses do not handle it well the first time they get dirt or mud kicked back and he had already shown that was a nonissue.

Q: He was pretty far back in the pack, early on in the Derby, and he ran wide. How does this technique or sheer grit impact your handicapping for the Preakness?

Taking a moment with a very big pony

Taking a moment with a very big pony

He was perfectly ridden by Joel Rosario. Rather than risk getting stopped in traffic, he took him wide and kept him out of trouble. His running style I think will be effective anywhere. He is a closer but he is not the type of closer that has to spot the field a dozen lengths and comes from nowhere. He comes from far back, but is tactical enough to be closer if there is a pedestrian pace.

Q: You’ve recently taken your handicapping skills to a larger audience at online sports publication, The Bleacher Report. How does your career as a handicapper and publicist at Suffolk Downs help inform your newest sports writing position? 

I hope that I am able to offer an insider’s perspective on our wonderful sport and because of what I have done at Suffolk Downs for so long as the racing analyst, I am not shy at all about having opinions!

Q: Does The Bleacher Report’s interest in horse racing and the appearance of Orb give you reason to hope for a good year in racing? 

I think this could be a stellar year for racing. The television ratings for the Kentucky Derby were extremely high and through interesting venues like The Bleacher Report, racing is able to reach a different, new audience and hopefully gain some fans and momentum. And besides, it is easy to be excited about racing when there are so many horses racing right now to be excited about even beyond the Triple Crown. Of course there is Orb, but there are also superstars like Wise Dan racing and he is tremendous to watch.

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A partly blind ex-racehorse is Orb’s go-to pony

By on May 13, 2013

Well Well stands next to his pal, Kentucky Derby winner Orb. Photo by Brittlan Wall

Well Well stands next to his pal, Kentucky Derby winner Orb. Photo by Brittlan Wall

Nearly blind in one eye, and possessing none of the flash and pizzazz of more beautiful racehorses, the plain bay Thoroughbred spent most of his life shirking the limelight.

Well Well was a weird little horse, recalls his longtime rider Priscilla Godsoe.

Though he had a work ethic a mile long, and was one of the most able-bodied and willing mounts on which she’d ever traversed the Pennsylvania foxhunting territory, Well Well was a bit of a loner.

“He didn’t like other horses and really didn’t have any friends out in the field,” Godsoe says. “And the first day I met him, when I was 14 years old, he stood in the back of his stall, pinned his ears, and was tearing at me like I was some kind of monster.”

So naturally, she was stunned last week to see her little project horse of yesteryear in news photos accompanying none other than Kentucky Derby winner Orb!

But there he was. She’d have known the floppy ears, and nonchalant way of standing anywhere.

“The first picture I saw, I could see his ears sticking out, off to the side, and although I could only see half Well Well
Sire: Opening Verse
Dam: Mari Her
Foal date: April 5, 1996of his face in the photo, he had this certain way of standing, and I knew it was him,” she says.

A quick text to her friend Jennifer Patterson, Orb’s exercise rider, confirmed it.

“I wrote, ‘Is that who I think it is, standing next to Orb?’ And, after that she started tagging me (with photos) on Facebook, showing me that Well Well has been going everywhere that Orb has been going.”

She adds, “It made me feel so proud. Everyone wants to say that they’re part of it when a horse wins the Derby, but in this case, it hit close to home.”

Long before Well Well wound up with a job ponying Orb for Shug McGaughey, Godsoe had worked with him for Jimmy Paxton of River Hills Fox Hounds when she was just a young teen.

Though he’d been bred and entered in racing by the famous Mrs. Richard C. duPont, Well Well only earned about $18,000 on the track before he wound up with Paxton. And Paxton turned him over to Godsoe.

“This was my first significant horse, and I was so exited when he came into my life,” she says. She rode him often, and tried everything, including 2-foot-6 Hunters, and a ton of foxhunting.

Baying hounds and rocky footing never fazed Well Well. And though he was never an affectionate animal, he was no-nonsense and professional at all times.

“He approached everything like a job. If you put him on the cross ties, he didn’t stand there like it was time to get peppermints.  He stood still, like he was saying, ‘I’m here to be brushed and groomed.’ That horse was all business.”

Priscilla and Well Well, back in their foxhunting days

Priscilla and Well Well, back in their foxhunting days

Godsoe rode him for 12 years, until while descending a tricky hill one afternoon, she noticed something odd about the way he was holding his head; it was as if he couldn’t see properly.

“He started to cock his head to the right, so he could see out of his left eye,” she says. “And one day when we were out hunting, we were coming down a horrible, crazy cliff-hill-thing, and I could just tell he couldn’t see completely out of his ride side, and he started getting really nervous.”

About two years later, in 2008, Well Well was turned over to fellow foxhunter Duncan Patterson, the father of Orb’s exercise rider, to go to work as a pony for Shug McGaughey.

“I remember they wanted a horse who was fast, who could keep up,” she says. “And Well Well was really fast.”

From Saratoga to the tracks down south, Well Well traveled with his crew to perform his new job as a pony. Godsoe would get word of him from time to time and always felt a sense of joy, knowing her old quirky loner was taking care of business.

But when she saw her old friend standing so placidly next to Orb, her jaw dropped.

Well Well had gone first class!

“Every single day that Orb goes to the track Well Well goes with him. And when Orb was flown to New York after the Derby, only one other horse flew with him; it was Well Well,” she says, her voice filling with pride.

“Honestly, to know that somebody loves him and appreciates him makes me so happy. I see him in the pictures, and he looks just as well brushed and shiny as Orb— it’s just a cool feeling to see.”

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From the back of the pack comes a star eventer

By on May 10, 2013

Seahawk competes last year at Waredaca

Seahawk competes last year at Waredaca. Photo courtesy Rhodes-Bosch

Long-bodied, and elegant, Mighty Mariner was absolutely stunning in last place as he trailed the pack of thundering racehorses.

In his first and only race on a Tampa racetrack in January 2011, his trainers had to admit that though he wouldn’t run if his tail were on fire, he sure did cut a fine figure of a racehorse.

And before the dark bay cantered across the finish line, Jimmy Miranda of Rapid Run Training Center pulled out his cell phone to text top-level eventer and part-time racehorse trainer Stephanie Rhodes-Bosch, an unabashed fan of the lovely gelding she had helped train as a two-year-old.

He did not mince words.

“Your horse was beautiful at the back of the track,” Miranda wrote. “When can I drop him off?”

And with that, Mighty Mariner began his second career even before he was unsaddled and put back in his stall.

Renamed Seahawk, as an homage to his Seattle Slew lineage and for the look in his eyes, so keen and smart, that reminded Rhodes-Bosch of the mighty hunting bird, the Maryland-based equestrian, who had scored so well at the 2010 Rolex Three Day, scored again!

Race name: Mighty Mariner
New name: Seahawk
Sire: Chief Seattle
Dam: Miss Atlantis
Foal date: 2008“I first met Mighty Mariner when he was at the barn where I was working. When I was training with David O’Connor on Port Authority, getting ready for Rolex, I spent my mornings exercising Thoroughbreds at Rapid Run Training Center,” she says. “And this is where I met Mighty Mariner.

“He was one of the horses I used to ride everyday, and early on, I remember thinking he had a really good natural balance and a good way of going. He was so cooperative, and just a pleasure to ride.”

The first time they cantered, even though he was still undeveloped and lacking in muscle, she imagined what it might be like to own him.

She made no secret of her desire. And, after she received the text she’d been hoping for, Rhodes-Bosch took in her nonperforming racehorse and promptly put him on vacation.

“I knew he was going to grow like a bad weed after he was done training, so I turned him out, and he spent most of time outside, just growing and growing,” she says, noting that he filled out and grew to 16.3 hands of powerfully pretty horseflesh.

He went into training with an eagerness he had not shown at the track. In 2012, while living in the plains of Virginia, she put him to work schooling at a hilltop farm as if he’d been doing it all his life.

Seahawk at Waredaca

Seahawk at Waredaca

Progressing steadily and easily, he began novice horse trials and started finishing in the upper percentile of competitors. He won a Jockey Club Thoroughbred Incentive Novice Champion Award at Waredacka in October 2012 and was well on his way to even greater heights.

On to Florida for more intensive training in January and February, and up the ladder he climbed. Taking second place at his first training level at the Ocala Horse Properties Winter II, he scored a 24.

From there, he took second at The Fork in North Carolina three months later and won a schooling horse trial at Loch Moy Farm in Maryland soon after.

And so far this year, Seahawk has already put in impressive runs at the Loch Moy Starter Trials in March, where he had clear rides in stadium jumping and cross country, and at The Fork Hunter Trials, where he placed third.

Judging by his early success, Rhodes-Bosch believes that in Seahawk, the woefully untalented racehorse will likely be an eventing star.

A world-class rider who placed fifth at the 2010 Rolex Kentucky Three Day and earned 9th individually, and helped win the Team Silver Medal at the 2010 World Equestrian Games on her OTTB Port Authority, Rhodes-Bosch says her workmanlike new Thoroughbred is a true professional who always gets the job done.

“I’ve had the opportunity to ride some great horses in my life, and I’ve ridden a variety of breeds, from Connemara to Irish sport horses and Warmbloods. I’ve found that the OTTBs are the easiest to train, and right from the start, they come out to do a job,” she says.

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