Perfect Jobs

by Elliot Wiesner

A Kenwood Racing Co-Owner Blog

Can’t sleep through the night? Wake up at 4 in the morning even though you have no worries? Can’t fall back to sleep? Like petting and feeding animals? Like to be outdoors? Like the smell of grass? Want a job with a built in exercise component? Want to avoid traffic on the way to and from work? Want to winter in Florida and summer near the Jersey Shore? Well then, welcome to the world of thoroughbred horse racing as seen through the eyes of horse trainer Stephen (Steve) L. DiMauro, lead groom, Frankie Malocsay, and Robb Levinsky, Founder and Racing Manager of Kenwood Racing at Monmouth Park racetrack in Oceanport, NJ.

Frankie’s day starts at 4:00 am when the alarm riiiiiiiings. After morning ablutions he answers the most important question of his day: coffee at home or from the jockey dining room? His answer today is make it at home but drink it in the car. The jockey dining room is for seconds and breakfast. In the car, along with coffee he has the only vice he allows himself, his daily single cigarette. He can’t smoke in the stables because it is a very real fire hazard. To much hay, which is very flammable, and even more straw, which is very, very flammable even after absorbing the “output” of the horses diet.

Driving past the his church Frankie recalls his favorite biblical verse of childhood, “And Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen”.
1 Kings 4:26. Frankie thinks to himself, just imagine what would have happened if cigarettes or cigars were known in biblical times. Some careless smoker would be slowly and painfully put to death for burning down the King’s stables and rendering his huge army useless.

Entering though the rear gate by the stable area, Frankie waives his grooms license and says hi to the security guard who raises the wooden arm so Frankie can drive through. The guard knows Frankie but it’s track protocol and Frankie doesn’t want to cost him his job. Besides, who else would get here so early so that Frankie can get to work at 5:00 am?

Ok, its time for work. Frankie makes a little noise to let the horses know he’s there, gets the shovel and manure blankets. Ahhh the smell of freshly shoveled straw and manure!!! Each shovelful is heavy but the assistant grooms muscles get used to it, like the iceman of old delivering ice blocks. Drag the full blanket to the disposal area. Do it over and over again until each stall is cleaned out. Frankie heard that mushroom farmers use the straw and manure for growing mushrooms. He doesn’t know if it’s true or not, but Frankie’s not taking any chances and won’t ever eat mushrooms.

Now Frankie looks at the whiteboard by trainer Steve’s office. Steve’s office is a small part of a horse stall sectioned off with wooden door on it and bits, and blinkers and bridles hang from nails on its walls. Nothing presumptuous for a trainer with 1,078 career wins to his credit. On it, in magic marker (yes, Frankie know it’s just called marker these days, but he’s old enough to remember when things were called Xerox’s, not copies, and Scotch tape and “Fridge”), Stephen has written next to each horses name the routine for the horse for today. Some will walk, others will workout on the track singly or in groups of two or three, others will get a timed workout on the track. The two year olds will be trained to get used to the starting gate so they can get their coveted “gate card”, without which they cannot race. Putting a horse in a narrow totally confined space and waiting for a loud bell to ring is against all horses natural instincts. Some never get used to it.

Frankie puts a bridle on each horse, then the blanket and saddle for the horses that will workout. Then his assistants start walking them around perimeter of the barn to warm up. Soon the exercise jockey’s come to ride them on the track for their work (horse workouts are referred to as “work”). Exercise jockeys are usually apprentice jockey’s or ones who are just a little bit to big (10-15 pounds overweight) to be racing jockeys.

Steve carefully watches how each horse looks as it moves before, during and after its work. After each work, Steve debriefs each jockey to get the jockey’s opinion as to how the horse felt to the jockey when working. The horses are cooled down by “hot walkers” who walk the horses around the perimeter of the barn until they cool down. Later each horse is groomed and observed and felt by hand to look for stiffness, swelling, etc. Just as with human athletes, adjustments are made to each horses future works.

All day long it’s “food weightlifting” for the assistant grooms. Each horse will eat about 30 plus pounds of various grain over the course of a day, plus lots of water. That’s lots of filling of food tubs, bucket by bucket, all by hand, and a lot of dirty straw to be removed each morning. But each horse weighs about 1,100 pounds and I did say the job entails an exercise component.

Steve is each horse’s personal trainer, nutritionist, physical therapist and psychologist. He changes their diet and supplements as they mature, as their daily routines change,, makes sure they get bandaged correctly, get massaged and hot or cold wraps, and new shoes.

This morning is “show and tell” for the new co-owners. Robb Levinsky, Racing Manager of Kenwood Racing, meets them promptly at 6:30 am (it’s early for them, but late for Robb), just outside the rear gate. They all pile into a couple of cars and in they drive, parking near the jockey dining room. It’s a short walk to the Kenwood barn where they get introduced to Steve and Frankie and “their” horses. After socializing and giving the horses mints and carrots, it’s a quick walk to the clockers stand from where they will watch the horses work.

After the horses return to the barn to cool down, some co-owners leave. The rest eat in the jockey’s diner. Don’t count on finding much healthy food there. Bacon, pork roll and eggs abound, along with endless coffee. There is plenty of time for the co-owners to watch the jockeys, talk, and plan their betting strategy for the day.

And when the chill of a New Jersey winter calls in late October, Robb, Steve, Frankie, and the horses pack up and go to Gulfstream Racetrack in Hallandale, Florida. You too can go if you had their jobs.