“I’m the luckiest guy on the face of the earth.”
Doug O’Neill steals the line from Lou Gehrig, but he says it with the same sincerity and conviction as the Iron Man. He really believes he might be the luckiest guy on the face of the earth.
The question that goes through my head is, how could he see himself as lucky? He’s certainly had his share of adversity, and not all of it of his own making. He’s had one brother, Danny, die from cancer at only 38 years old. Another brother, Dennis, Doug’s main horseflesh evaluator, battled non-Hodgkins lymphoma into remission. He’s been crucified in the public media, posted as Exhibit B for what’s wrong with horseracing.
Nobody says it to him directly of course, but everyone has heard his nickname – Drug O’Neill. Instead of anger, he jokes that if his mother had known how people would twist his name, she would have named him something different.
I came to Santa Anita to find out what goes on behind the scenes at the racetrack and write about it. I decide I have another task. Finding out why the hell Doug O’Neill is so sanguine.
MEETING DOUG O’NEILL
It was serendipity that I came to know Doug. I had written an article about his New York conviction for oxazepam in September 2014, and a few days after it came out I got a tweet from Glenn Sorgenstein, one of the principals at W C Racing, owners of Goldencents. He had seen the article and wanted to know if I would be willing to talk with him. We spent a good hour on the phone talking about Doug and his current problems. Then Glenn asked if I wanted to talk with Doug directly.
The next day I had my first of many conversations with Doug. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Like most people, all I knew was what I had read, and a lot of that wasn’t flattering. What I didn’t expect was to fall into a conversation with him as easily as if I had known him for years. He was open and forthright, not dodging any of my questions. I waited for the anger, maybe some self-pity, but it never came.
I originally had no plans to attend the Breeders Cup, but after talking with Glenn and Doug, I decided to go. That was perhaps the highlight of my racing life, but it is a story for another article.
I met Doug for the first time for breakfast at a Denny’s on Huntington Avenue in Arcadia on Breeders Cup Day. That was as close as he was allowed to Santa Anita. He ordered a plate low in fat and calories, and most likely taste. I smiled to myself, noting he and I suffered from the same affliction – a love of food and a metabolism that refused to allow us to enjoy it without adding a pound or two. I showed my solidarity by ordering scrambled egg whites – with a side of whole wheat pancakes. The egg whites were made edible with enough tabasco, but the pancakes weren’t salvageable even drowned in syrup.
Normally Doug would have been at the barn attending to Goldencents, the reigning BC Mile champion who would be defending his title later that afternoon, but he was serving the extra suspension California had put on him in light of an almost certainly bogus oxazepam conviction in New York.
It was there that I asked him if he would be willing to let me shadow him for a few days, starting in the morning and going through the race day. I thought if I could watch what he did, how he acted around the barn I’d have a better understanding of whether Doug O’Neill was the guy pilloried in the press or the one I’d started to know. He readily agreed.
I called Doug in February to make arrangements.
MARCH 24-25
I drove into Arcadia on a Tuesday afternoon and left a voicemail for Doug that I would see him first thing Wednesday morning on the backside. It turns out he was flying back from the Ocala two-year olds in training sale in Florida. It underscored one of the things you can’t avoid noticing about Doug – he is always running to get to the next place he needs to be, and it always seemed that there were lots of places he needed to be.
On Wednesday at about 5:30 AM I entered the track through Gate 8 off Baldwin Avenue. The employee’s lot was already packed with cars. There were hundreds of grooms, exercise riders, hot walkers, jockey agents, trainers and assistants already hard at work. The track opens for training at 5:00 and all horses have to be exercised by 10:00. There is a renovation break every hour on the main track when the watering truck and tractors re-groom the surface. The turf course is only open for training on Thursdays, but I can already see the dogs – the temporary rails that keep horses off the inner part of the course – set up a good distance from the inner rail in preparation for the next day’s work.
I call Doug and when he answers the phone I let him know I am at the track.
“Great,” he says. Then pauses and asks, “Which track?”
“Santa Anita,” I say.
He informs me that Wednesday he is at Los Alamitos. During the Santa Anita season only the horses that are racing are stabled there, with the rest of the string either turned out at nearby Sunshine Farms or getting ready for a return to the races at Los Alamitos. He says he has around 44 horses total in training, half at Santa Anita, half at Los Alamitos.
I tell him that I’m just going to hang out at Santa Anita this morning and he offers to meet nearby for a late breakfast after training is closed. Sounds great, I tell him.
“Alright, brother. I’ll give you a call later this morning.” Brother is Doug’s all-purpose moniker for just about every man, sister for the women.
I get a call from Doug at about 11. “Can we do lunch in Santa Monica instead of breakfast?” Sure, I say. “Great, I’ll text you the address. About 1 o’clock.” Always wanted to see Santa Monica anyway.
With the help of GPS I find my way to the OP Cafe on Ocean Park Boulevard in Santa Monica. Doug is there with two of his long time friends. We all chat for a few minutes before his buddies excuse themselves, leaving Doug to continue eating another ultra-healthy looking meal and me looking to order something I’m sure won’t taste anything like those pancakes from Denny’s. Doug directs me to the breakfast menu where he proudly points out a listing of choices labelled as “Doug O’Neill’s Winners Circle.”
Doug explains that Mark, one of the guys I met, owns the Cafe. The OP has become their middle aged headquarters, the place where the Santa Monica crew hangs out. Doug moved from Michigan to Santa Monica as a youth and that’s where he’s been ever since.
“I’ve known those guys since high school. I couldn’t have made it through all the adversity without my family and them,” he says. This gives me a lot of insight into my question. He’s faced the loss of one sibling and a scare with another. He tells me all the public scorn has been nothing compared to having to deal with what happened with his brothers, and he made it through with supportive friends and a close family. A friend of Doug O’Neill is not just an acquaintance. Doug is genuine, loyal and generous to those he is close to. In return those people are fierce supporters. In three days I met no one in Doug’s orbit who didn’t think the world of him, from his lifelong friends to the members of Team O’Neill to the owners he trains for to a hundred other track denizens.
(Note to self: if you want to feel lucky, tune out the negative, know who to rely on, and live life knowing how fragile and fleeting it can be.)
I ask Doug about his family. He’s been married 16 years, one son, 12 and one daughter, 10. He met his wife in grade school and somehow with Doug that fact doesn’t seem at all surprising.
Doug reminds me that I have to go through Los Angeles to get back to Arcadia, and if I don’t get started the traffic will be horrendous. It’s actually all relative. Denver has its version of traffic jams, which in LA would barely be worthy of mention by Copter whatever. To me freeway traffic in LA at 11 AM is nerve-wracking. I’m actually seeing driving on a Los Angeles freeway as one of those things everyone should do once in their lives, with a t-shirt reading “I Survived the 5” as a prize. We make plans to meet first thing in the morning.
THURSDAY MARCH 26
This is one of those weeks where the weather is delightfully monotonous – and perfect. It’s cool in the morning, although not cold, with the promise of plenty of sun and temperatures around 80 by the afternoon. Doug and I meet near Clocker’s Corner, where there is a substantial gathering of people, all of whom seem to know each other. O’Neill is dressed in his standard trainer’s garb – long black, baggy cargo shorts, a tee shirt, black socks and running shoes – sort of surfer dude meets revenge of the nerds. Gary Stevens is working the crowd as he does most mornings if he doesn’t have a horse to exercise. Jockey agents, some with their clients, search for trainers they need to talk with. Bob Baffert is wandering around looking like someone who couldn’t figure out where he had left the car keys, and despite the fact he is Bob Baffert nobody seems to be paying particular attention except the newbie, me. Coffee and breakfast items flow out of the small cafe at the back of Clockers Corner at a brisk pace. It’s open only until workouts are done, but they feed a lot of people in that time. The only thing I wasn’t sure I saw in the corner was clockers.
Doug and I walk back to Barn 88 toward the far end of the stable area, past dozens of runners either heading out to or coming back from a work. It’s a tricky walk in the pre-dawn since you simultaneously have to watch for the horses and look down on the ground to make sure you aren’t stepping in anything unpleasant. The smell is simultaneously sweet and assaulting, what I could describe as “racetrack.”
A large sign reading “Team O’Neill” is mounted on the side of the barn. This isn’t just rhetorical. Doug wants everyone to see themselves under the umbrella of the moniker – it is as much their name on the side of the barn as Doug’s.
When I ask him why he has been successful, he doesn’t hesitate to credit the people he has. “I find the best people and I make sure they want to stay a part of my team. Everyone has an essential job and I make sure they understand how critical they are to the success of team O’Neill. I’ve got people who have been with me for years, and not every trainer can say that. That kind of consistency and teamwork are what make my barn successful.”
Doug has a small office at one end of the barn that attracts a steady flow of visitors. I look on the wall and there is a battered plaque reading
Live well, laugh often, love horses.
One more part of the answer. I will learn it is the essence of O’Neill.
The parade to the office is non-stop. Jockey agents looking for a ride, horse transport people coordinating the myriad of cross-town and long-distance moves. Dr. Ryan Carpenter, Doug’s veterinarian, has already made his morning rounds. He and Doug “lay hands” on all the horses stabled there daily, looking for any evidence of soreness or sickness. All the horses will get their temperatures taken, and if any are feverish they’ll be watched closely all day.
Once the horses pass morning check, Doug pulls out the workout schedule he prepared the night before. What order, how far, how fast, who will be up. He treats it like a document that came out of a diplomatic pouch, making sure it is in his care at all times. He runs through the schedule with his assistants and his barn manager, the word is spread to the rest of the team and the workout day begins.
The horses first scheduled to go out start walking in a designated area on the side of Barn 88. There is a strip of grass down the middle, making it look like a miniature paddock walking ring. I don’t see an automated horse walker at Barn 88. The runners are warmed up and cooled out by their grooms. Once the horses are warmed up one of the exercise riders hops on board, and the horses head out to the track.
Doug has to take a call. The phone seems at his ear incessantly. This time it is one of the people with the company transporting a horse he has for a race in Pennsylvania. Doug explains which trainer will be stabling the horse and to make sure the horse gets to that trainer’s barn. I decide to wander up shed row while Doug makes sure the horse is delivered where it is supposed to be.
There are stalls on both sides of a long barn, each one filled at least six inches deep with clean wood shavings. There are workers mucking out the stalls of the horses that are outside being prepped to work, and despite the seemingly unpleasant nature of the job, they occasionally burst into song, in Spanish naturally. One of the workers has a boom box playing rancheras at a volume only loud enough for him to hear it and sing along. At the end of the barn opposite Doug’s office is an area for bathing the horses and a shoeing area. It is all very well maintaned and clean, at least for a horse barn.
By the time I walk back Doug is temporarily off the phone and checking the work list again. One of the exercise riders, “Shorty,” is sick and won’t be coming in. I find it interesting that even among a group not known for its stature, some rider still merits the nickname Shorty. Doug calls over to Los Alamitos to see if he can get some help from the riding crew over there.
“Can you send me two riders at about 8:30? One of my guys didn’t make it in today. I can give them three horses each to work. $45.” Once the arrangements are made, he marks it on his sheet and lets the barn manager know. I ask if they get cash. “Never,” he says, “they go through payroll just like everyone else.”
“C’mon,” Doug says, “Let’s go watch the horses gallop,” and back to the track we go. We’ll make the trip from track to barn four or five more times before the morning works are done.
Two of Doug’s horses are cantering in company down the stretch, but by the time they hit the half mile pole on the backstretch they’ve picked up the pace noticeably. Doug tells me that every horse is on a schedule, which is why the workout sheet is so important. “I like to gallop my horses a little faster than a lot of trainers do, somewhere between a slow gallop and workout speed.” I watch the two horses gallop down the lane on the rail. “Maybe send them along at 14’s – 14 second eighths. They usually get an actual work once a week or so, but they are on the track every day.”
It’s time for a renovation break so we grab some coffee and head back to the stable. More phone calls. A jockey agent stops by and asks if Doug has anything. “No, not today,” Doug says, “but I’m keeping him in mind.” The agent thanks Doug and moves on.
I’ve brought my iPad to take notes and I see Doug has a computer in the office. I ask if the computer works and he admits it doesn’t in a tone that leads me to believe it didn’t break down recently. The folded piece of paper with handwriting on it in Doug’s pocket starts to make more sense.
I ask about wi-fi and he directs me next door to his business person Sharla. “No wi-fi,” she says, “but you can borrow my computer if you need to.” I thank her and tell her no problem – I brought a regular paper notebook that will work.
One of the horses that worked is being unsaddled outside the office. As the saddle is removed steam rises off the horse’s back. Doug heads outside to check the horse and discovers some filling in one of his ankles. He puts in a call to Dr. Carpenter to come check it. Doug will find out later the news is not so good. The horse is going to be sidelined for a while. The injury isn’t serious, but there is no way Doug will run the horse until it is healed. Doug consults with Dr. Carpenter and they agree to give the gelding an anti-inflammatory shot and send him off to Sunshine Farms for 60 days. Doug makes a call to arrange for the transport.
“The owners won’t be happy,” he tells me, “but what can we do? No way the horse can run on that ankle. Better to let it heal and bring him back healthy.”
I ask him about the injection. He tells me his policy is that he would never inject a joint less than a week out from a race. He tells me not only is he at a point in his career where he doesn’t have to race sore horses, but as the plaque reads, he really does love his animals. Nothing I’ve seen so far suggests otherwise.
By this time the horses are getting ready to be out on the track as soon as the renovation break is over. Doug and I watch a few of them walking around the stable ring. There are buckets filled with water at the end of the ring, and occasionally a groom will lead a horse over to drink. One horse refuses to drink and I avoid the opportunity to mention something about leading a horse to water…. Once a horse has drunk from a bucket it is cleaned and filled with fresh water.
Once the exercise riders mount we walk out to the track to watch the workouts. As much as is possible given everything going on, Doug likes to watch every horse on the track. This time we head to the grandstand just beyond the finish line and go into one of the private boxes. “A group of us invested in the box. It’s a nice place to watch the races, and the workouts in the morning.”
It has a couch, some chairs and a long table for eating. There is a betting machine, six large TV screens, and a refrigerator filled with soft drinks and water. As I’ll find out in the afternoon, there are plenty of attendants to take care of ordering food. At the end of two days I get known as “the ketchup guy” since I constantly seem to be asking for more ketchup for my burger and fries.
Doug and I talk about the horses on the track. “That one looks like a sprinter, big hinds and built downhill,” I comment trying to sound like I know what I’m talking about. Doug agrees. “Yeah, does seem to have a sprinter’s build.” Even if I was totally off base, I had the feeling he wouldn’t embarrass me by saying so.
I ask more questions about training. Ever try interval training like they push with humans? No, doesn’t seem to work the same way for horses. How do you decide on a jockey? Well, with Paul Redham’s horses, he likes to use Mario Guttierez. W C Racing likes Bejarano and Drayden Van Dyke. Some jockeys match up better with certain horses and if we find that match I like to stay with that jockey. I tend to be loyal to the riders who have been straight with me. If I give them a horse they’ll get plenty of chances to succeed.
It is a recurring theme, and perhaps if there is a weak spot in Doug’s personality it is being loyal and trusting to a fault. I’m not sure Doug could get confrontational. At a point later on when I ask Doug about some of the medication violations earlier in his career, he says, maybe I trusted some people more than I should have. But that loyalty and trust in people is also what defines Doug O’Neill as much as anything. It is what makes his friends fiercely protective of him. He really doesn’t have the ability to be any other way. In three days I never saw him bark at anyone. I watched him absorb the rider’s comments on a mount that was favored but lost, even soothing the rider when he seemed worried about Doug’s reaction.
Doug O’Neill is loyal and trusting. Still, he is perhaps his own biggest critic.
We once again head back to the barn and on the way we run into Drayden Van Dyke who is riding Papa Kade in the second race today. Van Dyke doesn’t look like he has to shave often, if at all. Doug exchanges pleasantries, introduces me, and talks a bit about the horse before we again start for the barn.
Doug says, “Drayden is a great rider, natural instincts, good hands. He’s like Bejarano in that he has a natural jockey’s build. He’ll be a top rider for a long time.” I ask if he likes to give jockeys detailed instructions. He says, “most of the time I just tell the jockey to get a feel for how the race is being run and how the horse is going and to put the horse in the right spot to win.” I think he’s far more patient than I would be – my jockey instructions would probably be as long as my blogs.
Jack Sisterson, one of Doug’s assistants stops by. He’s heading out to catch a plane that afternoon to Turfway Park where one of the stable stars, Sharla Rae, is in a stakes on Saturday. Sisterson drew the job of attending to the filly while she is in Kentucky. I asked Doug why all the way to Turfway? He said she loves the polytrack and there are fewer choices for that surface these days. Need to go where the purses are.
The training day is coming to an end and Doug tells me he needs to do a conference call and then he’ll head over to his mom’s house to shower and dress for the afternoon. Doug has four horses in – one each in the second and eighth races, two in the seventh. We agree to meet at the paddock before the second race.
I’m hanging out at around 1:00 when they walk the horses into the saddling area. Doug is not walking the horse in. He’s a little late – that’s not uncommon – but he gets there before they put the saddle on. When he lists all the balls he was juggling you feel like you should be the one apologizing. The trainer outfit has given way to a pair of khaki’s, a button down shirt and dress leather shoes. Maybe he’ll get his picture taken today. I spy Glenn Sorgenstein, owner and breeder of the number 4, Papa Kade and we walk down to the saddling stall together. Papa Kade is shipping back from Golden Gate where he had just won a mile race on the polytrack. Despite DRF Formulator sharing that O’Neill is almost 30% with horses going from synthetic to dirt after winning the last out, Papa Kade is ice cold on the board and ultimately goes off at 38-1.
We all head up to the box to watch the race. Glenn tells me he’s flying out tonight to watch Sharla Rae and shows me a video Jack Sisterson sent of Sharla Rae galloping over a sloppy Turfway track. The race goes off and Papa Kade prompts the pace for a while, but ultimately fades out of the picture, only beating one horse. Glenn is disappointed – he has a great affection for all his horses, and especially those that he has raised from a foal. It’s not just a business for him. He’s emotionally invested in all his animals, stopping by in the mornings to check on them, attending their races, even the ones 3,000 miles away, and feeding them carrots afterward, win or lose.
Glenn Sorgenstein is a highly successful businessman. Along with his partner, Josh Kaplan, they make up W C Racing. Most people think the W C stands for West Coast, but it is actually the initials of Wilshire Coin, the business he and Josh own. He is another one of those people who thinks the world of Doug and it is a telling endorsement. Glenn would tolerate nothing less than an honest, caring horseman, and watching the two of them together, I get the feeling Doug would never do anything to disappoint Glenn.
We all head down to the track to chat with Van Dyke after he dismounts. Papa Kade just didn’t have it today. Papa Kade and his groom head back to the barn, Doug and I make our way back to the box and Glenn takes off for the airport.
By the time we get back jockey agent Tom Knust is sitting on the couch reading a racing form. Tom gets the credit for originally pairing up Kevin Krigger with eventual BC Mile champion Goldencents and is one of the people close to O’Neill. As soon as Doug sits down, he pulls the phone out and starts calling and texting. He tells me he tries to call all his owners a couple of times a week. Even beyond the owners, the list of phone calls that need to be made is voluminous. He takes a break from the phone to pull up a video of two animated kids composing a message to their grandmother, and we all watch. It’s also Doug O’Neil to mostly have pictures and videos of his family on his phone.
We all take advantage of the break between races to order lunch. O’Neill orders a piece of grilled chicken with asparagus. I throw caution to the wind and order a hamburger – with fries. Mine is delicious, O’Neill’s sustaining. My solidarity with the waist-watching diet only goes so far. The NCAA tournament is on one of the TV’s that surround the box. The UCLA-SMU game is coming down to the wire. Somebody mentions they have UCLA in their bracket, and when SMU gets called for goaltending, he feels like he stole the game. Based on the tweets, so does everyone else. Doug mentions that I referee basketball, and despite watching all the replay angles they have multiple times, I conclude the official could have sold that call either way. That seems to satisfy everyone.
We head down to the paddock to saddle Frandontjudge and Susan B. Good in the seventh. Kent Desormeaux has the mount on Susan B. Good and if there is someone who can match O’Neill for exuberance and positive attitude at the track it it is Desormeaux. As he usually does, O’Neill stretches the horses legs. He tells me it may help loosen them a bit, but what he is really looking for is to make sure the horse doesn’t react to it. Neither horse threatens, making up two of the last three across the wire. When Desormeaux pops off the horse he starts explaining that she was running like the track was a hot stove, demonstrating with his hands. Doug takes it in and says we have to get to the paddock to saddle Joshie Hit a Homer in the eighth.
On the way to the way to the paddock Doug gets a call from Desormeaux’s agent who assures Doug that Desormeaux really wants to ride the horse back. Doug issues one of his natural responses – you got it brother. I ask him if Desormeaux will get that mount again and he says, absolutely.
Joshie has been in four turf races in search of a maiden victory, but is trying the dirt today. I ask what Doug was thinking. He said they don’t write $30K claimers for turf maidens and the horse needed a race. He’s actually bred better for the dirt (being by Stevie Wonderboy, the horse that propelled Doug to prominence) and goes off at 9-2, but like the other O’Neill runners he doesn’t give us any reason to root.
We find the owners and they are visibly disappointed. I realize the dilemma that faces all trainers. If you tell the owners their horse is ready to run and he doesn’t they are irritated, but if you tell the owners the horse doesn’t have much of a chance they’re wondering why he’s running. It turns out they are also the owners of the horse who got sent to the farm this morning with the bad ankle and, as predicted, they are unhappy with that development. Doug does his best to soothe them as we walk out of the track. I say goodbye to Doug and tell him I’ll see him first thing tomorrow, and I leave him to finish the conversation with the owners.
FRIDAY MARCH 27
The fact that I am still on something of a high from getting to shadow Doug makes it a little easier to get up and be out of my room by 5 AM.
We start with the same routines, except this morning Doug’s main assistant Leandro Mora is back from spending a few days hiking in Yosemite. Leandro is the person who took over for Doug during his suspension, and has been with Doug for years. I asked Leandro if he’s thought about going out on his own, and like a lot of the other people who work for Doug he says he is content where he is. He is sincere and direct and I have no reason to suspect he is just giving me a politically correct response.
He also tells me all the stable workers have been asking about me, who I am, what I’m doing there. Mora is proud of the fact that they all know to pay attention to anyone who isn’t one of Team O’Neill. O’Neill has learned to be cautious, if not suspicious, when it comes to unknown people being around the barn.
Mora seems as perpetually upbeat as everyone else around the barn, and he reinforces it with a world-class smile. He grabs a helmet puts it on his head so that it sits at a goofy angle, and heads out to act as lead pony for one of the horses. Everyone in the stable agrees that underneath the easy going exterior, Mora is a first-rate horseman. He’s a perfect match for O’Neill.
Today I notice a monitor in the corner of Doug’s office with feeds from a series of video cameras. I ask and Doug says, “I paid for the security monitoring system. I couldn’t wait for Santa Anita to install something. The system has two weeks of storage and you can clearly see every stall in the barn.”
O’Neill is clear that he will never again have a situation like Wind of Bosphorus in New York where the burden of proof fell on him to convince the stewards no one in his barn had given the horse oxazepam. If it happens in California he’ll have video to provide as evidence.
O’Neill has also hired his own private security guard, Marcus Semona, to patrol the stable area. O’Neill told me that as far as he knows he is the only barn to have its own security guard.
I can attest Semona is doing his job. When he found me talking with Jimmy Jimenez he made sure he documented who I was. O’Neill knows that the negative part of his reputation follows him around, and he knows if he has a horse test positive he’ll have to work that much harder to convince the CHRB he was doing everything right.
This morning when we head out to the track Doug has a stopwatch with him. Two horses will be recording official workouts and Doug tells the riders he wants them to go :49 for four furlongs. On the way out he stops by the hut that separates the public area from the backside to let someone know two horses will be recording workouts. We find a spot in the grandstand and when the horses break off at the half-mile pole he clicks the stopwatch. At the wire he catches the four furlong time as :48.86 and snaps a final time of 1:04 after they’ve galloped out to the 7/8 pole.
“Exactly what I wanted,” he says.
Doug decides to stay out at the track for a while to watch workers until the next renovation break. I tell him I’m going back to the barn to talk with Dr. Ryan Carpenter, Doug’s new – actually he’s been there a few years now – veterinarian, who is scheduled to give a Lasix shot to a horse named Blind Dreams running in the first race. She’s running for the first time as part of Team O’Neill. She got her name because she lost an eye shortly after birth. Fortunately it was her right eye, which means she is not inclined to drift out.
Dr. Carpenter is there right before 9, exactly four hours before post time with a syringe in his hand. Dr. Carpenter is a relatively young, but accomplished as a both a practicing vet and a surgeon. O’Neill is glowing about having him on board.
I ask if it is a 10 cc shot, and he says, no, only 5 cc’s. He said he and Doug have agreed to give horses the smallest dose they can get by with and that only more serious bleeders or very large horses would need a full 10 cc shot. Blind Dreams didn’t fall into either category and 5 cc’s would work fine for her. Dr. Carpenter said some horses get as little as 3 cc’s.
As a side note, I’ve talked with other trainers and many of them are cutting back on Lasix dosages, perhaps not enough to satisfy the WHOA supporters, but certainly reflecting modern thinking on the introduction of therapeutics.
He approaches Blind Dreams on her left side, the side with the working eye, so she doesn’t get panicky and quickly locates the spot in her neck where he’ll make the injection. The whole thing is over in a few seconds and Blind Dreams seems none the worse for wear.
I spend some time talking with Dr. Carpenter about how Doug manages the health of his charges. Dr. Carpenter repeats something Doug has said to me a few times: it’s all about the horse. Like most vets he believes in the value of therapeutic medication, but just as strongly believes horses should not be treated to run through an injury, and he assures me he would work for no trainer that believed anything different. Dr. Carpenter was a good find for O’Neill. Since Dr. Carpenter has joined Team O’Neill there haven’t been any positive tests. O’Neill believes he can trust Dr. Carpenter to take care of the horses the right way, critical given how O’Neil does business, and Dr. Carpenter can make sure O’Neill isn’t getting called into the stewards’ office for a medication positive. O’Neill has a hard line policy – nobody administers medication except Dr. Carpenter.
I’m thinking of heading back to the track when I run into Jimmy Jimenez who is setting up to re-shoe Caradini. (You can read about Jimmy the Shoer in one of my earlier blogs from this week). I asked O’Neill how good he thought Caradini could be and he said she will eventually be a Grade 1 winner. She’s in a maiden today and will likely be one of the favorites.
During the shoeing one of the track vets comes by to check Caradini. I ask what he is looking for and he says mostly he is looking for joint soreness or any lameness. He says the examination obviously wouldn’t reveal any structural problems, but it would give a good indication about whether the horse is fit enough to run. Lots of feeling and manipulating the joints. Caradini looks bored by the whole thing, but the track vet is satisfied she is ready to race.
By the time I get done talking to Jimmy, it’s close to noon and I decide too late to head to my room to change, so I amble over to the paddock to wait for Blind Dreams. A little past 12:30 Leandro Mora and the assigned groom are leading the horse to the saddling area and I fall in with them. Doug joins us and we go through the very practiced routine.
One thing I noticed was that at all times everyone was aware that a horse could get jumpy. It seems the more you are around horses the more you don’t take any good behavior for granted. A lot of “watch out,” especially directed toward me.
Blind Dreams goes off at 3-1, makes a mild move down the backstretch and closes well in the stretch to miss second by three-quarters of a length. Two more chances for me to sneak into a win picture.
Josh Kaplan shows up by the fourth race. His horse, the newly shod Caradini, is entered in the sixth.
The next horse up is the Redham runner One More in the fifth. She runs close up early but gets swallowed in the stretch, finishing fourth at 23-1. Caradini is the last hope of the day for Team O’Neill. She has a horror trip, getting fanned very wide on both turns and trying to close into a fairly mild pace. She went off a close third choice and the disappointment in the box is obvious.
THE ANSWER
I figure the time had come to ask O’Neill about what everyone wanted to know – the medication and drug positives. I had pulled up the last ten years of records and they broke down this way:
Administrative violations (e.g., late to the paddock, failure to file foal papers) – 20
Therapeutic overages – 8
Omeprazole (generic Prilosec, used to treat ulcers) – 1, KY-2010
Etodoeac (used to treat arthritic inflammation) – 1, CA-2011
Dantrolene (used to treat muscle cramping) – 2, CA- 2005, 2011
Dexamethasone (anti-inflammatory steroid) – 1, CA-2005
Flunixin (NSAID) – 2, CA-2008, 2013
Phenylbutazone (NSAID) 1, CA-2009
Other overages – 4
TCO2 – 2, CA-2006, 2010
Oxazepam – 1, NY- 2013
Testosterone (steroid) – 1, FL-2010
The Administative violations are really at worst parking tickets, and generally a trainer gets dinged for the same reasons people wind up with one on their windshield. If you’ve had one, you know what I mean. There are a myriad of racing rules, and it is the rare trainer who doesn’t run afoul of one sooner or later. For me, these are of no importance in defining Doug’s character.
I’ve written about the oxazepam violation and it is hard to conclude anything other than cross-contamination. O’Neill was railroaded, perhaps because he is Doug O’Neill and perhaps because incorrectly punishing a violation is far better for the tracks than not punishing one.
The TCO2 violation for Argenta in 2010 was almost certainly due to a Lasix bump. Even though the violation was undeniable, it became a federal case (literally) because it wasn’t enough for the CHRB to fine O’Neill for a simple violation of a the TCO2 standard. CHRB wanted to label O’Neill as a “milkshaker.” They were going to get him for cheating and take care of him once and for all. O’Neill fought the case, and proved the TCO2 violation was not due to the horse being fed a milkshake, but he really had no chance to wiggle out from underneath the overage. Doesn’t matter that nobody was purposely trying to spike the horse, somebody on Team O’Neill messed up somewhere and O’Neill was stuck with the tab. He was left with over $400,000 in legal bills when CHRB could have done a simple test at the beginning of the investigation to prove the overage had nothing to do with milkshaking, saving both O’Neill and the state hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I decided not to go through each violation and instead I asked O’Neill the larger question – why all the violations earlier in his career? O’Neill doesn’t deny anything other than the oxazepam violation and that he never milkshaked Argenta. He hesitated, not so much out of unwillingness to answer but I thought out of embarrassment. He admits that in the end whatever happened to him was his own fault. It’s a hard thing for someone to blame themselves for not paying closer attention or placing too much trust in people who turned out to be sloppy or operating too close to the edge, but O’Neill tells me that is exactly what he did.
He wasn’t trying to make excuses. Doug O’Neill didn’t take care of business, maybe believing everyone else would or maybe believing it wasn’t that big a deal. He learned a hard lesson.
I spent three days pretty much following Doug wherever he went, and it was clear how dependent he was on Team O’Neill. Everyone needed to do their job and do it well. He’s hands on with some things, but given all the responsibilities a trainer has, it is impossible to be everywhere at once. The precision, the coordination it takes to keep everything running efficiently is far greater than I ever knew. You don’t just condition horses, you run a complex business on the side.
We are all colored by our life experiences, and the test of a person is not whether he never makes a mistake but whether he learns from his mistakes and takes care not to make them again. I want to believe everything I saw in three days with Doug O’Neill tells me he has embraced that.
I’ll confess that I like Doug O’Neill. It’s almost impossible not to like him once you get to know him. He’s a great guy. He extended himself to me far beyond my expectations. He didn’t put anything out of bounds. He included me inside his circle. I want him to be clean and I want him to succeed, and I think that is the other thing Doug knows. He wouldn’t just disappoint himself, but all the people who have been there when he needed them if he messed up again.
O’Neill has also gained great perspective. He takes time off to do things with his kids, understanding how important family is. He leans on the people who truly love him for advice and centering. He has hired a team of people who are loyal and hardworking. He’s taken steps to fix all the things that gave him a less than stellar reputation. He’s changed some of the people who work for him and some of the people he trusted. He’s gotten a different veterinarian and that has made a large difference. He has video surveillance, a private security guard, and everybody on board paying attention to everything going on.
He’s come to grips with the idea that with all the good things that come with success, there will always be petty jealousies, especially in the self-contained community that is a the racetrack. He, above anyone else, realizes how lucky he is in all the most important things in life, and I think I finally understand why he told me he was the luckiest man on the face of the earth.
It isn’t about what happens on Twitter or Facebook. It is about having a job you love and family and friends that support you through the good times and bad.
People can dwell on Doug O’Neill’s past, but in his mind that is exactly what it is. The past. And he wants nothing more than to prove the past does not portend the future. I asked him the last question we all needed to know. Will we ever see Doug O’Neill’s name in a headline about a positive drug test?
He looked at me, and his voice dropped. “I will do everything within my control to make sure I never have another violation for drugs.”
I hope the world puts the past in a drawer and gives him an opportunity to prove that.
