Sassy won her first race yesterday! She ran a perfect race and we all couldn’t be happier.

Here’s a recap of the day from my point of view:
The horses started walking over from the backside, and Sassy wasn’t the first this time. Last race she was the first one over by a few minutes and had some time to herself. This time she came over in a group of horses. She looked alert but calm as she walked the track. Just as she passed by me, the loudspeakers started blaring loud music with a jarring voice over top. Both Sassy and the horse behind her threw their heads up and started jigging, but I was glad to see that Sassy settled right down after a few jiggy steps.

There was a backup on the way into the paddock as the tattoo checker verified that each horse was supposed to be there. Sassy stood well waiting her turn. I am so amazed when I see such fit horses who are willing to stand still despite all of the excitement going on around them.

Sassy went into the paddock and walked around calmly. Her head was held at a relaxed angle, not up high in the air, which is not natural for her conformation. This was the most relaxed she’s been in the paddock. Each race she has done better and better. This race she looked like she knew exactly what was going on and she wasn’t feeling stress over it.

Again, they saddled her on the move. It isn’t because she won’t stand still, she stands well enough. I believe it is because she kicked the walls of the saddling stall in her first race, and they don’t want to risk an injury. She seems happy enough being saddled on the go, and the trainer and valet seem content to scurry around and walk backwards to get the saddle on.

The post parade went well. This time we noticed that the pony kept a hold of Sassy during the warmup, which is different than her previous starts where she warmed up on her own. She seems fine either way to me.

There were three (!) horses with pink silks in this race, but ours did stand out as darker and brighter, so she was still really easy to see in the race. I love our silks for this reason!

She loaded into the gate quickly and waited for the rest of the field to load. And then they were off!

Sassy broke well and we were able to see those bright pink silks as Sassy settled into 4th place along the rail behind the leader. She appeared to run the race exactly as Julian asked. She sat behind the leader until they got into the long final stretch. It looked like Julian tried to put her on the rail to pass the leader, but that horse’s jockey was not about to leave a hole for him. So he had to pull Sassy over to the right to go around the leader. There wasn’t a lot of racing room as the #7 horse was right there. Sassy managed to find a tiny hole and fit into it. The #11, Hotspur Harriet (3rd place in our last race), was on the other side of the #7 horse. The lead horse drifted off the rail, and Sassy and the 11 horse squeezed together a bit, and the #7 was squeezed out.

Julian asked Sassy to make a move and she did, moving past the leader. On the rail and on the outside two other horses made strong moves, but Sassy was able to hold on to the lead as the passed the wire. She won by 1/2 a length. We Won!!!

We all trooped down to the winner’s circle, and got our picture taken with our winning filly.

Then, up on the board appeared “OBJECTION”! The #7 horse had lodged objections against us and the #11 horse. In the video you can see the rider of the #7 hauling back on his mount when our two horses squeezed together, but to me it looks a little dramatic. We all nervously waited to find out if our win would be taken away from us…
And then the board flashed “FINAL” and we were still in first place!

How exciting for all of us. For most of us, this is our first time in the winner’s circle as owners.

Sassy’s new E figure is 77, which is an improvement of her last figure of 73. The track was labled “firm”, but the trainer and others there said that the track was actually soft. The race went in 1:05.54 which is not especially fast, but the pace was probably slowed by the soft track.

Awesome job Sassy!