Cat's Long Way Home

I’ve been everywhere, man
I’ve been everywhere, man
Crossed the deserts bare, man
I’ve breathed the mountain air, man
Of travel I’ve had my share, man
I’ve been everywhere …

~ Johnny Cash, “I’ve Been Everywhere”

Scroll to continue with content

With tentative steps and a few pauses to take in the lush tree-lined paddocks, the handsome gelding stepped off the van. It was well into the evening but the barn lights were on. It seemed as if he recognized the sights and smells.

It seemed as if the Cat knew he was home.

Cool Catomine had just completed a journey of some 2,100 kilometres (about 1,300 miles) in a horse van, taking him from the rolling hills and farmer’s fields of Iowa, across the central United States to the bluegrass of Kentucky before heading north to the maple trees of Ontario.

At nine years old, Cool Catomine is a senior in racehorse terms. He stands on battle-worn ankles with osselets marking arthritic fetlock joints on otherwise strong legs. It is October 4th and he is bright-eyed as he is led into the very barn where he was born by Bernard and Karen McCormack.

Their hearts were full and tears welled. The Cat, a Canadian classic winner who had been toiling in low-level claiming races for years, racing for dozens of owners and trainers, was back home thanks to a large group of human friends throughout North America, including LongRun Thoroughbred Retirement Society and the McCormacks.

On or off the racetrack, it was one of the biggest stories in Canadian racing in 2023 …

Tyrell – 2014

Smart Catomine gave birth to a dark bay colt by American millionaire Spring at Last on April 17, 2014. It was her seventh and one of about a dozen bred by the McCormack’s boutique program that raises horses to sell under the Cara Bloodstock banner.

Bernard had purchased Smart Catomine for $25,000 while shopping at the 2011 Keeneland Breeding Stock Sale in Lexington. He had been looking at a weanling filly from the mare, a sharp-looking Milwaukee Brew foal, but when he saw his friends Austin and Brenda Paul eyeing the filly, he instead took a look at the foals’s dam, Smart Catomine. While winless in two starts, Smart Catomine, a daughter of budding leading sire Smart Strike and from a strong German-influenced female family, was offered by the highly successful Anderson Farms, under David Anderson, whose father, Bob, had passed away only a year earlier.

Two years after buying the mare, McCormack selected Spring at Last, the 2008 Donn Handicap (G1) winner, as her 2013 mate. He was very familiar with his breeding, being a son of Silver Deputy, a great Ontario-bred stallion and racehorse bred by McCormack’s former employer E.P. Taylor of Windfields Farm.

“I bred her to him because he had miler speed,” said McCormack. “I remember her as a great mother, she always raised her foals away from the others, away from the kerfuffle of the herd.”

As is custom for the McCormacks, each foal born on their farm is given a nickname relative to current events at that time. ‘Tyrell’, the Spring at Last – Smart Catomine colt, was named for one of the famous families in the red-hot TV series Game of Thrones.

“He was a nice, balanced colt. He never had any awkward stages. When I visited my yearlings in Kentucky the following May, he was easy to pick out in the field; big hip, well built sideways and upwards.”

“My kind of horse”

John Ross began training racehorses at Woodbine in the late 1980s and built a reputation as not only a top-notch horseman but also almost legendary for picking out a young horse from a sale that went on to a stellar career. Around the same time that Cool Catomine was born, Ross was in the process of selling his stakes-winning three-year-old filly Lexie Lou, whom he bought for not much more than $5,000 at auction, for somewhere in the range of $300,000.

Lexie Lou, racing for California movie producer Gary Barber, went on to win the Queen’s Plate, earn over $1 million and be named 2014 Canadian Horse of the Year.

At the 2015 Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society’s yearling sale at Woodbine, Ross was sizing up yearlings for one of his newest syndicates which included himself and Jack of Hearts Racing, the stable name of friends Jim Aston and Neal Mednick.

When he saw the Spring at Last – Smart Catomine colt that McCormack was selling, he said to McCormack, “that’s my kind of horse.” He bought him for $40,000.

For Aston and Mednick, the colt was one of three purchases for their new stable, named in honour of a late friend. And while it was evident early that the newly-christened Cool Catomine was not going to be ready for racing at the age of two, one of their other yearling buys, Raglan Road, was a sharp juvenile who placed in several stakes races and earned over $150,000.

“We had a found a little [bone] flake in a back ankle of Cool Catomine and my vet suggested we remove it,” said Ross. “I remember it took us a while to get him to the races.”

It was April of 2017 when Cool Catomine finally debuted. He finished seventh, followed by a third-place finish two weeks later. Other Canadian-bred horses his age were getting for the Queen’s Plate, but the Cat was slow to learn.

The colt actually did race on Plate day, July 2, but it was in a maiden race and he was a 14-to-1 longshot. Ross had affixed a set of blinkers on Cool Catomine for the first time, with advice from jockey Luis Contreras.

“Well, he just lit up like a Christmas tree, a lightbulb moment,” said Ross. “He won and it was so great because we had been looking for a little bit of something from him.”

Prince for a day

Ross and Contreras could not ignore the signs. Cool Catomine blossomed after that first victory, training, as horsepeople say, ‘like a bear’. With the $500,000 Prince of Wales Stakes at Fort Erie coming up in a few weeks, Ross, Aston and Mednick anted up $12,500 to supplement the colt to the second jewel of the Canadian Triple Crown.

“We thought if he could hit the board in the race, we would be doing good,’ said Ross. And since Plate winner Holy Helena (who was ridden by Contreras), was by-passing the ‘Wales, the decision was slightly easier to make.

Snubbed by a huge crowd at Fort Erie, 14-to-1 Cool Catomine chased down favoured State of Honor, trained by Mark Casse, and won the ‘Wales by 2 1/2 lengths under a jubilant Contreras. Ross, Aston, Mednick and their families could hardly believe it. And the only one who could find words post-race was Ross.

“We are overwhelmed by this. We took a lot of time with him, he got the foundation from Florida training, and we found some stuff out about him. I love it when a plan comes together.

“I’ve won some big races in my life but this tops it. It’s a feeling you never forget.”

Downfall

Every horseperson wishes they could get inside a horse’s mind. ‘How are you feeling today?’

Something was up with Cool Catomine after his big Prince of Wales win. He was unplaced in three more races in 2017 and three more to begin his four-year-old campaign. He was slow coming out of the starting gate, or jumping up before the start.

“I noticed a change in him 2018,” said Ross. “He didn’t seem to like the gate and there was a pattern happening.”

Cool Catomine had already been gelded that spring and by late summer, he was dropped into claiming races. In September, owner Bruno Schickedanz claimed Cool Catomine for $20,000. The horse finished last, beaten almost 20 lengths.

In fact, Schickedanz and his trainer Norm McKnight had to drop the Cat further in class, to just $6,000 claiming, before the horse returned to the winner’s circle. In January 2019 in Hot Springs, Arkansas, Cool Catomine won again before he was claimed for $8,000 by Oaklawn Park trainer Ingrid Mason. Two races later, the gelding was at Prairie Meadows in Iowa where he was claimed for $6,250 by owner Danny Caldwell.

Jordyn Burco and trainer Tim Martin came into Cool Catomine’s life in June 2019 when the young horse lover claimed the gelding for $6,250, the day the horse won big for Caldwell.

“We put him up in class but the jockey pulled him up because he said he had heat stroke,” said Burco. “He was vanned off but the vet said he didn’t have heat stroke. The jockey said he had heard bad things about him from other jockeys so I guess he was scared.”

A group of people in the winners circle.

Trainer Tim Martin won his 1000th race when Cool Catomine won in July, 2020 at Prairie Meadows. (LongRun/Priaire Meadows photo)

Burco and her husband at the time, Jashua Robinson, wanted Cat back and claimed him again for $6,250 and that day the horse reared up at the start and the jockey lost his stirrups. In his next race, the gelding reared up twice and hit his jaw. He finished well back.

“He was a bit complicated,” said Burco, who even reached out to Ross to quiz him about the horse’s habits. “But we wanted to do what was best for him and Tim suggested we give him some time off and swim him in a pool.”

The horse returned to racing in March 2020, just before COVID-19 hit, and had a pair of third-place finishes before the pandemic put racing on hold until later in the summer. Back at Prairie Meadows, Cool Catomine won two straight races for Burco and Robinson. One of those wins was Martin’s 1,000th career training victory.

“He ran well for us that year,” said Martin. “He’s a cool horse, very good-looking. He could be a little tough at times but he had a lot of heart.”

Sadly, Burco and Robinson divorced and after spending thousands of dollars on vet bills for another one of her horses, Burco had to drop Cat in for just $3,500 claiming. He won by more than six lengths and was claimed by Oklahoma-based owner Jeff Wyrick.

“It was a privilege to own him,” said Burco. “I continued to keep an eye on him, but I had to get out of horses.”

Oklahoma to Louisiana to Nebraska

It was several months before Cool Catomine, who was sent far south to Oklahoma from Iowa, resurfaced in the entries. He raced 10 times at Will Rogers Downs and Fair Meadows in Oklahoma and at Prairie Meadows for Wyrick in the care of trainer Jose Ibarra. He was in top form, winning four times in low-level claiming races.

“He was a blessing to own,” said Wyrick. “And I enjoyed him when I had him at my home when he wasn’t racing. I am honoured to be a part of his story.”

By this time, Cool Catomine was already on the personal watch-lists of many Canadian racing fans and horsepeople including McCormack, Ross and this writer. “We follow all of the horses we breed,” said Karen McCormack. “This was the first time that one of the horses we bred had gone to so far afield.”

Both Bernard and Karen have rescued and retired or adopted former racehorses over the years.

“When you breed horses and you have bred an older gelding, and they are still competitive, you hope that they are still enjoying what they do. And hopefully they will find a soft landing place after racing,” said Bernard.

Cool Catomine once again changed barns when he came off a winter vacation for Wyrick in April 2022 at Will Rogers. This time it was owner/trainer Greg Tracy, winner of some 1,700 races and a leading trainer in Alberta, who dropped the claim slip. The cost was $5,000. Tracy took Cool Catomine southeast to Louisiana where he raced on fast and sloppy tracks at a variety of distances at Evangeline Downs, Louisiana Downs and Delta Downs. He won once for Tracy, who then sold the horse in December. Tracy and his brother Jim were suspended indefinitely just two months later when a barn search yielded hundreds of needles and syringes and dozens of injectable medications.

But Cool Catomine had now moved on to Nebraska and the barn of Mark Hibdon who was in the midst of a meteoric rise in the training ranks. Hibdon entered the horse for just $2,500 claiming at Fonner Park in Grand Island in February. Once again, the gelding was claimed, this time by Donna and Robert Roe of Iowa.

A man standing with a horse in its stall.

Cool Catomine and Robert Roe. (photo supplied by Natalie McLain)

It Takes a Village

“I claimed him because I used to bet on him a lot and he won a lot,” Roe said to me early in the summer of 2023. “Yeah, his career is winding down; he has those big ‘ole ankles. But he loves what he is doing.”

Roe said Cool Catomine was bothered by a foot abscess when he claimed him. The horse lost by a total of 61 lengths in his first four races for the Roes.

In September, after a close second-place finish for $5,000 claiming at Prairie Meadows, Roe said he was going to disperse his small stable of horses. Cool Catomine was for sale for $2,500 and soon to be headed back to Nebraska to race for low claiming if he was not sold.

LongRun Thoroughbred Retirement Society, based in Hillsburgh, received calls from numerous followers who saw that Roe was advertising the gelding for sale. The board of LongRun agreed to purchase Cool Catomine with the help of raising some funds from the public and the McCormacks were keen on picking up the gelding and bringing him back home. Donations flooded in from Cool Catomine’s first owners, trainer, jockey and even upper management at Woodbine racetrack. The Cat’s racing career was over. He had won 15 races from 54 starts, placed in 10 others earned about $500,000.

The phone lines came alive in late September. Janet Covey at Hope After Racing Thoroughbreds, which works with Prairie Meadows horsepeople, put LongRun’s chair Vicki Pappas and office manager Sarah Black Bowen in touch with Natalie McLain of Petrichor Farm in Saint Charles, close to Prairie Meadows.

“I was asked if I had any room at my place for a horse to stay over briefly,” said McLain. “I board a lot of racehorses but I had room. I picked him up on September 28 from Robert Roe’s barn at the track. I took a photo of Mr. Roe saying goodbye to Cat.”

McLain said the gelding was ‘pretty hot’ when she took him off the van at her farm.

“I was lucky not to get dragged unloading him. I watched him do a couple of freedom laps around the paddock. I was surprised a bit as he looked good and healthy. I also found out that he liked to take mouthfuls of hay and cram as much as he could in his water bucket,” she laughed.

Vicky Godwin met Cool Catomine a few days later and had the big job of transporting the horse 675 miles east to the Newtown Station Equine Layover in Lexington.

“My granddaughter and I picked him up at Natalie’s and then drove him an hour to my farm,” said Godwin. “My granddaughter was loving on him for several hours and he seemed to like it. The next morning I loaded him back up for Kentucky. I dropped him and all his paperwork there and kissed him for good luck and safe travels.”

I’ve Been Everywhere

“As I drove from the farm to Kentucky, one song kept going through my mind. “I’ve Been Everywhere” by Johnny Cash. So I put it on. Cool Catomine has been everywhere.”

Bernard arrived at Dr. Barbara Poole’s Newtown Layover on October 3rd to prepare the Cat for his trip home.

“We sell horses and love horses. And if you don’t have a life plan for a horse, you should not be breeding. But you can’t own every horse you breed, either.

“To think about all the people that came together for Cat, all contributing to bring him full circle…” Bernard became very emotional and couldn’t complete his thoughts.

When Bernard finally saw him again, he was pleased that the horse looked well. “It seems he was very lucky. He went from one excellent home to another.”

Bernard spent some moments with Cool Catomine before they hit the road for Ontario. A few weeks later, Karen McCormack watched the gelding run and graze outside her kitchen window.

“He’s so well named, he’s the coolest horse. I can lead him in and out with a lead rope, not a chain. When he first got here he dropped his head in my arms. I know Bernard and I may romanticize that he remembers his birthplace, but we never thought this would happen. The best part is that he looks great and he is so trusting of everyone. We are thrilled to be a part of his amazing story.”