Early Career
Lava Man first raced as a 2-year-old in a $12,500 maiden claiming race at the San Joaquin County Fair in June 2003, finishing fourth and earning a paltry Beyer Speed Figure of 27. The Fair Circuit is the lowest level of thoroughbred competition in California thoroughbred racing. His then breeder/trainer, former jockey Lonnie Arterburn (who had claimed Lava Man's dam, L'il Ms. Leonard), said he was a big, long-striding horse that never got tired. "But he was so laid back he could be a pony. He didn't show anything in the mornings. I took him out to Stockton, California to get him a race, make him eligible for starter allowances and not get him claimed away." In the words of Daily Racing Form columnist Dick Jerardi, "Lava Man did not start his career on the other side of the tracks. He started his career in a place where there are no tracks." He lost his next two races. Then Arterburn tried him on the grass, where the horse won or placed in allowance races at Golden Gate Fields. Arterburn then entered him in a $62,500 claiming race at Del Mar Racetrack because, as he said, "We had no other place to run him so we took him south. It was the usual Northern California problem." He came in sixth, so in his next race, Arterburn dropped him down a notch. In that race, Lava Man was claimed by Doug O'Neill, who was looking for a useful California-bred. Because California-breds winning open races in the state generate breeders' rewards worth approximately 15 percent of the purse, Arterburn continued to receive a share of some of Lava Man's earnings.
Read more about this topic: Lava Man
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or career:
“The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)