A video snippet from the Speaker’s Forum with Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas
I think it’s a great idea. (Watch the video, if you haven’t yet. Go ahead. We’ll wait.)
I’ll take it a step further. Howzabout an equine studies degree with a concentration on thoroughbred racing?
What do you say, any creative representative of an institution of higher learning who might be reading this?
Anyway, one of the highlights of our trip to Saratoga was attending the Fasig-Tipton Festival of Racing’s speakers forum.
Titled “From the Horse Farm to the Finish Line” horse industry insiders gave us a view of what each stage of a thoroughbred racehorse’s life is like.
We heard from:
- Case Clay of Three Chimneys Farm in Lexington, KY, who told us about breeding and foaling.
- Meg Levy of Bluewater Sales, a consignor of horses to the sales, explained how the sales work and gave us a demo that included what to look for in a racehorse’s conformation.
- Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas talked about his theory of training horses.
- Racehorse owner but more-famous-as-a-chef Bobby Flay showed his enthusiasm for the sport and gave us an idea of what being a racehorse owner means to him.
As you can see, I shot the video from the second row. I have a few more excerpts from the forum to run.
FWIW, Flay’s appearance was a surprise. A “Special Guest Speaker” had been listed as TBA, although I knew that Flay would be calling a race on Sunday. I just didn’t realize he’d be involved in Saturday’s program, too.
I hadn’t mentioned to my friend that Flay might be around for the weekend simply because we were going to the track on Saturday, not on the day that I believed he was scheduled to be there.
So, I was having my own “fan-girl” moment over seeing Lukas not ten feet away and had just pointed him out to my new-to-racing friend, when she elbowed me and said, “Is that Bobby Flay??”
Hey, after that weekend in Saratoga where she got her first on-the-scene introduction to horse racing, she’ll be having racing fan-girl moments soon, too.
So stay tuned.
Tags: Bobby Flay, D. Wayne Lukas, fan-girl moments, Fasig-Tipton, Fasig-Tipton Festival of Racing, horse racing, Saratoga, training horse trainers
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