CHRIS MUNCE - TICKING OFF THOSE BUCKET LIST ITEMS

By Chris Munce with Graham Potter | Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Chris and Cathy Munce recently travelled to America ticking off bucket list items with visits the breeding grounds of Lexington, Kentucky and the Churchill Downs racetrack before moving on to Santa Anita in Southern California, bumping into some larger than life, legendary racing figures along the way. This is Chris Munce’s story of a trip he rates in the ‘highly recommended’ category for those looking to enhance and expand their racing experience.

The first place we went to was Lexington, Kentucky. We had a week there.

We had a good look around all of the historic farms … like Claiborne Farm which has been such an influential breeding operation dating back to 1910 when it was established by the Hancock family … so we saw a lot of stallions and got a good overview of the breeding side of things in Kentucky which is something Cathy and I had always wanted to do.

We’d heard about it but never experienced it so it was a really good week for us.

It did meet out expectations. The big rolling paddocks. The wooden fences and the way they were built … it was all quite incredible.

Then we went to Churchill Downs, the home of the Kentucky Derby, for a race meeting one night and we also spent a morning there which was definitely an eye-opener in terms of the way they train and work their horses.

It was very interesting because they don’t have the bells and whistles that we’ve got … the walkers and the thread-mills and things like that.

It’s pretty basic really. They hand walk them. The locals do the groundwork looking after them and it’s really a very simple way in which they work their horses as well which they do every day. They don’t get a day off. The track opens at four o’clock and closes at ten o’clock.

They are a different type of horse … obviously, solely bred for dirt racing.

That morning at Churchill Downs I was lucky enough to meet the legendary D. Wayne Lukas. His career record is quite amazing … twenty Breeders’ Cup winners, a five times Eclipse Award winner himself, his horses have won twenty-five Eclipse Awards, the first trainer to pass $100 million in prize money … it’s just quite an incredible record!

He is eighty-four years old and he still rides out every morning on his lead pony and he watches his horses work. He is pretty switched on. He is a character alright.

We also had a look through the Racing Museum at Churchill Downs which is just out of this world … it gives the whole history there and then some.

You can learn all about the colourful characters, the big trainers, jockeys, horses … it’s all there going right back to the Secretariats, the Sea Biscuits and all of those champion racehorses.

I’d like to have been on them.

You just can’t help getting a real sense of the history of the sport and, if you ever get there and you are a racing fan, a visit to the Racing Museum is a ‘must do.’

We then moved on to Santa Anita in California.

Again, I was very lucky in that I was able to go to trackwork there one morning with Bob Baffart.

Baffart trained the 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah and the 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify … so, once again, I was in esteemed company.

I also went with Baffart to the races for what was their first meeting at Santa Anita for the season. He had two runners in Group 1 races … a colt called Eight Rings and a filly called Bast … and they both won. They both go into the Breeder’s Cup now so I’ll be watching their efforts there with interest.

They are both very tough horses … I’ll give them that.

I was also on hand to witness an historic moment at Santa Anita when I saw champion jockey John Velasquez claim his six-hundred-and-sixty-first Graded Stakes winner, when he won on Bast, which bettered the previous record held by Jerry Bailey.

Three races later Velasquesz made it win number six-hundred-and-sixty-two when he won on Eight Rings.

Velasquez actually rarely competes in California being based in New York but he flew down to ride Baffart’s horses so it was really good to be able to see him in action.

In the end, whether the things I experienced applied to us back home or not, I went there with my eyes open … looking and learning … but you certainly don’t have to be working directly within the industry to get good value out of a racing trip to Kentucky and California.

It is an experience I would thoroughly recommend to any racing fan!

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