Flatter: Finding blessings in 2023 really was not all that hard

I was looking for inspiration for this annual Christmas column, so I turned where any writer goes when faced with a computer page as blank as an unfertile mind. I went back to last year’s column.

Self-plagiarism be damned. Oh, sorry. ’Tis the season. Self-plagiarism be dammed. That’s better.

It was 52 weeks ago when I waxed nostalgic about greeting cards of generations ago pouring into the mailbox every December. The only cards I have this year were handed to me in person. I am not sure if that is back to the future or another sign the postal service is about as reliable as the hands of a Kansas City Chiefs receiver.

Speaking of which, did you hear the one about FedEx not shipping racehorses this month? Storms last year threatened the whole absolutely, positively overnight thing for holiday gifts. This year FedEx did not want to be caught with its purple pants down, so unless horses were gift-wrapped, they could not get a backseat behind the rest of the Christmas rush. Brook Ledge Horse Transportation offered an alternative, but for the most part, the shippers filling the card opening day Tuesday at Santa Anita had to be vanned. I guess there was no room on Santa’s sleigh.

But back to old inspiration. When in doubt, go to that chestnut of a stand-by. That would be the mass letter folded into the Hallmark card. Since my wife is spending the month visiting her side of the family in Europe, I will omit the otherwise perfunctory part of the dispatch from Vienna.

That leaves me with takeout menus, bottled spirits and, what do you know, a bunch of unshipped horses. So here goes with a salutation that has been padded from last year.

Dear family, friends, stakeholders, staff, partners, agents, associates, racing commissioners, federal regulators and legal counsel:

The year was challenging, but it was rewarding, too.

We did not have a horse like Flightline in 2023. He had a good year, too, but it was much quieter. We hear he had 152 dates and that they all ended well. Come to think of it, he probably had more meaningful activity this year than he did in about 10 minutes of racing last year. We will know more after another couple years.

HISA is still around, and we still don’t know whether to say it with a long I or a short one. It has a partner now called HIWU, which looks the name of a college near Wailua. Together they derailed some trainers’ careers with a guilty-until-proven-innocent strategy that got some tweaking as the year went on. And they are still in court, but you know how that goes. I probably will be writing the same thing next Christmas.

There was heartbreak as there is every year. We lost nice horses in Kentucky and New York. And we lost young Cody Dorman, who lived long enough to see his namesake win his last big race in California. Cody’s Wish is going to be the U.S. horse of the year, and next month’s Eclipse Awards in Florida are going to be a very emotional show. Prepare for the waterworks in all the videos coming out of there.

I still want to go to Japan to see a big race or two over there. The fans there look like the best on earth, and they had a lot to cheer about whenever Equinox ran. He came from behind to win the Japan Cup in his finale last month, and the majesty of that performance still gives me chills. No doubt about it. He is going to be the world horse of the year.

Remember that jockey Frankie Dettori? He said he was going to retire this fall, and he even went on a farewell tour. Then he changed his mind and said he would keep riding this winter in California. I don’t begrudge him at all. Competitors have a hard time quitting cold turkey, especially when they are among the all-time best at their craft like Dettori. If he ends up retracing all his steps again this year after saying good-bye to Ascot and ParisLongchamp, more power to him. And I hope he gets a ride in the Kentucky Derby.

The sport finally, and I mean finally, crashed through an anachronistic glass ceiling in June. Jena Antonucci became the first woman to train the winner of a Triple Crown race. I know. It’s about time. I was happy she embraced the occasion for the pioneering moment it was. Hopefully, it will help break the old mold of this sport that has been too often too male and too white for too long.

The sport still has its problems. Batch bettors and their computer software are so many steps ahead of traditional players that they threaten the core of the sport, especially as so many racetrack operators take their money and give them rebates in exchange for looking the other way.

We still have the tired, old problems, too, like foal crops that are shrinking and fields that are getting smaller and racehorses who are retired too soon. We never really got to know winners like Forte and Mage.

Even through all that, we still have the joy that never changes about this game. Like crushing the early Pick 5 on Breeders’ Cup Saturday. It was chalky, but it was fun.

Being there for the Breeders’ Cup and all the Triple Crown races for 16 of the last 17 years gets a little tougher as I get older. I avoid flying, since pilots do, too. I renewed my love affair with the car with long drives to Baltimore and New York and, last winter, to Florida for the Pegasus and, last summer, to the transplanted Arlington Million. I will forever miss that race being in Chicago, but Virginia was quite nice.

Yes, I actually flew to California for the Breeders’ Cup, and I probably will be airborne again, airline permitting, for the National Horseplayers Championship for the seventh year in a row in Las Vegas. Being around familiar faces at all these places is a joy that makes it worth all the complications of getting around.

Of course the best part of all this is the horses. I try to get to the backsides at racetracks as much as I can. Unfortunately, the available time dwindles every year.

It is hard to describe the tranquility that comes from being around these blessed creations. It was said there is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man. I had to look it up. It turns out Winston Churchill said that. What racing publication did he write for?

Looking up that quote, I stumbled on the perfect ending for this column. It was another saying, which I have adjusted for the times in which we live.

Everyone needs two animals. The horse of their dreams. And a jackass to pay for it.

That sounds like a good resolution for the new year. With that, merry Christmas, and as I said quoting an old radio DJ a year ago, stay warm and near someone.

Ron Flatter’s column appears Friday mornings at Horse Racing Nation. Comments below are welcomed, and they may be used in the feedback segment of the Ron Flatter Racing Pod, which also is posted every Friday.