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Episode 115—Candice Hare and Wide World of Horse Racing
120 Plays6 years ago
Candice Hare, on-air talent for TVG, joins me on the show this week.
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Transcript
Introduction to Hippocampus Magazine
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Speaker
Promotional support is provided by Hippocampus Magazine, an exclusive online publication set out to entertain, educate, and engage writers and readers of creative non-fiction. Each issue features memoir excerpts, personal essays, reviews, interviews, and craft articles. It's a great stop for all things CNF.
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Speaker
visit hippocampusmag.com for more. Hippocampus magazine, memorable, creative, nonfiction.
00:00:33
Speaker
Okay, okay, very short intro today. Had more oral surgery yesterday, and I'm in considerable discomfort. Yeah, I know, boo, f-ing who.
Introducing Candice Hare and Horse Racing
00:00:44
Speaker
Today's guest is Candice Hare, at Candice Hare underscore on Twitter. She's a broadcaster for TVG, a horse racing channel. As some of you know, my primary field of expertise in the riding world is horse racing. So there's quite a bit of that going on here.
Candice's Unwinding and Reading Preferences
00:01:03
Speaker
but don't let that dissuade you Kansas' story is nice and so even if you don't dig horse racing you'll be able to pull out some cool tidbits from her approach to her own work even though we do of course naturally dive into some horse racing stuff I'd say more but everything hurts here's Kansas hair party on CNFers
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Speaker
What are you doing when you're not preparing for your work? You know what, for me, I feel like I try to kind of focus on things where they don't require a lot of thinking, if that makes sense. I feel like when I'm on air, it's very, like, you have to be very focused and it's very intense in that sense, especially because
00:01:51
Speaker
You know, working with live television, there's no teleprompter. So you're constantly watching and having to simultaneously digest information while you're talking about it. And that requires a high level of focus for several hours at a time. So I think for me, I try to like.
00:02:07
Speaker
just really unplug completely and sometimes I'll read a book or read some articles but a lot of the time I'll just kind of maybe watch bad reality TV or things that they kind of just take your focus away from what you normally work on and allow you to just kind of mindlessly watch something and relax and give you that hour or two to just kind of recharge. What kind of books do you gravitate towards?
00:02:33
Speaker
For me in general, I tend to read biographies. Those are some of my favorites. It's been a little while since I've read but now a couple months, but the last one I read was Lucille Ball, who I've always been a big fan of since I was a small child. Her autobiography actually was really, really great to read, not only because you got a sense of who she was, but I think it actually was taken from
00:02:55
Speaker
audio tapes that she had recorded so you know since the only of what the events that happened in her life but for her how she processed them along the way.
00:03:04
Speaker
When you pick up a biography, are you gravitated towards a particular person's life?
Candice's Literary Connections to Her Life
00:03:12
Speaker
Because as a sort of a circuitous form of a self-help book, you know, you're looking up to, you know, maybe these are people you admire and be like, oh, let me try to maybe deconstruct their life a little bit and see if there's something about their life that I can, I might be able to apply to my own in a sense.
00:03:27
Speaker
I don't think I look for that. I think that ends up happening in the scheme of reading about different people. I think for me, I'm normally taken by people who for one reason or another, when I see the book on the shelf, it takes me back to a moment in my own life. So whether it was someone like her, who I remember watching the show growing up, or somebody else who I remember with like a specific current event in my life, it's people who kind of take me back to a moment in my childhood for the most part that
00:03:56
Speaker
I'm taken to read more about and want to learn more about, usually. Do you recall any other biographies off the top of your head that have really resonated with you in the last five or ten years? Not as many as her. I think for me, hers was the biggest one because she was a big influence.
00:04:16
Speaker
on my entire life not even just from a scheme of watching the show but I think just as a woman and a woman on television seeing how you know at her time that being a working woman and you know having an amazing career like she did wasn't as common so seeing how she broke through some of those barriers and did it in such a confident way too it never seemed like she felt like she didn't belong she was always so bullish about the fact that
00:04:43
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You know, what she was doing was good
Candice's Southern California Roots and Sports Passion
00:04:45
Speaker
television. She was going to run the business and she did and I have a lot of respect for that. Wow. Yeah. And where did you grow up? I grew up in Southern California, um, near Riverside. So a little more inland than I am now in Los Angeles, but, um, yeah, I would hear SoCal my whole life. Yeah. And what did your parents do for work?
00:05:07
Speaker
My mom was a nurse so she did that for most amount childhood before she kind of stopped working to focus on those kids but for the bulk of my childhood she worked as a nurse and my dad worked at Boeing so he kind of did work all the way from the bottom up from a machinist when it was McDonald Douglas all the way up to now he works more of an office job but so I was always surrounded by the medical field for my mom and kind of airplanes for my dad. Wow so what were you into as a young kid and a teenager?
00:05:37
Speaker
I love sports. I've always been a sports fan. I was raised that way. My mom's family are huge Minnesota Vikings football fans and I was raised in purple from day one with them and my dad always loved baseball. His dad, my grandpa actually was friends with Greg and Mike Maddox's dad when they were in the military together. So my dad would always watch when Greg was pitching and
00:06:01
Speaker
There was always a running joke that when I was a baby my dad worked nights and so during the day he was at home with me and my mom would always joke that she would come home from work every day and she'd find him sitting in his recliner with me kind of propped up on his leg and a bottle in my mouth. We were both watching the baseball game.
00:06:21
Speaker
That's good. What years would that have been? Early 90s? Early 90s, yeah. So I grew up especially with him on the Braves. So there was some big years there. So yeah, a lot of my childhood was football with my mom and then baseball with my dad. And it kind of spiraled from there when I was a teenager to more sports that I liked than don't, that's for sure. Did you play sports growing up?
00:06:49
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I did some.
Childhood Sports and Future Golf Aspirations
00:06:51
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I did gymnastics for several years. So that was kind of the bulk of my childhood was doing gymnastics. And then when I got to be a little bit older, when I was in high school, I picked up golf. So I was on my high school golf team. And so that was kind of where I kind of diverted to. But don't do as much of that nearly as I wish I did. It's always on my bucket list to get back out and get playing more golf. But it's been a little while.
00:07:17
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Yeah, and and did you so you spent all your life in Southern California? Did you go to college there as well?
From Engineering to Math Major
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Yeah, I did. I went to UC Riverside. So I was there for 3 years. I studied math. I went in originally to do engineering.
00:07:33
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mechanical engineering I stayed in that for about a little bit over a year and then I always tell people I love the subject matter and I hated the machine shop I like to design stuff I didn't want to actually build it myself so I took a summer school class a math class because our math classes were in series
00:07:54
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And if I didn't take this over the summer, I would have had to wait to start the next series over the next year, and it was just going to be unnecessarily complicated. So I just hunkered down and took it during the summer. And during the class, the teacher actually pulled me aside after class one day and he said, Candice, I looked up your major. I don't know what it is. It's some kind of engineering, but you should do math because you seem to like it and you're good at it. And I kind of scooped him up at the time, but it only took one more quarter for me to end up making this wedge.
00:08:23
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At what point do you pivot from math to something that puts you on a more journalistic path?
Transition from Math to Journalism
00:08:32
Speaker
I don't think there was a specific point that I made that pivot. I think the beauty of math is that it doesn't close any doors. And so what I appreciated about it is I could do it as a major and it felt like it was respected pretty universally no matter what field you went into.
00:08:48
Speaker
And it felt like you could do anything that no doors closed by having a math major. So I don't think I ever consciously made that pivot. I just know I finished college and kind of struggled to get a job right away. And that's when I started looking into horse racing as just a hobby, just watching races. And I found myself taken by.
00:09:12
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Kind of the critical thinking, the logical reasoning that goes into that, which is a very mathematical mindset, even more than any of the numbers itself. And it went from there. So I never would have expected to be on the path that I am today. But I think that's what's great about math. It doesn't pull you off of any path.
00:09:34
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that's funny cuz i would think just the opposite i feel like it doesn't in my own head uh... a i feel like it would kind of pay you into a corner but it sounds like it was just the opposite for you like it actually it it didn't like you said it didn't close any doors
00:09:49
Speaker
No, it didn't. I mean, yeah, for me, when you talk to people about having studied math, it's what you find is that most people really respect it as a major because it's difficult. But at the same time, you can turn it into anything. I think people take math and they focus on the numbers and they say, well, you're a numbers person.
00:10:11
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So little of math actually involves numbers and so much more really involves a way of thinking and a process of coming to a conclusion. And you know, remember at the time when I was in college, one of my good friends was a philosophy major. And he used to say that math is a philosophy of numbers. And it really is true in that sense. It's much more a way of thinking than actually doing addition and subtraction per se.
00:10:36
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Was there any part of you that was? attempted to pursue Some like to put those numbers to use in terms of like looking out into like the cosmos and that kind of physics and in cosmology Would it be cosmology? Is that it? And not really that sort of a thing. I don't think I was ever taken by that when I originally started at UCR in engineering the thought process for me was I wanted to
00:11:03
Speaker
kind of pivot my way into automobiles, automobile racing. I loved NASCAR at the time. I loved Formula One, World Rally cars, you name it. I watched all of it and loved it. So that was kind of my original mindset. It still was always well within a sports realm. But yeah, it was never more of an abstract physics thinker like that. It was for me, that's been the one constant no matter what has changed.
00:11:29
Speaker
As far as the path, exact path I've taken, I think it's always been centered around sports. And at what point do you start becoming hooked on horses and horse racing?
Candice's Journey into Horse Racing
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So after college, I started watching races just as a hobby. I had moved to Florida. I had a lot of time on my hands and I started watching Gulfstream Park just as a hobby. I had been to the races for the first time just a few months before.
00:11:58
Speaker
Out here to California to see Zenyatta and what was her final race in California, which I just thought as a sports moment I wanted to see wasn't even really horse racing centric But then after I graduated and had time on my hands and lived in Florida I started just watching and trying to kind of see some of these horses and see if I saw any big performances and at that time I
00:12:19
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you know, started getting more in with with orb who ended up winning the Kentucky Derby and he took that Florida path to get there. And so that really hooked me in is ironic because I was never really, from a betting perspective, I never loved orb I now don't think I ever bet on him once, but to watch a horse go
00:12:42
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through that, you know, series per se in Florida, and then end up winning the Kentucky Derby made me feel like, Oh, I've watched this horse from, from day one, and I got to see this entire path that was taken. And I think through that journey, watching him, I became hard.
00:12:56
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, he never ended up to, he never won again after the Derby. He just didn't really have that, it's like the Derby kind of like, well, in my conversations with Bob Baffert, he says, you know, horses that come out of the Derby, you know, they're never the same again, you know, for better or worse. And as some, it's worse, you know, I'll mind that bird, which is kind of fluky, but like orb, you know, they were never quite the same. They sometimes lose their turn of foot. And at least they can say they won the most prestigious race in the world in a sense.
00:13:27
Speaker
Right, and his derby of course was over a really, really wet track and I think that derby even kind of poked me. It was a really intriguing one from so many angles. You had several speed horses in there. You had horses like Pella Smells putting blinkers on for the first time. You had a super wet track. So for that to be the first derby that I really like intensely looked at from several months out,
00:13:49
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it was a really intriguing one which i think just because of the way i think i'm a problem solver by nature it hooked me in that sense d are you the type of person who can handicap look at look at past performances and analyze these races without actually betting and get joy out of that
00:14:09
Speaker
Of course, absolutely. I think I think you have to have that mindset to have the job that I have, because obviously, you know, while we put out tickets that I play, you obviously aren't playing every single race that you're talking about. So I definitely get joy from, you know, picking a winner here or there, depending on the price. And I think for me in general,
00:14:32
Speaker
It's hard to say because they always say, you know, winning is all that matters, but there's times even that, you know, Sam watching a race or I'm talking about a race on air that I picked, you know, 30 to one shot. And he finished his second nose out by the favorite. I still get some joy from that because I feel like, okay, well, I made the right bet. And that's what always is what matters to me the most. And I think it's what helps me to get through
00:14:58
Speaker
The inevitable dry spell is just knowing, okay, maybe the luck isn't going my way right now, but I'm making the right bet. And I think if you're gonna be in this game, that's the most important notion you have to have, is you have to have some kind of a internal philosophy that helps to get you through those dry spells because it's so easy.
00:15:22
Speaker
to either get down on yourself and get frustrated and end up leaving or to end up doubling down and spending more money and getting yourself in a worse position than you're in. So yeah, I definitely get joy out of races, whether I'm betting on them or not. Sometimes it's even more, honestly, sometimes the worst is that I get the most joy out of
00:15:44
Speaker
invariably are connected to bets, but not from the point that I get joy because I definitely get the most joy from horses who are long range, right? That horse who in the maiden race, you said that horse is going to be good. And then they end up even maybe just making the Derby. I mean, I felt like that a little bit with Tapret last year. He was a horse when he broke his maiden over at Gulfstream Park West.
00:16:07
Speaker
I said, this horse is going to be nice. I really like him. And then, you know, he ended up winning the Belmont, but he was in Derby, ran well. So horses like that, like long range takes, I guess, like that are what I get the most joy out of.
00:16:21
Speaker
Yeah, I've always maintained that horse racing, whether you bet or not, it kind of rewards the person who follows a horse's life. So like, what's kind of nice, it takes a few years, it probably takes a good solid five years. Oh, four was probably my first year of really following horse racing.
00:16:41
Speaker
So then, of course, in my head, every year is like, oh, four, okay, well, that's Smarty Jones. It's just the year of the Derby winner is kind of how I clock my calendar. But then you start to see the Smarty Jones babies, and then you start seeing the Sires you once saw run, and then it's kind of, you remember how they ran, and then you start making these connections. And so it really does reward
00:17:08
Speaker
the person who can stick with it a while because it's kind of rewarding to see those babies you saw whose sire you saw run, right?
Rewards of Following Horse Racing
00:17:16
Speaker
Most definitely. So, you know, you have a little bit more of an intimate view of those horses and I think it rewards the people who can stick around for a long time too because you just see more scenarios and you realize more scenarios are plausible than you ever realized before. You know, for me, if I'm looking at a horse race,
00:17:35
Speaker
I always tell people it's like a series of matchups all in one. If I'm looking at another sport you're looking at, what's this matchup between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal? Well, horse racing is no different. It's just we have 14 horses in here. So infinitely more matchups than you do just between two different individuals. And so when I've watched more racing over the years and watched racing in other countries over the years, you start to realize
00:18:01
Speaker
that there's so many more scenarios, whether it's pace wise, whether it's intent wise from connections, whether it's different equipment adjustments and how the horse may react. You start to realize there's way more scenarios than every given race that are plausible than when you first started you're looking at, well, they're going to go fast or they're going to go slow, right? Yeah.
00:18:22
Speaker
I was just talking to Neil Howard a week or two ago because it was about the 11 year anniversary when Grasshopper won the Allowance Optional Claiming Race that would eventually become the Curlin.
00:18:37
Speaker
And then he won it again the next year with Mambo and Seattle. So Howard nearly won the Travers off this sort of unbeknown prep race on the Friday before Jim Dandy Day. And so I just wanted to talk to him about that. And he had this really great sort of global view of getting a horse to that point. And yeah, it was tough to lose to street sense by a neck and then Colonel John by a lip.
00:19:06
Speaker
Oh 708 and but he's just like just to get all the things that can go wrong along the way And when you have a good horse and to get him to the track and he's got a brake well And then he's got to run his race and all those matchups you're talking about with a 14 horse field like anything can happen To even get within that you know that much
00:19:26
Speaker
of a victory was a victory in and of itself for him. And this is someone who's been doing this for decades. So it's kind of, uh, there's so many factors involved that like even coming that close to winning as backbreaking as that is and then a gut punch, it's, it was still a win for him. I know not a lot of other trainers might share that same exact worldview, but he seemed to think it was a victory unto itself. And it sounds like you probably understand that too, just based on the amount of volume of races you watch.
00:19:56
Speaker
I definitely understand it 100% and I think in America, in our major races to especially over the classic distance where you tend to get the larger field.
00:20:08
Speaker
there's almost even more things that can go wrong than in other jurisdictions.
Comparing American and International Racing
00:20:12
Speaker
I mean, that's not universally true, but, you know, say you compare our big G1s with, you know, 12 horses, even if it's just 12 horses in them, compared to the typical G1 you see in Great Britain and Ireland, there's a reason their races are more formful. Sometimes it's smaller fields for those group races, but a lot of times they're going at a slower tempo to where everybody kind of quickens at the end of the race. And even if you find yourself in trouble,
00:20:37
Speaker
you're able to kind of a lot oftentimes maneuver your way out of that versus in American racing I always think what's really unheralded is the fact that one because we run on the dirt it's completely different dynamic and Momentum is everything and it's there's so many you think from the start of our race to the end there's so many positions where you can lose momentum and the thing about
00:21:03
Speaker
Momentum is that when you lose it, it's really difficult to get it back and even if you do You're not gonna get it back to the point where you're going as fast as your competition You know That's completely different from a dynamic where you see racing on the grass and you see horses get sawed off all the time And they're able to re-rally and finish you don't lose that same significant ground as you do in dirt races so I definitely understand a sentiment because I
00:21:27
Speaker
Sometimes you watch these races and it feels like there's a million things that can go wrong in just a handful of minutes. So you're in Florida, you're starting to follow the races down there.
Social Media Influence in Horse Racing Media
00:21:40
Speaker
So that's 2012. So when are you starting to flirt with the idea of putting yourself, starting to cover the sport that you're starting to get hooked on? And then how does that get you in front of the camera?
00:21:57
Speaker
Well so what happened is I was working down there just watching races of the hobby and I started kind of right around the time that I got on Twitter and I would just start casually putting out different horses that I liked or didn't like and explaining why and you know there were definitely people on Twitter who
00:22:19
Speaker
It seemed to appreciate that I was putting work in and a lot of them would message me and whether they agreed or not. And some of them didn't agree and they would say, okay, this horse is going to win this race and I'll tell you why after the race. And then when it did, I'm like, okay, why? And they'd explain it. But, you know, Twitter is really where I got my basis, my real foundation of knowledge, which sounds silly at times, but it was a place where I felt like I was allowed to make mistakes. It was a place where.
00:22:48
Speaker
You see so many other people's opinions at the same time that, you know, when I got on Twitter, I didn't know what a form cycle was, which sounds silly now, but I was that basic and it was, you know, that beginner of a level. And so I worked my way through there starting to get more knowledge and I realized the way to kind of.
00:23:07
Speaker
I think for me to just really immerse myself in it was to just start looking at a full card every day and that's when I started my blog and I started just looking at the full card for trickle-downs every single day in their fall meet and That that seemed to catch the attention of Bruno di Giulio who was a his a clocker He's one of the best clockers in the entire country and he works in South Florida and
00:23:35
Speaker
He asked me to come down to Palmetto's and spent the week down there just watching horses working every day, which I'd never seen before in my life. And from there on out, I started to kind of work him assisting him in some of his work in the sales and some of his workout reports to kind of the data behind the scenes to help him to facilitate that better and.
00:23:58
Speaker
So it was able to give me kind of that side into the game, the workout side and the sales side while at the same time, I was still kind of building up my own knowledge base, looking at cars every single day. So it just kind of went head on into it. It felt like it was one of those things where it was just a hobby for me. I never looked at it as a career, but in those beginning stages, I was so fascinated by how many facets there were to the game that you could learn that I kind of went in head first.
00:24:27
Speaker
And what were you doing for work at the time of you like diving for a whole hog into this hobby of looking at cards and even helping the clocker. But what were you doing there to subsidize this? Well, at the time I wasn't working. I had recently gotten married. My husband worked in the military. He was in the Air Force. So he was the one kind of working at the time. I was at home. Part of this time I had just had my daughter now. So I was kind of
00:24:57
Speaker
doing the stay-at-home-mom thing. I think anybody who knows, everybody who's had a baby, I think we hear a lot about how they sleep. They don't sleep very often, but I think more than that, it's that they sleep at all different times of the day. So there would just be random times where I'd have free time, and that's when I was able to really devote it to racing.
00:25:15
Speaker
Mm-hmm, and I like the so this almost the industrious nature that you You saw something you really liked and then you really leaned into it. So like where do you think that comes from that you were able to just? See this thing that you really liked and then you sort of obsessively dove in You know, I think I'm somebody who I
00:25:40
Speaker
When it comes for some reason, when it just, when it comes to sports in general, because it's always, they've always been a fascination of mine that I've been able to dive myself in and it not really feel like work. And I think that's what it felt like with racing. It felt like, Oh, I'm just like researching like I would with, with any other sports. But, you know, I think the wake up call maybe for me with racing was when I, in the midst of all of this, when I was learning so much bulk information at one time.
Niche in International Racing
00:26:09
Speaker
I started to realize the thing that was missing in America, there was nobody out here who really spoke about international racing. And so you'd get horses who would come here from overseas and people felt like it was anybody's guess to whether the horse is going to run well or not. And so when I saw that, I kind of started to give my opinion on some of those horses.
00:26:35
Speaker
And you know, a couple of times you're right and people start asking me. And that's when I really realized like, this is the way that I need to go. If I want to, you know, find my place at racing, you have to, it's like any other field in any working force. You have to find your niche. And I saw that that opening was there and for the taking. And is that how, is that kind of the first domino that led you to TVG?
00:27:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think for me, that was the first time that I saw this as a potential career for me is when you, you know, you start to see that there's some level of demand and that I'm somehow able to fill that luckily. And so for me, that's when I first saw horse racing as a potential avenue for, for a career. And so that started to really become my focus was watching races from all over the world and starting to really get a grasp for.
00:27:31
Speaker
Which horses are best suited for American racing? I think people look and they say, well, this horse is a group one winner, but they might not be suited to American racing. There's not every horse is going to have success here no matter how much success they've had elsewhere. What do you think is the greatest misunderstanding of the foreign shippers when they come to the states? Oh.
00:27:59
Speaker
Um, I think the greatest misunderstanding is that they've all been set for these races as their primary target. I think people will look to big trainers like an Aiden O'Brien, like a Sir Michael Stout, you know, you name them. And they'll say, well, I trust so-and-so trainer. They've had XYZ race on their calendar all year long when, you know, in fact, it's usually the opposite to be perfectly honest. I mean, when you talk about European horses,
00:28:26
Speaker
most of the time when they come to America, unless it's for a few specific ownership groups that target out here, I would say more often than not, it's an afterthought or more often than not to sign that things didn't really go to plan back home and you're looking for a G1 or maybe it's a mayor who they want to retire her at the end of the year. So you want to get that black type. I mean, there's a host of reasons, but rarely is the reason, well, we just circled this race at
00:28:54
Speaker
you know, Belmont on the calendar a year ago, and we're going to come here. That's not the case for other jurisdictions, I don't think that require more time and more, you know, whether it's quarantine regulations or whatnot to get here. But I would say for Europe, more often than not, if a horse is coming here, breeders cup aside, it means that something went wrong. And I think that's why in general, you see the best European horses come here.
00:29:24
Speaker
And typically they underperform. Yeah. Do you think people just falsely attribute that to the travel versus like, it's actually a red flag that they're even coming here in the first place. A hundred percent. I think travel is such an easy thing that people, you know, assert any sort of bad performance too. And I've just never seen it. You know, I don't believe that, you know, these horses will come here from
00:29:54
Speaker
you know, Great Britain or from Ireland and then all of a sudden they don't handle travel when, you know, we're traveling all over Europe, they go to France, they go to Germany, you still had to get on an airplane to get there. I mean, to me, what's the difference in the number of hours if you still had to go on a plane to do it, right? Like, it's why it's the same thing here, you know, you hear people say like, well, that traveled to Dubai, like, is there really a big difference between flying from Southern California to Dubai, as there is from flying to Southern California to New York, you still had to get on a plane, like,
00:30:23
Speaker
If I'm on an airplane, if the flight is five hours or if it's eight hours, it still is just a stressful annoying. So I think it's just something that's easy. People always want to find simplistic reasons for why a horse didn't perform. And so, you know, that's one of those that's readily available and there's already talking points on, but I'd like to think that, you know, people saw.
00:30:48
Speaker
After Dubai, in particular, horses who have gone back to Europe, have gone back to Australia, have gone back to Japan, for the most part, have actually done really well. Yeah, yeah. What do you make and what are your impressions of the situation kind of of a justify? You use a horse, of course, who people who who might not know are unfamiliar use an unraced to even if I say this, no, people, some people aren't going to know or care what I mean, but
00:31:18
Speaker
He only raced six times this year, didn't race as a baby, comes, you know, comes this year and wants a triple crown. And it's, it seems to me that he was kind of one of the more underwhelming, maybe this because American Pharaoh just did it three years ago. But I wanted to get your take on unjustifying his inevitable retirement really after he won the Belmont.
00:31:42
Speaker
I mean, you know, I think for me, Justify was very similar to me in a sense of arrogant. And I get that Justify didn't run as often as arrogant did, but similar in that both of them had a very short period of time where they were extremely successful and dominant over their opposition.
00:32:01
Speaker
That's just kind of how I look at both of them. I don't think I look at horses and feel this burning desire to rank them in the top 10 of who was the best ever. That's just something that doesn't really hold meaning with me, but I appreciate what we saw from Justify. I don't know if there will ever be a triple crown, whether a triple crown even happens again in my lifetime. I don't know if there will ever be one where before the Derby it felt so inevitable, which in a sense is assigned to how good he was in and of itself.
00:32:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, and I've kind of over the years of, you know, because every single year, you know, it's kind of the same thing from a lot of the, a lot of the fans, you know, they want the the sport what they want.
00:32:42
Speaker
These stars they want to see the three the big three-year-olds keep running Ideally through the whole year and then even better if they run as four-year-olds I've kind of taken the the stance that it's almost like more of a zen thing like just If they're in the starting gate for one of these big grade ones I just kind of appreciate it for that moment and that moment alone and they really just
00:33:04
Speaker
and kind of swim in that, watch the replays, and then don't be so bummed, because everyone's always going to be disappointed. And I think horse racing fans are always looking for ways to be disappointed. So I don't know. It's kind of taught me to be more grounded and in the moment. I don't know about you.
00:33:21
Speaker
Yeah. And I think people, they just look to the highest of highs, right? So they'll say, well, just by if he was around, he could have been anything. He could have won everything. Well, like he could have, but I mean, he could have lost everything too. Like we don't, we don't know. Like I remember a couple of years back when they're talking about the eclipse award and it was lady Eli's three year old season when of course she got injured and got very ill and luckily turned out to be okay. But I remember people saying, well,
00:33:49
Speaker
It's such a shame Lady Eli missed the second half of the season because she would have obviously been undefeated. And I'm like, well, I don't think there's any obviously undefeated anywhere. Like, it's just not that simple. So I guess I'm not heartbroken when some of these horses retire because I don't look at it like, well, if he would have ran five more times, he would have won them all. We don't know. We'll never know.
00:34:08
Speaker
Yeah, for sure, for sure. And I also felt like with him, it was the fact that he seemed to have more ownership interests than an NFL stadium.
Complexities of Horse Ownership
00:34:22
Speaker
It just seemed like there were way too many group, not even just people, it was like too many groups invested in him for him to even
00:34:32
Speaker
Consider running after the Belmont and just say that gets a little icky for me But I totally see why they would have retired them. Anyway, there just seemed like too many there too many interests Involved there. I don't know how Bafford managed to Mitigate and handle that that's a tribute to his skill as a people person I guess a manager of people and egos and
00:34:56
Speaker
I think it's a sign of the changing times, really. I mean, we look at, you know, 40, 50 years ago when a horse was owned by one guy and people would say, well, so-and-so was kept in training. Well, yeah, I mean, it's easy for me, if I'm the only owner of a horse, to be like, nope, just keep running them. But like, as you say, when you have so many individual interests involved, and I think that's how the racing is going to be.
00:35:19
Speaker
It's really become an international game from an ownership standpoint and you see it there with the horse-like justify. With WinStar, WinStar with China Horse Club, two major international racing entities, that's what we're going to start seeing more and more of. And so as you say, it's going to be on some of these trainers, I suppose, to try to keep everybody happy, which is already not difficult to do.
00:35:42
Speaker
Yeah, probably the best trainers now are probably the ones with the best assistant trainers. You know, whether it's Asmussen when Scott Blasey and then whoever Fletcher has under his umbrella. Same with Chad Brown these days and Baffa with Jimmy Barnes. So it's like they actually have like the most talented horsemen who are getting the hands on the horse. So then the CEOs of the Barnes can go out and court these people and keep them happy.
00:36:10
Speaker
Horse racing is a team sport, and I don't think people realize that as much as it really is true. It's an entire team effort, whether it's the horse themselves, the jockeys, the trainers, as you say, their assistants, the grooms, everybody. It takes success from every pillar of that team from top to bottom for you to get the kind of success on the track, as you have from Justify.
00:36:34
Speaker
You know, you're reading this Lucille Ball biography. You're admiring her for being a woman in television when that wasn't... It's always been hard, but it is especially hard then. And then, of course, horse racing, I think, is famously or infamously a very male-dominated industry and sport.
00:36:59
Speaker
And here you are doing what you do. What challenges have you faced as a woman being on air in a sport that is so male dominated? I think there's the only challenges that you just have to understand that you're always going to be looked at for how you look appearance of life. Maybe more than you care to, at least more than I would care to acknowledge on a daily basis. It matters.
00:37:28
Speaker
more than I think it does, even for the men. Not to say it doesn't matter for them. They obviously have to wear suits and look nice on the presentable on television, too. But I would say for me, that's the only one, really, is just how important physical looks play a role. But for me, I think I've been able to skew a lot of challenges because
00:37:50
Speaker
Well, when I came on television and when I started to make my name in racing, I already kind of had this community on Twitter who were very kind, very supportive of me. So that helped. And I don't know, I think on some level, the way when I first came into the game, I have such an analytical take on things. It's just the way that I think when I'm talking on Twitter about a race or if I was talking to my blog about a race, I'm very train of thought. I'm just kind of really typing out what I'm thinking as I'm handicapping the race.
00:38:19
Speaker
And that seemed to have some appeal to men who thought that, you know, in their head, all women in racing did was stand out and say, which horse looks the best? And so even though we know that's not the case, there are people who had that stereotype in their mind. So if anything, it felt like those people were, found me to be a little bit refreshing in that sense that that was very different from what I would do.
00:38:49
Speaker
It's a skill that I couldn't do. I would never I would never do it because I don't have the knowledge base to stand out there and talk about horse confirmation. But I think sometimes people they don't give even positions like that the credit they deserve probably because.
00:39:07
Speaker
They were routinely filled by women, which is a sad enough itself. But I do think that in male dominated industries of any kind, when you see a position that's always filled by women, people just inherently look at it as lesser than even if it is a position like horse confirmation that is extremely difficult and requires years and years of knowledge and experience.
00:39:29
Speaker
Right.
Challenges of On-Camera Presence
00:39:30
Speaker
What challenges did you face early on as you looked to become comfortable on camera and doing live TV? To be frank, I think the biggest challenge I faced early on was myself. I'm very hard on myself. I have high standards for myself.
00:39:51
Speaker
And I knew, especially in the beginning, they put me on doing a lot of international racing segments, things that they knew I'd be comfortable with because they knew I didn't have any experience on camera.
00:40:02
Speaker
So I knew my knowledge base for these subjects was as high as anybody. So if I'd go out there and kind of flounder a little bit, I would get very hard on myself. And it took a long time. I think there was a point that I sat on Facebook maybe a year after I'd been on air, where I said, I finally was able to watch a segment that was about one minute long and not criticize it to death. I just felt like, okay, that was good. But for me,
00:40:30
Speaker
I have just had such high standards for myself that I'm the biggest challenge that stands in my own way sometimes on air. Who are you looking towards for either mentors or to model yourself after in terms of maybe an inspirational figure for the way you shaped your on-camera persona, so to speak?
00:40:55
Speaker
You know, I think I'm lucky that the people that I look up to most because I, because they don't have this huge lifetime worth of racing experience, the people I look up to most of the people that I get to see or get to work with on a daily basis. I mean, I've always said for me on air that I, you know, model myself after three women, after Kate and Bradar, who was phenomenal and the consummate professional and comes off as very personable on air.
00:41:25
Speaker
Don Lupoel at Woodbine, same thing. Incredibly smart woman. She does everything and anything and everything.
00:41:32
Speaker
And she knows that product better than anybody else, maybe in all of North America. And then Gabby Gadette, who's a little bit more of a contemporary, obviously we're a lot closer in age, but I think the key with the three of them that links them together for me is they come off as very natural on air, right? When they speak, it doesn't sound scripted. It doesn't sound like, you know, they are trying to be
00:41:57
Speaker
anything other than exactly the people that they are talking about the races that they love and talking about the horses that they know. And so that's what I try to do is to just be myself and talk about what I do know and be okay with kind of saying what I don't know and knowing that this is a journey for everyone as well.
00:42:18
Speaker
I cover a lot of standard racing on air. That's more of a new thing for me since they joined doing more domestic racing. And I'll be the first to say that it's not my strength. I'm still very much learning about it, but I'm okay with on air. You're saying that thing. Hey, I'm learning here, but this is the opinion I have on this horse. Or if we're bring on an expert.
00:42:41
Speaker
I remember there was a time that we brought on Emily Gaskin from Hoosier Park and I asked her, I said, you know, I see this horse here. It's his first time hop up. What does that mean? And she explained it. And I thought, Oh man, that's a huge, like, I'm always going to be looking at that now. You know, so I just, I tried to be open with my audience in that way and let them come in and know that this is a game where we are all always learning. And, you know, I'm learning right along with you with some of the stuff.
Authenticity and Building Trust with Audience
00:43:08
Speaker
It speaks to a point that, in terms of authenticity, that vulnerability leads to authenticity, which leads to trust in, say, you on air. It's something that I think people really relate to, that the blow dried version of yourself, to be able to show that there is
00:43:32
Speaker
Someone struggling in there trying to make it work is a great way for a writer to connect with an audience and especially for someone like you who's on air and it's visual and we hear your voice and See you and see expressions and then we can connect to that. Is that something you you you're sort of aware of these days? Yeah, definitely on some level. I just think I know from myself that I
00:43:56
Speaker
We always say, oh, horse racing, you can't fake it. I mean, you can't really fake any sport when you're entrenched in it doing it live on television, but you can't fake horse racing. And so if you go out there and try to be perfect talking about a race that you know nothing about, it shows. And that's, I think, if anything, where you lose your audience's trust because they're like, well, he's acting like he knows all this. He doesn't know what he's talking about or she or whoever. And so I just try to never be that. I talk very,
00:44:25
Speaker
you know, strongly and firmly about the things I know. And if it's, like I said, for me, the main part, I guess, would be the standard breads where I'm really still learning and going through it. And, you know, it's just more of a different process, right? I'll talk about what I know with the wraith, but then also not be afraid to ask an expert what I don't know, because I'm not at the track every day. I remember hearing before, it was a while ago, I worked, before I worked with TVJ, I worked with a company called Horse Player Now.
00:44:54
Speaker
And they would do interviews with industry experts from an educational standpoint. And I remember one of the interviews they did was about public handicappers. And my job was to kind of get all these interviews converted into a library. So I heard so many of these things. But the one that really struck me was about public handicappers. And they were asking a big time gambler, does he listen to public handicappers? Because so many people on Twitter or social media say, no, I don't. I mute them. I don't want to hear them.
00:45:23
Speaker
and he said absolutely i do because he said i'm not you know i'm not in new york so i don't know what's going on there that andy surling knows or i'm not in southern california i don't know what's going on santa nita like michelle udas you know whoever at whatever track he's like absolutely i listen it doesn't always dictate what i say but i listen and he said you'll start to
00:45:44
Speaker
you know, see more and more of the quirks for even some of the public handicappers and you can handicap the handicappers and that helps you as well. And I've found that to be really key for me being on air is that I try to grain the information I can when we have guests on, whether it's, you know, Paul Espinoza, Charles Stenwolf, Emily Gasket from Hoosier, Paul Lallat, like Canterbury, whoever it might be.
00:46:07
Speaker
I'll try to gain the local knowledge for our viewers. You know, how, what's the weather like? If somebody hasn't played this track before, is there anything quirky about it they should know? Things like that. And then I try to kind of handicap the handicapper. I mean, I remember in the example I heard in the podcast, it was about Andy Serling, who, anybody who follows horse racing knows. And he said,
00:46:31
Speaker
Sterling always tries to find long shots. So if he picks a favorite, you know, he's going to win stuff like that. And those things matter to me too. In that sense, it's trying to kind of, I look at myself as we have all of these simulcast feeds. We have all of these handicappers at each local track who, who know their products so well. And I'm trying to harness all of their information and then add my twist to it to hopefully get us some winners. Right.
00:47:01
Speaker
And how have you coached yourself to do this thing, this thing you mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, how you're able to digest what's happening live and then see it, digest it, and then speak eloquently about it. How long did that, what a skill. How did you hone that skill over time?
00:47:28
Speaker
Well, I think it's one of the areas where I got lucky in that before I ever worked at TVG. As I mentioned, I work for Horse Player now and I did a lot of radio, full card radio for Woodbine, Remington Park, and a little bit of Keeneland. And that went a long way and just getting comfortable with talking and talking and talking and not even always thinking about what you're saying. You're just kind of saying it if you're trying to kind of think through something or find something really quick to make a point.
00:47:57
Speaker
Um, so he was able to harness that skill in doing that and doing radio. I know a few other people who I've been on air with, who I've said that to since, no, Kurt Hoover, one of them, and he said, well, radio is the best way to get prepared to be on television because it gets you comfortable with the talking aspect. But I think for me also, I'm, I'm just a multitasker by nature. I always have been, if I'm at home working, I usually have like a TV show on at the same time, or I'm always doing like three or four things at once. So.
00:48:24
Speaker
And just like my mind kind of lends itself to multitasking, which I know is not for everybody. But for me, I don't think the transition of having to watch something, think it through, say something back while someone's talking to me in my ear and giving me directions was never a particularly difficult one, just because I'm able, I'm just naturally kind of able to multitask in that sense.
Managing Nerves Before Broadcasts
00:48:49
Speaker
And how do you deal with nerves of being on air if you know it's gonna be a particularly Heavily viewed day, you know bigger sports days bigger racing days are gonna naturally garner more audience How have you worked yourself through that or if you deal with it at all? Um, I try to over prepare I think you know the the quirk for me is the big you know these days for me obviously or some of the big international days or where I'll ask it
00:49:20
Speaker
And he's maybe a big record-breaking day for winks. So those are the days that are the most important to me personally. And I know we'll always have enhanced viewership on international racing. So I think for one end, I try to over-prepare. It's something like we're Alaska. We're always planning out.
00:49:37
Speaker
segments or getting graphics made weeks in advance, right? So it just makes me a little bit more comfortable in that sense that just kind of like behind the scenes, getting everything prepared for the show itself. The nurse in the moment, I mean, I think I'm better at knowing when I'm going to be nervous. So I'll try to kind of drive into work. I have a couple songs I'll listen to that chill me out a little bit. And then what are those songs?
00:50:07
Speaker
Oh my goodness. A lot of classical music. I grew up watching a lot of figure skating, so a lot of classical music will be taking place in the car when I'm driving into work, if I know it today, that I'm going to be really nervous. The Moldau was probably my go-to. It just has kind of a good soft point and then really hard hitting point. So yeah, I probably listened to the Moldau the most when it's big, big days.
00:50:37
Speaker
For me, you know, I think I get, when I get nervous in the moment, you know, if they're counting down 10, nine, eight, you know, once it hits one, you just have to go. So, there's no time to be nervous, then. You just, you go, and then they're all faster than you know what, that first segment's out of the way, and then it's like, okay, cool, I can breathe now.
00:50:55
Speaker
Uh-huh. Do you, as a, I think the tendency is for people who, uh, you know, you don't do this now, but early on, did you ever have moments where you were talking too fast, you know, but you, your brain was telling you were talking just fine. Like, do you have to ever tell yourself just kind of slow down? Oh, I definitely still do it now at times.
00:51:20
Speaker
you know those times you just get excited about something or you have an opinion that you want to say or you know times where I know they're gonna come to me and I really only have a minute to set up this race that we're gonna come back to on tape so I definitely do it now um but yeah it's one of those things that I think you have to be cognizant of watching stuff of yours back even if that's difficult to do or having friends you trust who will do that for you because
00:51:47
Speaker
I'm somebody who, the way that I speak normally, just if I'm talking to a friend on the phone, I'm a pretty methodical speaker in that like I speak pretty slowly, I think for just by normal human standard, I guess. So it's really noticeable when I talk very quickly on air because it's very different from how I normally speak.
00:52:10
Speaker
Yeah. And I always love digging into, um, you know, guests on the show. I love talking about like daily rituals or morning routines and how people check in with themselves. So they're able to approach their work with, you know, a sharpened arrow, so to speak. And I wonder, like, how do you, what do you have any rituals you live by and how do you, and how do you start your day?
00:52:35
Speaker
I think for me, I don't think I have any rituals before I go on air that I live by.
Pre-Show Routine for Focus
00:52:42
Speaker
I think for me, I always try to be very
00:52:45
Speaker
just have an open mind to be present in the moment. I guess for me the last thing that I ever do before I go on air is just I'll go into the makeup room and I'm using the only one in there. So I'll do my hair and my makeup, which is obviously necessary for going on air, but I'm alone obviously doing that. So I think that gives me just kind of that, you know, half hour, 45 minutes to just decompress a little bit and be with myself. But I always just try to be very present in the moment when I'm on air so that, you know, I can catch whatever's happening as it's happening. I think,
00:53:16
Speaker
when you cover racing, especially because, you know, it differs even from other life sports because you're covering seven, eight, nine places all at the same time, right? You just, you have to be very alert and sharp and ready. So I'll have my cup of coffee, right? When I go on there, they're going to strike me up a little bit. And, and then I just go. And it's funny, I'll kind of joke to people, but it's true.
00:53:44
Speaker
afterwards that like a shift will end and i'll be like i don't even remember what i said look for offers because you're just so i'm so present in that moment i don't have time to critique myself or think something over again i'm just you know you're going you're going you're always always thinking
00:54:03
Speaker
three steps ahead. If I'm on air and we're finishing up a race and I know we're going to go to break afterwards, I'm thinking, how are we coming out of break? What do you need me to do? What do you need me to get me to? What three tracks are coming up next? So in that sense, it's always just about being aware of myself and being really present in the moment. I guess on a day-to-day basis, I have a pretty loose routine. It's not really a stringent routine.
00:54:30
Speaker
I get up in the morning. I will take my daughter to school. And then how old is your daughter? She's six years old. So we're in elementary school and we'll take her to school and then that usually gives me some time to come back, have a little bit of oatmeal or something for breakfast and then
00:54:52
Speaker
I just try to kind of relax a little bit and take it easy because usually I work in the evening so I don't want to get too into things at like 8 a.m. So I try to kind of relax, just take it easy a little bit until I pick her up and then I'll get her situated homework wise, get something you know made up for her that the babysitter can heat up for dinner and then when the sitter comes I go to work and that's just when I kind of go into work mode. I try not to
00:55:21
Speaker
You know, even though, even though when she's home, there's times where I'm looking things up or trying to find things that end up becoming for work, it uses more for more of a curiosity standpoint. I try to never be in like full blown, like I'm working. You've got to leave me alone when my daughter's home. I try to really separate the two as much as I can. Do you have a, any kind of, um, uh, like a journaling practice, uh, that you like to do just to, just to sort of purge your brain of stuff?
Self-Reflection and Positivity
00:55:50
Speaker
That's actually something that I've started doing fairly recently, just since maybe the beginning of summer. I, you know, I know, like I said, for a meeting on air, especially comes up my work, how the high standards I have for myself, and sometimes you can wear yourself down that way, especially if you had a couple tough days. So I started at the beginning of the summer with kind of a self reflection journal where every day, you know, it looks a different thing, whether it's
00:56:19
Speaker
smell or sight or taste or touch or whatever something with each of the senses and then every day you list something that was positive like I smelled these really great smelling cookies yesterday or I was able to see a beautiful sunset whatever it might be just something to kind of bring you back to
00:56:40
Speaker
all the positives we have in our lives. I think it's easy to get hunkered down by the negatives, especially when it comes from a self-criticism standpoint, because you're always reminding yourself of how much you need to get better when really life is pretty good.
00:56:56
Speaker
Yeah. And do you have or like a way to like if you are feeling very overwhelmed, a way that kind of gets you back on track and kind of defrags your brain a bit so you can approach just your day and your work with a little bit more clarity if things are getting a bit, you know, out of hand?
00:57:17
Speaker
It's ironic because people always say that I don't sleep, but if I feel overwhelmed, the quickest, easiest fix for me is just to take a nap.
Stress Relief Through Napping
00:57:28
Speaker
I almost always come back just feeling better from it. It just feels like you press the reset button, right? I know even in times if I've gotten in fights with people or whatever, something at work, everything went wrong, I just always feel like if I'm able to just go take a nap when I wake up,
00:57:46
Speaker
everything feels like it's okay again. So nothing too creative, but at least for me it seems to always work. And in your line of work, do you have a quote unquote favorite failure that helped propel you to a greater tier of success? In the moment it kind of sucked, but afterwards you're like, I'm glad that happened because it pushed me to excel.
00:58:15
Speaker
Oh man, that's a really difficult question because I'd look at a lot of things and I'd be like, oh, that wasn't good enough. Yeah, and you're very hard on yourself too, so. Right, so to pick one out, I guess I find to be really difficult. You know, I think for me, as far as big failures are concerned,
00:58:37
Speaker
I know there was one time where I was on air and I was really new to being on air. I was just doing segments of the point, not even full shift. And I had to do a preview for a big race that was coming up.
00:58:52
Speaker
And so usually if I'm standing, we have a touchscreen, if I'm standing at the touchscreen, straight across from me is the camera. And right behind the camera, there's a screen that I can have the director put program in. So at least I can see what's on the screen while I'm talking to know, like if it's me or if I'm off camera or whatnot. And for whatever reason, something went wrong or communication broke down and nothing was in that screen. So I'm talking next to the touchscreen
00:59:22
Speaker
into the camera. I can't see anything. I don't know what's going on and I'm trying to like explain through something and I remember at one point I like looked off to the side where our actual set is and there's a bunch of screens there that show program and I like kind of reoriented myself and set it and I remember and it wasn't even like an email. I didn't turn my body but just kind of shifted my eyes over and I remember that like when I got out
00:59:50
Speaker
you know, a couple of people were upset, like my producer was like, why you keep looking after this? I'd had to have it at the time of not looking straight into the camera. Came to came to find out that I had some eye issues that got fixed. But I remember he was like, you know, why aren't you looking in the camera? And then I just said, I was like, there was no program in there. And it was little things that like, you know, it was just the segment. I'm not sure anybody at home would have realized that, like, all this went down behind the scenes.
01:00:16
Speaker
But for me, intuitively, things like that made me better because it is live television. Things are going to happen. It's not always going to be perfect.
01:00:25
Speaker
So I know there was definitely a time since, I think it was the start of one of the days at Ralaska actually where they got programmed in the monitor, but it took a couple minutes and that I was able to do it and not like have a panic attack because like, okay, been there, done that before. So I don't think there's anything where I was like particularly humiliated on camera or anything like that, but it was like things that are going on that the audience doesn't realize. And I think that is something that maybe people don't
01:00:52
Speaker
You know, you don't think about when you're watching on TV, it's easy for, you know, I do as much as anybody. You watch at home, you're like, oh, I'm way better than that person. They keep messing up and, you know, they don't realize that there's, you know, a bunch of different agendas all going on at the same time, trying to pack in one live television show.
01:01:09
Speaker
I remember it might have been the early 2000s or so. ESPN had this thing like dream job. Do you remember this at all? I was just talking about this to somebody a couple months ago because I was saying how I'll never forget watching that and seeing the challenge where the guys were on the desk talking with a teleprompter and they purposely turn off the teleprompter.
01:01:31
Speaker
Exactly everything you're saying right now I remember that and then it made me think like oh this happens this happens to the on-air talent and it's beautiful if you're as as an on-air talent if you're able to you might you might pause a bit and be like kind of caught off guard but the real pros the people who have been through it and
01:01:55
Speaker
they're able to kind of recover and carry on. But it was like something I had never known before. So everything you were saying just reminded me of that. Yeah, I mean, I think it's one of the things where I feel blessed to be on live television that I think as an adjustment, as somebody who had never done anything on camera, it was like taking me and throwing me into the deep end of the swimming pool. But I'm really glad for it now, because even if the learning curve was steeper, I really come to realize how
01:02:26
Speaker
I don't know if I would say more difficult, but how different it is to be on air live, having to come up with everything you say versus when we do scripted, maybe promotional segments or segments for sponsors. And so I've always been really glad about that. I think it lends itself a little bit better to my mind and how I work as well.
01:02:45
Speaker
Yeah. And what would you identify as a particular strength you have and then also weakness too and how do you kind of balance those balance that spectrum? I think my strength probably lies in my actual
01:03:04
Speaker
handicapping and how I present my argument to the audience. I always say that I look at me handicapping a race and talking about to an audience like an argument like a lawyer would. And I always feel like my logic is sound. So even if I'm wrong, which we all are more often than not, I always feel like the things that I'm saying that were my rationale between why I like a specific course in a race makes sense. And I do think that while
01:03:30
Speaker
I think of things or approach races in a different manner than maybe a lot of other public handicappers do. I'd like to think that I'm able to kind of break it down to a level that if you've never seen a track of this place before, you can at least get a grasp of what I'm saying. And that's obviously really important for me doing a lot of international racing and with our big push with racing from Australia, which is
01:03:54
Speaker
totally new product to most people here in America. So I would say those are my strengths, my weakness. I would definitely say for me my weakness is maybe recognizing
Improving On-Camera Skills
01:04:10
Speaker
different like patterns with trainers and the like, because I don't have that historical background when it comes to racing. So, you know, a horse might be following the same path as another horse the trainer had 15 years ago. I wouldn't pick that up as well as maybe some of my contemporaries would. And there definitely is a huge place for that. And those are things that, you know, I just don't have that background in. And so,
01:04:37
Speaker
They don't come up like they do for some other people that I'm on air with. I mean, being on camera, maybe my biggest weakness, though I've gotten a little bit better with it probably was just the looking like staring straight into the camera. I don't know, eye contact has always been a really weird thing for me, even with people. So I've had to really learn and adapt to staring at a camera and
01:05:08
Speaker
just not moving or flinching or looking elsewhere. Has eye contact been hard because you're maybe, were you shy growing up too? I'm extremely shy. Like me being on television is the funniest thing to all of my family because like I was like mute as a kid. I remember even when I started at TVG, actually one of my coworkers who's on air, Joaquin Jaime,
01:05:37
Speaker
he had said like, Oh, you speak because it took me like months before I was even like saying anything. I'm just, I'm really shy and I find myself that I'm really shy in scenarios where I'm around people that I respect. You know, the more that I look up to people or the more that I respect them and in whatever, for whatever reason, the more shy that I become because I
01:06:02
Speaker
am already internally kind of self criticizing what should or shouldn't I say like to that extent that you just end up saying nothing at all.
01:06:13
Speaker
And how have you cultivated a sense of patience with your work in a sense of being able to play the long game and not go for the short, you know, short term games? Like anything you're doing is investing into the long term, which is sometimes hard for people because they want the gold now. How have you worked on having that patience in your life and in your work?
Setting Achievable Goals
01:06:42
Speaker
I think for me, I always look at, you know, whatever goals I have, long range goals, I always try to have, look at it like a ladder, but every step that you're taking up to the top is a new individual smaller goal that you're achieving. So even though, as you say, even where I am now, career wise or personal wise, is far off from whatever long range goal I'm working on to at the moment.
01:07:06
Speaker
I try to always focus on, you know, smaller short-term goals in the interim and that helps me to just stay a little more focused and a little more grounded. And, you know, I think for me at the same time, I'm always, always working on something, right? I'm never, I don't ever just sit around and in placid and think, well, I should be doing more than this or I should be getting more than this. I'm very much a believer in you, you make things happen for yourself. And so,
01:07:36
Speaker
I'm always, you know, if whatever I'm doing, I feel like I'm always working on two or three other things that could potentially lead somewhere. And if they do, they do. And if they don't, they don't. But at least knowing that I'm doing that gives me some of that peace of mind as well. Do you have any non TV related goals?
01:07:56
Speaker
I think so right now. I mean, I've always been a very career-oriented person. So that's kind of where I've lied in that sense. I think personally, I've had a few years where I think I've had a lot of personal growth, which has been good for me. And so it's always trying to kind of progress in that fashion. You know, we've talked a lot on here about me being hard on myself. And I guess for me, that's always what I try to work on away from work is
01:08:26
Speaker
to just be kinder to myself and be kinder to the people around me. And if you do that, I think everything kind of falls into place.
01:08:35
Speaker
Yeah, and that, in a sense, is going to be like you'll end up being an energy giver instead of an energy taker. And, geez, if you hang around horse racing long enough, it's a big reason why I can't be in the press boxes and sort of remove myself from them because it is kind of a bit of a toxic swamp. At least that's been my experience.
01:08:57
Speaker
So it's that's it's kind of cool to hear you say that, you know, in taking care of yourself, it is going to make you be a lighter, a sort of beacon of energy. And, you know, people are going to be want to be around you and want to follow you. And you'd be a good ambassador for a sport that's kind of hard to rally behind sometimes. I think horse racing generally lends itself to attracting people who
01:09:27
Speaker
are looking to boost their ego in a sense. And I'm not saying that I wasn't like that when I was attracted either. I mean, that's the nature of gambling, right? As you're winning races and you're in a sense saying, I was better than you, especially in horse racing, where it's not even you against the house, right? It's you against everybody else. Like, oh, I'm better than all of you. I won. You lost.
01:09:49
Speaker
Um, and so I definitely understand that appeal and I was that person just as much as anybody else. But I think at the end of the day, you know, the, I'm not old, but the older you get and the more you have going on in your life, aside from it, you realize it's, it's just horse racing. Like I understand it's, you know, it's a business and people's livelihoods depend on it. And mine certainly does as well, but you know, we're not, we're not covering, you know,
01:10:19
Speaker
massive national international news is, you know, tourist racing. And for a lot of people, it's a hobby. And I think for me, the way that I've looked at the game now, in the way that I approach it, isn't really different than it did when it was just a hobby for me. And maybe that's allowed me to not become so entrenched in that kind of tout mindset.
01:10:46
Speaker
Is there a piece of advice you wish you had received, I don't know, five, 10 years ago that you think might have helped you today? I think I'd wish that somebody told me that everything isn't so serious. I think when I was younger, everything was a big deal in the course of every single day. And that's a very stressful way to live your life.
01:11:14
Speaker
it took me getting to that place of understanding myself that there are definitely things that are a big deal and you want to focus on them and you want to do really well but that on your general day-to-day basis if you're running late or if the Starbucks barista made your coffee wrong or if the you know McDonald's person forgot to give you your fries like
01:11:38
Speaker
It's okay. And the day will still keep going on and you'll figure it out. And so I think whereas I put a lot of pressure on myself and situations and other people in my life for a long time, I think, you know, I've come to realize that most things aren't really that big of a deal and that it's human nature to assign more, uh, worth to things that
01:12:04
Speaker
At the end of the day, five years from now, you're not gonna remember that that even happened. How do you cope or avoid feelings of competition or jealousy among peers?
01:12:19
Speaker
I think I have an easy in that sense in that because I work in such a niche space in the industry that there isn't a ton of competition because there's even still since I've started devoting myself to it, which now would be about almost five years from now, there hasn't really been anybody else who has emerged in the same sphere.
01:12:41
Speaker
I'm lucky in that sense that even when I work at TBG, I don't look at my fellow coworkers as competition because we're all good at different things. I do the international. We have Tom Cassidy who does the harness racing. I could never do that, so I don't look to compete with him. We have our crew who are out at TBG.
01:13:03
Speaker
Sanita or Del Mar every day and they know those circuits better than I do just like I know the Irish handicap scene better than they do. So I think that's one thing that TVG has done really good about is that they have such a diverse cast of individuals who we all have our specialties and our specialties are all different from each other.
Non-Competitive Atmosphere at TVG
01:13:24
Speaker
And so at least for me, I don't feel that sense of competition because what I do is very different from they do and likewise.
01:13:33
Speaker
And in the course of your your work, where do you feel most alive and most engaged? Oh, I think that for me, when I'm working, I've been really lucky that when I started on air, we had wings who, you know, basically for people that watch racing from abroad, it's basically the Zenyatta of racing in Australia, maybe even better than that. And
01:14:00
Speaker
I feel the most invigorated when I'm covering her races in like the three minutes before the start where it's just her behind the gate and they're loading up everybody and I'm able to hopefully at least I'm trying to give a sense to people of how incredible these achievements you know making happen are are in the grand scheme of things because
01:14:29
Speaker
She's come along at a time where we've just recently started pushing Australian racing so I always felt from the beginning like she was accomplishing major things and it was hard to really put that into perspective for people who didn't follow racing from Australia for what a big deal it was what she was doing so
01:14:46
Speaker
I feel the most, I feel like I have the most purpose in those three minutes when she's behind the gate before she blows up for a race. And that's when I feel, I think the most invigorated as a result, going into the gate and then watching her race and then being able to assess what I just saw right, right afterwards.
01:15:11
Speaker
Wow. Are there, are there race replays that you just keep in your revolver all the time and you're like, I, yeah, if I need a fix, I go to this one. Oh yeah. Um, there would be several. I, I'll very often, I actually just spoke about it on the other day on Twitter, but very often I'll go back and watch. There was a horse, uh, a jumps horse over in Ireland. His name is Denman. They called him the tank and I watch his gold cop a lot and.
01:15:40
Speaker
It was amazing. He has a, he's had a couple of runs actually between that and his Tennessee gold cups that were some of the most amazing weight carrying performances you'll ever see. And I'll watch him out quite often. Um, when I started delving more into racing, you know, obviously I was a baby, so I never had the opportunity to watch him live, but I kind of grew a bit of a fascination for Swale and I go back and watch some of his races. Uh, he's, he's always been kind of that horse that.
01:16:07
Speaker
was in my lifetime, but I never really saw him who, who has captured my, you know, my attention in the interim, obviously, and the whole story around him and his early death probably only plays a role in that. Um, I'll go back and watch races for that. I remember being at some times, uh, why I went back and watch late Zenyatta's lady secret many times her last one, her final race in California.
01:16:35
Speaker
Uh, that was the first race I ever went to. And I always tell people that I've still, I've been to breeders cups, Dubai world cups. I've been to the punches down gold cup. I've been to, you know, so many major racing events, Hong Kong international races. And I have never ever heard a crowd like that or felt a grandstand shake physically shake like it, like it did that day when she was able to get up on the wire. What year was that?
01:17:05
Speaker
20, I think 20, 2010, I believe it'd be 20. It'd be her, it was her last race before she went over to church without. And so what, what still excites you and where does your optimism lie? Um, I think with racing, what excites me is
01:17:32
Speaker
seeing how much easier it's becoming to watch races from all over the world because it gives people options. And I think anytime there's options on betting products, that only helps everybody, right? To me, it's the same as, you know, whether there's competition in any sense. If you see, we've all seen it where you're driving on the road and you see two gas stations, one on each side, and one is
01:17:53
Speaker
350 a gallon and one is 320. And you're like, who would ever go to the 351? Well, I look at it, you know, racing in the same way, the more options that people have, the more that things are going to naturally sort themselves out from a competition perspective. And you're going to have to adjust in order to compete.
Optimism for International Racing Growth
01:18:10
Speaker
And so I like that more international races are becoming more easily accessible to people for that reason. I would say optimism. I think optimism for me comes from.
01:18:24
Speaker
hearing more international pressure on America to clean up their act when it comes to race day drugs, but really to just be more transparent about it. And I think really American racing relies on that. It's becoming the norm everywhere else. You know, you look at Hong Kong and Japan and vet reports or
01:18:50
Speaker
accessible to anybody, you know, I can look up any horse and see, oh, he bled on June 23rd, or, oh, he came up sore on June 25th. And some of that's becoming the norm in Asian markets, which are booming from a horse racing perspective. But, you know, even from, you know, whether it's Great Britain or Ireland or Australia, immediately after a race, you have a stewards report and you have
01:19:13
Speaker
I mean, released right on Twitter within minutes, you know, X, Y, Z horse was netted after the race and they pulled up line or they lost a shoe or this and you have those, there's no guessing game. And so the more that I'm seeing pressure coming from the international racing community on America to.
01:19:33
Speaker
Follow suit and giving tangible reasons why they should. They've talked about the idea of super group ones that would include American racing. If they don't do that, they've talked about the idea of maybe not allowing horses to come over here, you know, whatever it might be. The more I hear that pressure, the more that I feel.
01:19:49
Speaker
confident that maybe we'll get to that a similar kind of place because sometimes it, you know, I know sometimes we kind of drag our feet on the issue here in America and I get it. Nobody ever wants to be told what to do. And I think it's a very American mindset, especially not to want to be told what to do. We all feel it. I get it. But I think sometimes we all just need a little nudge and we end up becoming better than what we were in the first place.
01:20:16
Speaker
Fantastic. Candice, where can people find you online and get more familiar with you and your work? You can find me online. I'm on Twitter at Candice Hair underscore. And then I still have my blog that I post to occasionally. And that's cappingwithcandice.com.
01:20:34
Speaker
Awesome. Well, Candace, thank you so much for jumping on the podcast and talking about your career and horse racing and everything. It was a lot of fun to get to know you and talk to you a bit. And I wish you continued success. And we'll keep going back and forth on random pop culture references on Twitter, I'm sure. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. You're welcome, Candace. Take care. Whoopee!
01:21:03
Speaker
Drugs must be setting in. Thanks to my promotional partner in CNF and crime, Hippocampus magazine.
01:21:12
Speaker
No, while you're here, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, and also head over to brendanamara.com to sign up for my monthly reading list newsletter. I give out my book recommendations and what you might have missed from the world of the CNF and podcast. I think that's it. Everything hurts. I'll just catch you right here next week. Same time, same place.