At first glance, it looks like a movie you've probably seen already. A horse-crazy girl leads her family into racing and, against all odds, they end up in the winner's circle after a big race. Only, for Gaylene Smith and her family, it's no movie. It's real life after Smith's 8-year-old granddaughter London asked for a racehorse early last year. Less than a year into operation, Smith's Willow's Green Stable won its first stakes race with Timeless Bounty (Elusive Hour), a $15,000 claim who took the family to Santa Anita for the GI Malibu S. last December and who will represent them in the GIII General George S. at Laurel Park Saturday.
“It all started with my granddaughter, she's a horse person,” Smith explained. “She started riding when she was five. She wants to do barrel racing and is working towards that as we speak. She is obsessed with all things Heartland and all things Secretariat and Seabiscuit. We were sitting there one day and we had just watched a race on T.V. and she had watched those two movies about 400 times. She said, 'I think we should have a racehorse.' I was originally kind of shocked. I said to my son, 'What do you think we have to do?'”
Smith's son Jeremy threw himself into the new endeavor.
“My son is a research person, so he started researching,” Smith said. “Last spring we got our first horse. And now we have 11.”
Before venturing into racing, the family had already come together to care for Smith's ailing 97-year-old mother at their Ohio home.
“We bonded because we all have shifts,” she said. “We all live together now because of my mom. We insist on keeping her home and I work full time, besides having race horses. So my son and his family, they have their shifts. My grandson is 21 and he has his shift. We bonded over my mom.”
Focusing on racing became something else for the family to bond over. And they aren't just weekend warriors. The Willow's Green horses, trained by longtime family friend Dave Wilson, Jr., are stabled on a farm where they receive individualized attention.
“Some people say we have a petting zoo,” Smith said. “They are all so different, they are all trained by Dave according to their personality. They don't all train exactly the same. It's the same basics, but the approach is different. We don't do anything with them for a few weeks. We let them evolve and try to figure out what their heads are like. Some of them are a little more difficult than others. And some of them are like big dogs.”
She continued, “We just have a different approach from what we've seen. We don't let them out in the pasture and do crazy stuff like that, but they are happy when they are at the farm. We
can be more hands on. We do have people to do stalls, but we do them, too. Dave is involved. Tim Maxey, our farrier, is like a family member, too. And we are all just kind of rocking and rolling with the horses and the races, and discussing which race is the best one.”
London Smith may just be the family's secret weapon.
“London came along and she's different,” Smith said with a chuckle. “They call her the horse whisperer. It doesn't matter if we just bought a horse that day, she wants to go in the stall and get them to lie down and lay down with them and talk to them. She says, 'I need to talk to them.'”
Last October, Willow's Green Stables made what would turn out to be its biggest acquisition to date, claiming then 3-year-old Timeless Bounty for $15,000 at Thistledown. Just two starts later, the colt became the stable's first stakes starter when he went postward as a 59-1 outsider in the $250,000 Steel Valley Sprint S. In an ending worthy of Hollywood, Timeless Bounty produced a powerful late rally to defeat a field which included established stakes performers Jaxon Warrior (Munnings) and Baby Yoda (Prospective) and earned over 11 times his claiming price.
“We got him in October and we didn't really know him that well when he shocked the hell out of everybody,” Smith said. “That day is a day I will never ever forget in my life. I would have been ecstatic with fourth or fifth because there were some nice horses in that race.”
Asked what it was like to watch her colors carried to victory in a stakes race, Smith said, “It was such a shock. My son just literally collapsed. We were speechless. I kept saying, 'Oh my God. Oh my God.' I'm crying, my son is crying. And London was saying, 'Daddy he just won.' Like why are you idiots crying? No matter what happens in the future, no day will be like this one.”
In recalling the day, Jeremy Smith used the word surreal more than once.
“We shed a lot of tears,” he said. “Our family has been going through quite a bit here lately with my grandmother not doing well. We've had some ups and downs as a family. The hugs, the tears and the embracing, was something that I don't think any of us will ever forget for the rest of our lives. It had nothing to do with the money–I don't think any of us could have told you what we'd won. That's what I think was neat about it. He was a representation about what our family has been through. He was off the pace, a 59-1 longshot, kind of an underdog. You get knocked down, some people give up on you, but you don't give up on yourself and you find a way to dig down deep and keep going. That's what he did in there. He wasn't expected to win. No one gave him a shot and I think he was just a representation of who and what we are as a family. If that makes sense.”
The victory earned Timeless Bounty and the Smith family a trip out West to test the deep waters in the Dec. 26 GI Malibu S. where he would finish fifth behind superstar Flightline (Tapit).
“He deserved the opportunity to be in that race,” Gaylene Smith said. “He had earned the right to be there. And so we flew him out there. I flew out there with some of my family and some of my family were already out there with him. There were lots of people–it's not like races out here– and we got the royal treatment, the meal, the whole nine yards. It was quite an experience. It was so different.”
Jeremy Smith described his first trip to Santa Anita like visiting the historic home of baseball's Chicago Cubs for the first time.
“It was an honor to be at Santa Anita–just going there and seeing the backdrop of the place. It was kind of like going to Wrigley Field for the first time,” he said. “You just felt the history of the place. It was beautiful.”
Of competing against a horse like Flightline, Jeremy Smith added, “Flightline is a special horse and it was an honor to be in that horse's presence and watch him run. He ran so effortlessly. It was an honor to be in a race with him.”
Timeless Bounty will get another try against graded company when he faces six foes in the seven-furlong General George Saturday at Laurel.
“We are excited,” Gaylene Smith said of the upcoming race. “I hope he does very well and makes himself proud.”
Smith is also looking forward to retiring from a 30-plus career in the food services industry to spend more time with her growing racing stable.
“I would love that. I would absolutely love that,” she said.
Looking at the winding road that has led to the 11-horse stable, Jeremy Smith said, “We have just been blessed and are enjoying the journey. That's what it comes down to. We didn't get into this business thinking it was going to be something that would take over our lives. But ever since we got into it, it's pretty much consumed all of us. There are no days off, it's around the clock. But honestly, I don't know if any one of us would change anything. Win, lose or draw, I think these animals have touched our lives in a different way. If none of them ever ran a race again, I think we would have a very tough time getting rid of any of them. They have become part of the family. They have welcomed us into their herd and we are blessed to have them in our life.”
Gaylene Smith is looking forward to the stable settling into its second year of existence.
“Last year, we had to start up, we didn't have anything,” she said. “We didn't have tack. We had to get everything. So hopefully this year, it will be a little bit more relaxed. As a family effort, it has been absolutely marvelous.”
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