Laura Moquett’s Search For A ‘Good Fixer’ On The Eve Of The Arkansas Derby

Counting the well-mannered colt's strides as she takes him to the seven-eighths pole on a brisk Wednesday morning breeze this week at Oaklawn Park, Laura Moquett knows precisely where she wants to be. She understands how much throttle to let out and what visual markers are presenting themselves. Clocking is useful, but it is more about listening intently as she moves forward.

An accomplished horseman like Moquett relishes the routine; everyone does, but as an assistant trainer she is never shy when it comes to a good equine conundrum. In a vocation such as hers when you spend your time breaking and training Thoroughbreds to race the trade demands it.

Time

Hot Springs's own Harry T. Rosenblum, who co-owns Time for Truth (Omaha Beach) with Cheyenne Stables, has entered that well-mannered colt this Saturday in the GI Arkansas Derby and Moquett has played an integral part in 'Truth's' development.

The road to the track's signature race has not been a cakewalk. Remember, it's horse racing. A case in point, the 3-year-old was spooked during one of those routine workouts one morning, but according to Moquett, in situations like these what seems to be a problem can turn into an invitation for growth.

Laura Moquett breezing Time for Truth | Coady Photography

“Jogging backwards a rider got dropped,” said Moquett. “It really made him [Time for Truth] fearful because it was a surprise and it was keeping him from moving forward, so we needed to figure out a way to address it by teaching him not to be afraid. He figured it out with a little help.”

What Moquett did, along with fellow assistant Greta Kuntzweiler, was put a horse in front of the 3-year-old and show him how to move around obstacles. It seems like a simple fix. But it's not.

The social cues and mechanisms from the saddle come from a long line of trial and error, which are based in the fundamentals of exercise riding. Moquett knows this; she's studied it through countless hours of developing her own horseman's database. It's a hard drive full of experiences. In her line of work, you have to consider anatomy, kinesiology, a dab of psychotherapy, and most of all, a heavy dosage of patience to solve a horse's Rubik's Cube.

“You don't get on them and just steer with your hands,” explained Moquett. “It's about knowing their tendencies, listening and feeling their body movements. All of that comes from your legs and it has a lot to do with your weight distribution.”

Listening

The tried-and-true Socratic Method–asking a question and then receiving a response– works just fine in your garden-variety academic setting.

However, when it comes to preparing Time for Truth for Saturday's career-defining race, what you really need is someone who understands a horse's language.

Laura Moquett on her shedrow rounds | JN Campbell

Someone who whispers to them? Sure, but it's equally important to know how to listen. Laura Moquett is one of those listeners.

With an intuitive sense for animals which she had from a very young age, Moquett has honed her skills over the years working with Thoroughbreds around racetracks and after they have retired.

As an assistant to husband Ron Moquett, Time for Truth's conditioner, the question she asked when the Thoroughbred first arrived as a juvenile last year is the same one she issues to any member of the barn: “How can this colt move forward?”

“I like a good fixer,” Moquett said with a smile. “Maybe Ron understands that most of all, but what I am trying to do is guide energy. Horses can feel a fly, so what we do is help manage their senses by listening to what they tell us.”

Origins

Ron Moquett met his future wife on the backstretch while the two worked under trainer Bernie Flint in the mid-1990s. He understood early on what a natural gift for horsemanship she possessed and how equine athletes responded to her.

“Laura can find ways to get along with some of the toughest horses,” Ron Moquett said. “Instead of making them perform a task, her connection to them–all animals really–is just incredibly special and she gets into their psyche by adapting to their own ideology.”

Time for Truth with groom Jose Espinoza | Coady Photography

Laura Moquett says there's a complex and evolving dialogue between the horses and the humans who care for them. Grooms, hotwalkers, van drivers, and of course, exercise riders all gravitate to a certain type of equine athlete.

“Oh, we've all got a type, everyone in this barn does,” she said. “For me, I like a big-ass colt with an attitude.”

Assistant Greta Kuntzweiler agreed, but she works well with a different sort.

“Give me the nutty filly or the cranky old gelding,” she said.

Truth

As an integral member of Moquett Racing, Kuntzweiler guided Time for Truth, along with her mentor Laura Moquett, over the course of the past several months as the colt prepared for each new obstacle. Once he broke his maiden on the last day of the year, the dark bay out of the Lookin At Lucky mare Shape Shifter had to endure time off due to a frozen second half of January, which caused his workout regimen to be altered.

An unlucky stall accident the week of the GII Rebel S. waylaid his next start, but the team behind him kept him on course. Time for Truth successfully traversed the two-turn conundrum against optional claimers at Oaklawn earlier this month, which set up the opportunity to enter the starting gate this Saturday.

“Working with Laura and Ron over the years, I've learned to take on challenges one step at a time, really watch how she develops the ones who need the most help,” Kuntzweiler said. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, the answer is to go forward.”

Already at Churchill Downs for the coming meet, the assistant trainer credits Moquett with teaching her everything she knows. That's a high compliment coming from a former jockey who rode competitively, and continues to evolve.

“When my business [as a jockey] began to dry up, it was time to start thinking about a new direction and watching Laura work has really helped me add a whole new dimension to my own bag of tricks,” she said.

Greta Kuntzweiler aboard Time for Truth | courtesy of Robert Yates

Tricks

Moquett began to expand said bag when she started show jumping with OTTBs–like MGISW Whitmore (Pleasantly Perfect)–who can start new careers once their days racing and breeding are over. What she learned through this whole other universe was a different kind of problem-solving, which got her to look more inwardly at the horse–like a football player who takes ballet.

“Education in the jumping has helped my training by understanding body mechanics,” she said. “That has made me rethink how I approach 2-year-olds when they first hit the track, and it also makes me think about how we communicate with our own riders.”

Moquett is especially in-tune when it comes to checking a horse's legs every morning for any issues and looking for social cues during training. Communicating those observations to her husband and also to the jockeys, like Time for Truth's regular rider Rafael Bejarano, is an essential part of the conduit of information. It only adds to a jockey's toolbox.

“Greta is the one who has done such a wonderful job of talking to jockeys and doing it in such a way that is constructive,” said Moquett. “That really shows her attention to detail. Rafael was the first to hear about Time for Truth's new ability to pass, and that will give him the confidence to make the right decision during Saturday's race when the moment comes.”

Time for Truth with Rafael Bejarano up | Coady Photography

Saturday

Can someone with Moquett's background and training history over decades of development lead Time for Truth to a win in the Arkansas Derby?

Moquett offers a practical response.

“All we can answer is the question of is our horse ready?” she said. “Everyone in this barn is forward first and what this is about is running his best race. What we have done is get this specific horse to run in a specific way. He has the mind and the temperament. The rest is up to him. I will tell you though, Saturday can't come soon enough.”

Laura Moquett might be a self-described creature of the backside much more than the front, but what she has continued to showcase with her professionalism and penchant for solving equine puzzles makes her a horseman through and through.

She will keep searching for the next good fixer or, like in the case of Time for Truth, another big-ass colt.

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‘Ring The Bell’ Program Returns to Oaklawn to Benefit Aftercare

After some test rings last spring, Oaklawn's fund-raising efforts for local Thoroughbred aftercare began in earnest Dec. 9 with the opening of its scheduled 68-day live racing season. The final six days of the 2021-2022 meeting raised $14,000 through the new “Ring the Bell” program, which gives winning connections following each race an opportunity to donate at least $100 toward aftercare.

Money raised is earmarked for the Arkansas Thoroughbred Retirement Program and Rehabilitation Foundation Inc., a collaboration between the Arkansas division of the Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association and Oaklawn. It was recently established as a safe path to a second career for Oaklawn-raced horses upon retirement.

Donations are signaled–loudly–by hand ringing a large copper-colored bell hung in the back of the Larry Snyder Winner's Circle. The idea of intertwining a bell with aftercare was the brainchild of trainer Ron Moquett, best known for his work with Whitmore, a seven-time Oaklawn stakes winner and 2020 Eclipse Award Champion male sprinter.

“I wanted to bring attention and give everybody the opportunity to, when they're at their happiest, they can help right then,” Moquett said. “Ring that bell and it starts up a conversation. 'Hey, that bell is ringing for the respect and love of the horse.' The bell is symbolic and it teaches everybody through the whole grandstand that whenever you hear that bell, that means somebody has donated money to the retired racehorse program. We'd like to hear the bell ring every race, every day. What the sound means is we're helping retired racehorses.”

For more information about the organization, visit the Arkansas Thoroughbred Retirement Program website.

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Where Are They Now: Whitmore

In this new TDN column, Christie DeBernardis will tell the stories of accomplished and/or popular former racehorses who are now enjoying second careers as show horses, track ponies, etc.

Champion sprinter Whitmore (Pleasantly Perfect) and Laura Moquett's relationship goes back to when he was just a 2-year-old who refused to go around the racetrack without some coaxing. Fast forward seven years and that cantankerous juvenile is now an Eclipse winner and Breeders' Cup winner and has been retired from racing as Moquett's personal riding horse.

On Thursday, less than 13 miles from the scene of Whitmore's greatest racetrack triumph, the pair had their show ring debut in the Retired Racehorse Project's competitive trail event at the Kentucky Horse Park.

“We had some issues to deal with between the wind and sun creating some scary shadows,” Moquett said. “He looked at the first obstacle and said hard no, but he worked through it and completed the course. I was really proud of him. He kept his composure really well despite that, which was incredible.”

She continued, “He had so many groupies. It was phenomenal. They followed him from the barn all the way up to the course. They were adoring. It was really cool to see. If this gets even one person to give a horse a second shot at a new career, that is so important.”

Whitmore entered Ron and Laura Moquett's barn as a rambunctious 2-year-old and was initially owned by their Southern Springs Stables. While new owners later bought into Whitmore, one thing remained unchanged and that was Laura Moquett, who was the chestnut's regular rider and traveling companion.

“As a 2-year-old, I really had to focus on him because he was a maniac,” Moquett said. “We couldn't get him around the racetrack, not one lap, and would not go the right direction. We did a bunch of schooling on that to teach him to go forward. We kept him company, even breezing, until the last couple of years because otherwise he would stop in the middle of the track and do some shenanigans. But, with company, he did his job and ran other horses down, which is funny because it ended up being his running style.”

She continued, “Basically, if I was in town, I would be on his back every day. If we had to go out of town for a stakes race, I was his companion. Most of it was great, but sometimes he pushes your buttons and he loves doing it.”

With a stallion career off the table for the gelded seven-time graded stakes winner, Ron Moquett consulted his partners about Whitmore's future when it came time for retirement. Everyone readily agreed to leave him in the hands of his lifelong friend Laura Moquett.

“Ron had talked to the partners and everyone came to the consensus we could keep him the rest of his life,” Moquett said. “I still wanted to be around him daily, so thankfully they were totally on board. He got injured at Saratoga last summer and they said he could come back to the races, but the partners agreed he had done more than enough. I was upset when he was injured, but I knew he was going to be okay and I would get to keep him, so it was a weird mix of emotions. It was devastating in the barn for our team because he was the big horse and had that mojo everyone wants to be around.”

That injury came during Saratoga's 2021 meet and Whitmore was given down time for the rest of the year.

“We couldn't bring him back until late December and I was just too busy at Oaklawn to start him,” Moquett said. “It didn't materialize this winter and I was just trying to get his feet back in shape. That will always be a challenge. I thought there was no way we could do the RRP, though that was all I wanted to do. I thought it would be really great for his fans to see him do something else. There are a lot of people that follow him and were upset when he got injured.”

She added, “I worked with him five or six times in the round pen just doing ground work in late March. Then I hauled him to a friend's place maybe four times and did some basic under saddle work. That was about as much as I could do until we got back to Kentucky after the Derby.”

Moquett and Whitmore did manage to fit one other outing in during their winter in Hot Springs, a trip to Oaklawn for “Whitmore Day.”

“The first day at Oaklawn he was actually decent,” Moquett said. “I think he was like, 'I'm back baby!' Days two through four, I was like I might die. One of the jocks went by and was like, 'He's going to drop you.' I said, 'He hasn't yet! Don't worry, I will make it home.' He was just so excited. By the fifth day, he realized we are just going to go out there and walk. I had the outrider next to me in case. He got out there and everyone was yelling for him and he was like, 'Okay, this is for me. That's right. I get it.' I told them if they didn't get me off the track before the gates popped and we accidentally won the race, I was taking the money.”

Once they returned to Kentucky in May, the real work began.

“He is at a barn in Goshen that the mounted police use,” Moquett said. That was part of what inspired the competitive trail idea. When he first got up here, I just legged him up trail riding at first. The first time I went anywhere with him was in June to Masterson Station for a jumper/trail night. It took me like 30 minutes to get him to the course. He was terrified of all the stuff they had set up. It blew my mind too. I was like there is no way I can do this. The mounted police take their horses to Hinkle Equestrian Center in Indiana to prep for competitions. We went over there about 12 times and that helped him a bunch. He is a fairly easy horse to ride and he will only get better. I am lucky.”

Whitmore's age and experience racing at venues from coast-to-coast have aided him in his second career.

“He has been on airplanes and at a bunch of different venues with music and crowds,” said Moquett. “I think that is an advantage, especially for this class, as is his age. He is a lot more settled than a young horse is.”

As for the future, Moquett has a few ideas, but is letting Whitmore dictate the plans.

“I would love to try the hunters with him,” the horsewoman said. “But, I am enjoying every second of it and we will see what he wants to do. It's his world, I am just living in it.”

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Nashville Retires to WinStar

CHC Inc. and WinStar Farm's track record-setting Nashville (Speightstown–Veronique, by Mizzen Mast) has been retired from racing and will stand alongside his sire at WinStar, the farm announced Thursday.

Tabbed a 'TDN Rising Star' off his impressive 11 1/2 length debut romp at Saratoga in September of 2020, the $460,000 KEESEP buy followed suit with a dominant Keeneland allowance win a month later, good for a 103 Beyer Speed Figure.

Nashville may not have won the GI Breeders' Cup Sprint, but he was the fastest sprint winner on the card. After sizzling through fractions of :21.54 for the opening quarter and :43.87 for the half-mile, Nashville sailed home the easiest of winners. Geared down in the late stages, he crossed the wire 3 1/2 lengths ahead of his nearest pursuer in the new track-record time of 1:07.89, earning a 102 Beyer Speed Figure. Nashville's final clocking proved nearly a second faster than subsequent Eclipse Champion Sprinter Whitmore's time (1:08.61) in winning the $2 million Breeders' Cup Sprint later that same day.

This season, Nashville continued his winning ways with a 4/34-length, wire-to-wire victory at Fair Grounds in March, covering six furlongs in 1:08.61, the fastest sprint race of the entire Fair Grounds meet and the fastest time at that distance in more than two years.

“Nashville is the fastest horse we have ever had at WinStar,” said Elliott Walden, president, CEO and racing manager of WinStar. “He is a freak of nature. Three times he went :43 and change; he led through the first quarter in every start and led after a half in all but one start. The brilliance he showed will give him a big chance at stud. Speightstown is always a plus, already having six sons to sire Grade I winners.”

By champion sprinter Speightstown, Nashville is out Veronique, a half-sister to multiple stakes winner Almond Roca (Speightstown) and graded stakes-placed Calistoga (Speightstown), who was purchased by James Delahooke for $800,000 in foal to Collected at Keeneland November in 2020 just days after Nashville's powerhouse performance in the Perryville. He hails from the direct female family of GI Kentucky Derby winner Giacomo, GI Santa Anita Derby winner Tiago, and graded stakes winner and Grade I-placed Stanwyck. Nashville was bred in Kentucky by Breffini Farm and purchased from the Lane's End consignment.

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