Just over a year ago, Robert
Courtney Jr.’s Rahystrada won the Grade III Arlington Handicap with jockey Inez Karlsson aboard, and then that horse and rider went on to finish fourth in last
summer’s Grade I Arlington Million.
This summer, Rahystrada
remains on track for a return engagement in the upcoming Arlington Million on
Aug. 13, but because Karlsson became a mother for the first time in her life just
over a week ago, the 7-year-old gelding will have jockey Sheldon Russell
(aboard for Rahystrada’s Colonial Cup win in his last start June 18) in the
irons.
However, it would not be
prudent to write off Karlsson’s career as a jockey. Arlington’s
all-time leading female rider plans to begin getting back on horses as soon as
October.
“That’s my plan,” said
Karlsson this week. “I feel great right now, but I had to have a
C-section the other day – which I hadn’t really planned on – and the doctors
told me to take it easy for awhile until the staples come out.
“I just got her (daughter
Sophia Rose Calcagno) to sleep,” explained Karlsson midday Wednesday, “so this
is my private time. But I have a hard time sitting still. I weighed
141 pounds just before I had the baby (July 25) but I’ve already lost more than
20 of those. I like to stay active and I’ve been able to go swimming for
about an hour every day.”
Was a second-generation jockey
career a possibility for Karlsson’s newborn daughter?
“I don’t think so,” Karlsson
said. “She eats like a horse and she’s already grown a half-inch since
she was born, but she could still end up wanting to work with horses without
becoming a jockey. I want to let her be whatever she wants to be.
“I’m really going to try to
come out to Arlington
for the Million to watch Rahystrada run,” concluded Karlsson. “Those
people (owner Courtney and trainer Scooter Hughes) have already invited me to join
them and I’d love to come out and root for Rahystrada to win it. I would
consider it an honor to be there.”
ARLINGTON BUGLER JEAN LAURENZ HEADED TO YALE
Just before playing “Boots and
Saddles’ for a race midway through Sunday’s Arlington Park program, Arlington
bugler Jean Laurenz allowed herself a brief riff from George Gershwin’s
“There’s a Boat Dat’s Leaving Soon for New York” from Gershwin’s opera “Porgy
and Bess.”
Laurenz’ ostinato musical
pattern played prior to the call to the post is proving somewhat prescient,
because Arlington’s bugler for the last two and half seasons will be headed up
east after Arlington Million weekend – not by boat, and not exactly to New
York, but a little ways up the Connecticut Turnpike to New Haven’s Yale
University.
Born and raised in Arlington
Heights, Illinois, the 24-year-old
Laurenz, who graduated from Northwestern
University with a degree in music and
education, is pursuing more graduate musical studies at Yale, but hopes to
resume her duties at Arlington,
where she also sings the National Anthem before the races, at the beginning of
the 2012 season.
Rachel Serber, who graduated
with a master’s degree in trumpet from Northwestern in 2010, and plays for the
Chicago Civic Orchestra, will fill in for the remainder of this season as Arlington’s
bugler after Laurenz journeys “on her way to a heavenly land.”
APPRENTICE CONSTANTINO ROMAN SCORES RIDING DOUBLE
SUNDAY
Apprentice jockey Constantino
Roman, Arlington’s leading “bug” rider so far this season, scored a riding
double Sunday at the local oval, winning the second half of the Daily Double
astride Carmella DiZeo’s Huckleberry Boy for trainer Dino DiZeo and a $15.60
win mutuel, and coming back to the winner’s circle after taking the fifth on
Lucky 8 Stables’ Queen Anna for trainer Daniel Sanner and a $6.80 straight
price.
Roman, whose engagements are
being handled by Dennis Cooper, was scoring the first Arlington
wins of the season for both those conditioners.
Also with two wins on Sunday’s
program was leading jockey J. Z. Santana, who resumed his spot as the sole
leader in the standings with his double, winning the fourth race with Jason
Horner, Edward Seltzer and Mike Wiengarten’s Love This Kitten for trainer Larry
Rivelli and the ninth aboard Ron Magers, Roe Conn, Robert Marcocchio and
Russell Scurto’s Third Chance for conditioner Jimmy DiVito.
Arlington’s
2009 jockey champion and 2010 runner-up Junior Alvarado also rode two winners
on the program, scoring in the third with Mt.
Joy Stable’s Wrongful Suit for trainer Eric Reed and returning to the winner’s
circle after the eighth on Oak Knoll Farm’s Charging Home for conditioner Brian
Williamson.