Shamrocks

When I moved to Kentucky in 2019 to work for Taylor Made, I didn't know a single person, I didn't know the first thing about the racehorse industry, I had never seen anything like a Lexington horse sale, and I certainly didn't drink bourbon. With no real guidance except to watch, absorb, and help where I could, my first day on the job was the Keeneland January sale. Everyone was polite but busy - clients to help, horses to show - and I mostly stayed out of the way. But...

They pride themselves on their professionalism and were duly mortified when a yearling colt by Tapizar somehow ended up with a nail in a hoof. Worse still, shortly afterwards his full sister--sold at Keeneland the previous September for $100,000--made a winning debut at Horseshoe Indianapolis. The mare was coming good. So Brendan and Oliver Gallagher sent him in to Hagyard, to have the foot cleaned and disinfected. Back then, in 2017, they didn't know Michael Spirito as well as they do now ("a god of a surgeon"); but nor did...