Mary Eppler has started horses in more than 6,000 races but none are quite as memorable as what should have been an ordinary race on an ordinary day at Pimlico Race Course on April 13, 2013. Video best tells the extraordinary story of Spicer Cub veering out in the stretch and sprinting through a narrow gap between the parked starting gate and outside rail with Xavier Perez still aboard. Despite losing his stirrups, Perez managed to keep riding and keep Spicer Cub in the race, but the pair was nosed out for the victory in the maiden claiming event at 1 1/16 miles.
“I really thought he would go over the rail,” said Eppler, who watched from the grandstand. “I had a great view and I might have been as white as Xavier when he came back. I didn’t expect it at all. He had done some spooky things in the mornings but nothing like that. Just darting over a couple of paths.”
Owner David Butts was observing in a different grandstand section.
“My brain said ‘is he going to jump it, hit it or turn?’” he said of the gelding bred by his wife Deborah and raised at their Libertytown, Md., farm. “I am not one of those people that panics. I had ridden the horse and I knew all about him.”
Six weeks after his most notable performance, Spicer Cub was back in action. To avoid a repeat incident in his return, subtle and clever precautions were taken at Pimlico. His race at the same 1 1/16 miles distance was carded early to eliminate long late-day shadows and the gate was motored to the turn beyond the finish line. Spicer Cub finished a nondescript second and then won his next two starts at Delaware Park that summer. He went on to compete 11 more times without incident including his second in the 2013 Maryland Million Starter Handicap.
His connections had many theories about the cause of his bizarre bolt such as the gate’s shadow, glare from puddles inside the rail or innate fear of being alone on the lead.
“When he is in company, he is great. When he is by himself, he is not so great,” said Butts, who gave him his early lessons under saddle. “When he sees something, he will stop, he will spin, he will move 50 yards away.”
Butts still knows all about Spicer Cub even though he closed his 22-race career in 2015. He earned $96,504 with two wins and six seconds. Butts got in touch with Katherine Rizzo, who foxhunts and events horses in Maryland, to see if she would take on the quirky horse.
Butts, an equine dentist by trade, uses many of his former racers for his hobby of eventing that requires the athleticism of jumping and refined movements of dressage. He reasoned that Spicer Cub’s separation anxiety would not be suited for the solo portion of cross-country jumping but that he would be comfortable surrounded by equine buddies in hunt fields. He took Spicer Cub to a hunter pace, a low-key team competition that mimics foxhunting where he handed the reins to Rizzo.
“Sometimes in a group they will turn into racehorse mode but he just followed,” she said. “He jumped everything on the first try. While riding I kept telling Dave ‘this is a cool horse.’ Afterwards he told me to look him up on YouTube.”
Spicer Cub and Rizzo at one of his first hunter paces
Rizzo recognized Spicer Cub’s versatility and willingness, forgiving his distaste for being away from other horses. She said in his initial dressage lessons of traveling in circles, he tried easing out of the pattern but soon accepted the routine. His big test came in the cross-country phase. Spicer Cub trotted out and went over the first fence but was reluctant to continue moving away from the group in the warm-up area.
Spicer Cub exploring new territory
“He was hesitant but he kept going,” she said. “He trusted me to go by himself for the first time. He jumped clean and we finished second.”
After that first exposure, Spicer Cub gained further confidence with Rizzo while foxhunting through the winter. In the spring, Spicer Cub returned to hunter paces and eventing for Rizzo, who divides her time as editor of the Maryland-based equine publication Equiery with retraining off-track Thoroughbreds and giving advanced lessons to young equestriennes. Like others familiar with him, she describes him as “cute,” an asset which he has always had. His adorable nature actually inspired Butts to name him for his father-in-law’s childhood Little League team.
“He grew into a well-rounded horse who does whatever we ask him to do,” she said. “He is still not the best to trail ride alone but he is better if my dog goes ahead of him.”
New to the Paulick Report? Click here to sign up for our daily email newsletter to keep up on this and other stories happening in the Thoroughbred industry.
Copyright © 2020 Paulick Report.
