The Dragon’s adventures started in May of 2006. He is a very well-bred Thoroughbred. He is by Kentucky Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus out of A Chance of Storm (Storm Cat x Princess Alydar). His Jockey Club name is Arashi Cat. “Arashi” is Japanese for" Storm”. At home we call him “Neko” which is Japanese for ”Cat"( http://www.pedigreequery.com/arashi+cat -- Here is a link to his pedigree for anyone who wants a closer look. )
(Fusaichi Pegasus standing at Coolmore Stud)
He was sold as yearling in the Keeneland auction for $200,000 and was shipped out to California. That isn’t an insane amount of money by Thoroughbred racehorse standards, but my understanding is that it was quite a bit of money for a horse with his bloodlines. Fusaichi Pegasus, commonly called “FuPeg”, is notorious for producing foals that are “difficult”. Storm Cat progeny don’t have a reputation for being easy either. I’m not sure if Neko is difficult because of his breeding, or if because of the reputation of his bloodlines he was treated in a manner that made him difficult.
Regardless, he found some success racing out on the west coast, breaking his maiden (he won!) his first time out and then moving on the Stakes level races. (I tried to put a video of Neko placing third in the Jack Goodman Stakes here...but well...its at the bottom of the page instead. He is in the white blinkers) He ran third in two Grade 3 Stakes races then a fourth in another Stakes race at the beginning of 2009…and then I’m not sure exactly what happened…he just didn’t run well again. Watching video footage of his races, he almost always breaks clean from the gate. He is a “stalker”, running just off the pace, and in his successful races, would make his move around the last turn and start eating up the track. He just stopped making the move. His trainer gave him a break from racing for a few months, I’m not sure if he got hurt, needed to mature, or if he was gelded at that point, but he wasn’t successful when he came back.
He ended up back on the track on the east coast almost 2 years after his last start in California. Again, I’m not sure what happened in that time, but it didn’t help his success on the track. He was continually dropped down in “class” until he was in some pretty small claiming races and still not willing to run. He had another year off, and again, I’m not sure why but it didn’t change anything. In his last race (6/14/13), he breaks clean from the gate as usual, stalks the field just off the pace and in the last turn he completely disappears…pulled wide and just kept going right out of the video frame. In the racing program it says he “retreated mid turn, racing wide, trailed entering the stretching showing little”. If a horse has ever said “I don’t want to do this!” Neko did that day! He had 25 starts over a 6 year period winning a total of $72,318.
Lucky for Neko (and me!) his owner/trainer on the east coast was good friends with my Dressage trainer! Neko was soon on his way from Mountaineer Racetrack in West Virginia to Willow Spring Farm in Tennessee. The process of fixing his feet (they do some crazy shoeing at the track, thinking it makes them faster), his teeth (his mouth looked like a scene from a horror movie when he got to Tennessee) and letting him learn to be a “real” horse instead of a “race” horse began.