In this series, Melissa talks about the horses who have helped shape her career and create Pyrois Media.
If you’re a horse(wo)man, you know that there are some horses you don’t even have to touch to change your life. Baseball Girl is one of those horses for me.
I only saw Base Ball Girl run once – but once was enough to make sure I was fully hooked on racing.
By this point you’re probably wondering who this horse was and why she was so special. There probably aren’t many people who credit an Oregon-bred who won only once in her career as helping them along their journey on the racing path, especially when she never hit the board in those other starts. But that one win is notable because it was the first time I was ever in a winner’s circle.
The Clark County Executive Horse Council sponsored the Maiden Claiming race she won and I was invited along for the ride. It was my very first time being treated as a VIP at any event and I won my first ever bet the same day so I was flying high by the time the race went off as the fourth on the card at Portland Meadows.
Not long after she flashed by us a length ahead of the field, we were ushered into the winner’s circle for the presentation where I got my first chance to be semi up close and personal with a racehorse (not too close though – her connections were a worried about what she’d do with a winner’s circle full of kids).
That filly was the first time I realized just how powerful racehorses are and how much they lay on the line every race as she stood about ten feet away from me with her muscles popping and her nostrils flaring.
There were probably a lot of things that day that contributed to me going deeper into the racing rabbit hole but she definitely tied it all together. She ran two more races after that day and I’m not sure what happened with her when her career was over but every year or so I end up running a report to see if she ever has any foals appear – though with her victory almost exactly 20 years ago it’s unlikely my trail will ever lead to finding out anything more than she never became a racing broodmare in North America.
