Stall weavers can’t keep weight on because of their nervous high metabolism, but you can put some water in a plastic milk jug and hang it up for them to bang on. They’ll stand in front of their webbing and mess with that jug all day.

If a jug don’t work you get them a goat or miniature pony — little mascots to keep them happy. The mascot lives in the stall with the horse and calms him right down.

A THOUSAND POUNDS OF PRESSURE

Galloping, a horse spends a lot of his time suspended in the air — flying, really — or on one foot. When a foot lands, there’s a thousand pounds of pressure held up by that one thin leg, that little hoof the size of a handheld ashtray.

If a hoof breaks and you need to grow it out, you put Reducine on a toothbrush and rub, rub, rub it on the coronet band. It stimulates blood flow and pretty soon that band will swell. To keep the sole soft for growth, you stir up Bowie Clay with water, salt and vinegar in a bucket like a mud pie, then cut circles from heavy paper feed sacks and splat — you plop the mud on and pack the paper to the bottom of the hoof.

Before you shoe them, you x-ray each foot to see where those coffin bones lie. Some horses are low in the heel so they’ll get wedges or mud nails or caulks or blocks. If they’ve got a long stride, they might overreach and grab their quarters and take a chunk out of their coronet. Then they’re gouging blood all over.

A good trainer will go out and walk the track to check the surface before a race. It might be rubberized Tartan or it might be turf. Some dirt tracks have more sand, others have more clay. Track staff harrow after each race — you see them out there dragging. There shouldn’t be no rocks. The surface has got to be smooth.

WE’RE HUNGRY!

On shipping day you haul the horses in a big trailer and when you arrive at the next track, you have to set up their stalls and get them taken care of right away. The horses can taste the difference in water from track to track, but if you put Coca-Cola in it — just a little, to sweeten it up — they’ll be more tempted to drink. Then of course you have to wean them off the Coca-Cola because if they test positive for caffeine you’ll be ruled out.

They get knocked off their feed easy, too. They get tired, they feel ill. They see that big tub of food and say, This is too much — I can’t even look at it. They shit in their feed tub to send you the message.