Touch Gold, No. 36 and Peppermint

Even before Passing Mood produced Touch Gold, the winner of this year’s Belmont Stakes, the Canadian-bred broodmare had made her mark.

Passing Mood never dated anyone from the wrong side of the tracks. Starting in 1983, she saw one well-known Romeo after another: Roberto, Blushing Groom, Secretariat, Caro, Raise A Native, Alleged, Saratoga Six, Seattle Slew and Deputy Minister.

And Passing Mood made the most of these matings. Before Touch Gold, five of her nine offspring became stakes winners, one of them--With Approval, a son of Caro--earning $2.8 million and winning horse-of-the-year honors in Canada. Only Passing Mood’s rendezvous with Seattle Slew turned out to be a dud. There was no foal from her after that breeding.

That was 1992. The year before, Passing Mood had been sent to Deputy Minister, a division champion in the United States and a horse of the year in Canada. Their daughter, Daijin, was only a modest stakes winner, but the breeders behind that matchup thought enough of the result to arrange another tryst, in 1993.

The foal lived to beat Silver Charm and spoil his Triple Crown bid, but the mother died. Touch Gold was a late foal, dropped by Passing Mood on May 26, 1994, and a week or two later the dam was dead, the victim of a massive uterine hemorrhage.

The death of Passing Mood left Touch Gold without a nurse mare. Enter Springland Farm in Paris, Ky., which keeps 25 surrogate mares on call.

The story gets less romantic after that. Wilson Nicholls, who owns Springland, went to his records to look up Touch Gold.

“Here he is,” Nicholls said. “A bay colt born May 26. He came over here the same day. We sent him to a roan nurse mare. Then we sent them home [to Romanoaks Farm, about 25 miles away] the next day.”

Nicholls continued to look up the particulars about Touch Gold’s nurse mare.

“What was her name?” he was asked.

“No. 36,” he said.

“But what’s the name?”

“That’s it, No. 36,” Nicholls said. “There isn’t any name.”

No. 36 and Touch Gold got along famously at Romanoaks Farm, helped along at the start by a frequently used deception: Essence of peppermint was rubbed on the noses of both the nurse mare and the foal, and on areas of the foal’s body where the mare might have a tendency to nuzzle. Horses with common smells can be conditioned into staying together.

There are other tricks, said Peter Ensch, the broodmare manager at Three Chimneys Farm in Midway, Ky.

“When you send the foal to the nurse mare for the first time, you want to make sure that it is good and hungry,” Ensch said. “That way, he is more likely to go straight for the mare and start nursing.”

Sometimes, to make sure the mare doesn’t resist the foal and perhaps kick it, a partition with a cutaway window is used in the beginning. There is room for the foal to stick his head through to seek out the mare, but the young horse is protected from an injury.

Some natural mares lack the milk to nurse their foals, hence the need for a nurse mare. Ensch also remembers a mare, injured while racing, who had chronic arthritic ankles and lacked the strength to raise her foals.

“A foal couldn’t run with the dam in this case,” Ensch said.

Bill Tite, manager of Romanoaks Farm, and Ensch said it’s important that foals frolic with other young horses as part of their growing-up process.

Nicholls turned the page and over the phone closed out the record on Touch Gold.

“The colt was weaned and the nurse mare came back to us on Sept. 21,” he said.

That meant that No. 36 was busy with Touch Gold for almost four months.

“Doesn’t make any difference how long it takes,” Nicholls said. “What we charge is $1,250 per nurse mare.”

Ensch said that Three Chimneys doesn’t pay quite as much for its nurse mares, usually getting them for about $1,000 apiece.

Touch Gold was sold twice, first for $180,000 as a weanling and then for $375,000 to Frank Stronach, who raced him in the Belmont.

Passing Mood has already been named broodmare of the year in Canada. Seems as if there ought to be an award for nurse mare of the year too. If there were, good old No. 36 would get this vote.

DOWN THE STRETCH

Awesome Again, the winner of the $425,700 Queen’s Plate at Woodbine in Toronto last Sunday, is back at trainer David Hofmans’ barn at Hollywood Park. Hofmans is not expected to run the Deputy Minister colt in the next two legs of the Canadian Triple Crown. Awesome Again, with Queen Elizabeth II in attendance, won the Plate in only his third start, after running third and winning a maiden race at Hollywood Park. He races for Stronach, who also owns Touch Gold.

Bold ‘n Determined, voted into the Racing Hall of Fame this year, died recently at Gainsborough Farm in Versailles, Ky. Bold ‘n Determined, 20, was in foal to Sunny’s Halo, the 1983 Kentucky Derby winner. She suffered from a circulatory hoof ailment.

Skip Away is the 7-5 favorite and Formal Gold is 9-5 in today’s $350,000 Suburban Handicap at Belmont Park. Also running are Will’s Way, Instant Friendship, Natural Selection, Gator Dancer and Ormsby. . . . Bent Creek City, who has won her first two starts by 12 1/2 lengths, races seven rivals Saturday in the $100,000 Landaluce Stakes at Hollywood.