My thoughts go back to January 18, 1983, the date on the photograph. It was Mio Host milestone twenty-fifth win, at the unheard of age for a racehorse of thirteen, but he had taken up residence in my barn several years earlier:

  “You want me to do what?” my father asked with uncertainty. 

    “I want you to spend three thousand dollars on a racehorse who is ten years old.” Was my response.

  The horse in question was Mio Host, a big bay gelding, almost seventeen hands tall, who we did claim at an age where most races horses had retired, or if they were still running, were certainly not on any trainer’s list as a prospective claim.

 But I saw something in Mio Host’s race record that influenced me to have my parents put up the claiming price of three thousand dollars. I told them, “Mio Host was a ‘check getter’ ” (he knew where the finish line was and how to get there in front, or at least second or third).

 In the past my father had went along with my recommendations, signed his name and dropped the slip in the claim box, but not this time. Mio Host was already in the paddock so my father decided to have a look as he studied Mio’s past performances in the Racing Form: 96 starts, 20 wins, 27 seconds, 13 thirds. As Mio Host went on the track my father took a pen out of the inside pocket of his sports coat.

  We watched the race on the television in the racing secretary’s office and Mio Host finished third. There weren’t any other claims in and my father seemed to be pleased, even though the claims clerk had a half ways grin on his face as he handed my father the slip and said, “Good luck Mr. Bien.”

    If my father didn’t know then that there was doubt among his fellow horseman about his three thousand dollar investment he knew for sure when we reached the paddock to pick up the horse.

    First, Mio’s groom shaking his head in disbelief greeted us. “Youse knows this horse is ten years old and what’s under dem bandages?”

    Next, the owners and trainers who were standing around in the paddock appeared to have the same opinion. They didn’t say anything, but by the looks on their faces my father got their message.

    In the next three weeks no one saw Mio Host on the track in the mornings; in fact, Jack White, the local newspaper horseracing reporter, even wrote a story saying Mio had broken down and would never run again, but he was wrong. For Mio Host came back the following week, not in another three thousand dollar race, but in a handicap for horses that had run for a claiming price that year.

   Now there were some good horses entered and even though Mio Host had won this type of race a while ago he was assigned the lowest weight at one hundred and twelve pounds and his odds opened up at twenty to one. (They were forty-five to one when the race went off).

Mio Host was such a problematic horse to watch. His running style required a brave heart of his jockey and a lot of anxious moments for my parents and myself. First, Mio hated the starting gate and was blindfolded and made to wait until last to go in; where, as soon as the assistant starter took the blindfold off, the entire starting gate began to move as Mio fought his tight quarters until the gate opened. But even then, he just walked out and was last for the first half of the race.

Mio Host’s dislike of tight space continued during the race; he would not go between or on the inside horses, which meant that with the race more than half over and only three eights of a mile left his jockey had to take him around all the other horses, no matter how much ground they lost. A move that in most cases would not be a good one. But, what appeared to be a lost cause, suddenly changed, as Mio Host in just one eighth of a mile passed almost the entire field and was second when they entered the stretch, where he kicked into another gear, passed the horse in the lead and won by a neck.

  Jack White approached my father and me when we came out of the winner’s circle.

   “Where’s this horse been? You’ve been hiding him from us!   My readers want to know how come he hasn’t trained.”

   “Jack, if you got away from that desk once in a while maybe you would know the answer and wouldn’t have to write gossip to satisfy your readers.”

   The next morning Jack showed up at my barn and saw for himself why Mio Host hadn’t trained and there was a story in the next day’s paper praising me for all of the work I had done. It went into great detail about Mio Host’s personal training center that consisted of his own whirlpool, heating pads and the same things any all star athlete expects: including a daily massage of his legs with Absorbine, followed by a thick layer of poultice that helped to draw the heat and soreness from his ankles and suspensories (ligaments that run from the knee down to the ankle on both sides of the leg).

             After continuing to race successfully at age ten and eleven I decided to retire Mio when he turned twelve, thinking he was getting too old to continue to race, but he refused. You see, for the next ten months instead of enjoying the lush green pastures at the farm, he fretted all day, walking the fence line to the point he wore a path along it. But, once I brought him back to the track Mio was his old self, demonstrating by the way he trained that he still wanted to compete.

There was a sense of disbelief when Mio Host’s name showed up in the program that day. The local horsemen had all read Jack’s story and knew Mio was the barn favorite, but here he was running for a claiming price of a lesser figure than he had normally run for. The eyes of the trainers who stood around the paddock were all focused on Mio Host when he came in and they shook their heads when they saw his overall condition. He was rough looking; after all, he had just come in from out in the field the month before. The odds board, which usually showed him as one of the favorites displayed odds of twenty to one, a sure sign the public also had little faith in his ability, even at this lowly level.

  My father was pleased that there seemed to be little interest in his horse; because, even though Mio Host’s physical ailments were well known there was always a chance someone would claim him; which is why, after running third in his return from retirement, we took no more chances and ran him back at his usual level where he won his twenty fifth race.

Mio was retired for good soon after and given to his groom Frank who turned him out on his grandfather’s farm, where under Franks care, Mio mellowed enough to be used for trail riding by guest who visited the farm.