By DAN JOHNSON
Register Staff Writer
05/21/2002
It’s 9 a.m., and Maggi Moss is right on time to meet her boyfriend with her usual gift.
Walking into barn C-1 at Prairie Meadows in Altoona, Moss pulls out a bag of carrots that immediately draws an excited reaction from the 9-year-old Apak, the first racehorse she bought, in 1998.
“He’s been with me longer than any man I’ve known,” Moss says as Apak swings his head eagerly up and down while pawing at the ground. “He is always glad to see me. He is always very happy. He demands very little. He’s more than paid his dues. He’s very sweet and very loving.”
Just as Apak needs his carrot fix, Moss, one of Des Moines’ most flamboyant and best-known lawyers, needs her horse fix.
“It’s an integral part of my life, because of my love for animals and my love for competition,” Moss said. “It’s not as cheap as therapy, but it’s the best therapy I’ve found in my life.”
Moss grew up riding horses in hunter-jumper shows, winning three straight national championships at Madison Square Garden in New York. She was training in hopes of making the 1988 Olympic equestrian team, but then drifted away from competitions as her law practice grew.
A former Polk County assistant attorney, her private practice cases have included defending Nicole Plum, the teenager sentenced to 10 years in prison for the death of Baby Chelsea.
Moss never owned a racehorse until she bought Apak for $25,000 out of a claiming race on March 21, 1998. From that first buy, Moss was hooked. Her stable has swelled to 27 horses, and her successes have also grown.
She won more races, 29, than any other owner at Prairie Meadows in 2001 and set a track record on July 31 by owning the winners of three consecutive races. And she was the fourth-leading owner at the Aqueduct winter meeting in New York.
For all her success, Moss wonders if people dismiss her ability to pick out good horses and assume her bankroll is winning races.
"I think that people that look at me think, “She’s just a rich little girl that spends more money than anybody,” " Moss said. “I assure you, I probably put more work into it than most people. I read two Daily Racing Forms for 21/2 hours every night, for every racetrack. I follow every trainer and every horse that gets claimed.”
Rather than breed and raise her own horses, Moss plays the claiming game, which is a bigger gamble in horse racing than wagering on a race. Every horse in a claiming race can be bought for a preset price, an attempt to keep the competition level.
A good buy can yield a great return. If the horse has a problem that isn’t evident, an owner might pay a Cadillac price to buy a beater.
“Some of the best horses I have this year cost $6,000 or $8,000,” Moss said.
Moss has two stables - in New York, under trainer Gary Contessa, and at Prairie Meadows, under trainer Dick Clark.
“I talk to both my trainers, Dick here and Gary in New York, every night,” Moss said. "We decide what we like. Then we talk again at 7 in the morning. I do all the computer work between 10 and midnight. I look at everybody’s sire records, I look up their speed ratings. I have a guy in New Jersey that faxes me all his speed ratings.
"The next morning, I talk to everybody again, about who we’re going to claim. I do that from 7:30 to 9:30 in the morning, then I go to work.
“I enjoy the book work and computer work. I enjoy the study of the horses. I love that part.”
And Moss has learned. The moral of Ladif sticks with her.
Ladif was a 2-year-old filly at the posh Saratoga meet in upstate New York that Moss bought for $80,000 and wound up selling for $5,000.
“The irony of Ladif is it’s the one time I spent a lot of money,” Moss said. "I thought I was going to get famous, and it was the biggest disaster that I’ve ever been around.
“It’s when you get illusions of grandeur and want to get famous is when you make mistakes. I made it once and I won’t make it again.”
But Clark said Moss has a good eye for horses.
“She’s done it all her life,” he said. “The health of the horse is the important thing to her. She wants them to be healthy and not abused.”
Her favorites are the veteran geldings that might have lost a step, but still have class. Apak in his youth was one of the best sprinters to race at Prairie Meadows. He stretched out in 1998 to set a 1-mile track record that still stands.
“I like the old-time solid claiming horses,” said Moss, whose stable includes Apak and Cloudman, each 9 years old; Alaskan Lights and Bogatyr, who are 8; and the almost pure-white Riker, who is 7.
“They remind me a little of what I do - you do it hard, you do it long enough and you pay your dues. They’re great, noble horses.”
Moss claimed her most valuable fillies in New York - Above The Harbor, Delray Dew and Fair Kate. But they’re not her favorites. They don’t like carrots.
“I’m not fond of the girls from New York, because they’re real unfriendly,” Moss said. “They’re very standoff-ish. Maybe they’ll warm up, but I haven’t warmed up to them. They can go back to New York.”
Someday, Moss will go to New York, too. She raced 10 horses there last winter, but she has never been to a New York track. She first saw her New York horses when they came to Prairie Meadows.
“I had a lot of luck in New York and I loved it,” Moss said. "I never thought I could be competitive out there. I always used to look at New York as being such a premier racetrack. I’d look at the owner’s standings, and I’d see people like Overbrook Farm.
“It was pretty cool to see Maggi Moss in there. I thought I was just a little girl from Iowa that couldn’t compete in New York, so it was really thrilling.”
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Sorry if I didn’t sound sympathetic enough for you. It was more a comment on how ill-advised it is for ANYONE to go on a trail ride, ALONE, without telling someone where they’re going and what time they’ll be back.