Thoroughbred Info | From The Horse's Mouth

Five years ago today, I lost a friend of mine. Earlier this month, I lost her again.

Her name was Debra Ginsburg — Debie, to her many friends —and she was an 18-year cancer survivor who ultimately succumbed to the disease on June 30, 2006 at the age of 51. For more than 20 years, she covered the breeding and racing industry as the chief writer for California Thoroughbred magazine, a pleasant, hard-working sort who never missed a deadline or the opportunity to share a laugh with someone.

Soon after she died, Debie was memorialized in a unique way when an unraced, 2-year-old filly was named in her honor. The filly had been born the same month as Zenyatta, in April 2004. Although she did not make the same impact on the sport as that all-time great ultimately did, she did attain a loyal group of fans who followed her every move and enjoyed personal visits with the horse who was named after their lost friend and family member.

About 30 of us showed up at Santa Anita Park on January 27, 2007 for Debie Ginsburg’s racing debut. She was entered in a 6 1/2-furlong maiden special weight race, appropriately scheduled on the undercard of the Sunshine Millions program which Debie had so diligently covered in the past. But unlike her California-bred namesake, who was born in Fresno, the filly had been foaled in the rival state of Florida. Debie would have laughed at the irony.

We were all there just for the bonding experience, never expecting a miracle to happen as the nervous young filly pranced from the saddling barn, then reared with uncertainty when jockey David Flores put his foot in the iron.

“She would make a beautiful show pony,” I mentioned to Debie’s mom, Myrna, as we watched from inside the same walking ring where I had last seen Debie the previous March, prior to Lava Man’s first Santa Anita Handicap (G1) victory.

“Oh, no,” Myrna replied reverently, as she admired the bay athlete who had been named after her daughter. “She’s a racehorse.”

Turns out, her mom was right. Debie defied the odds that day, winning her debut by a fast-closing neck at 11-1, even after making the rookie mistake of turning to face us all in the stretch as we roared her name from the rail. Our tears flowed openly onto clothes which were already dampened by a sudden misting of rain. A maiden no longer, Debie proudly stepped into the winner’s circle, where she was greeted by an emotionally spent crowd of well-wishers. Her parents were interviewed on-air by an HRTV reporter. I later wrote about the experience for Thoroughbred Times. Other publications picked up the heartwarming story as well.

Her future was bright, we all thought. This one is special. We’ll enjoy watching her racing career, then look forward to her life as a broodmare. Our Debie had died childless; how fun it would be to see this filly’s foals carry her name forward in Thoroughbred pedigrees for generations to come.

But that was not meant to be. Debie Ginsburg was lost in a claiming race at Santa Anita just a year later, then whisked away to Canada by her new connections. Some of Debie’s friends kept in touch with her new owners, who became well aware of the story behind this certain filly. The offer was continuously made: if she ever reached the end of her days as a racehorse, we’ll gladly scrape together the funds to bring her back home to California for a well-deserved retirement.

For the next three years, Debie raced in modest centers such as Stampede Park, Penn National and Northlands Park, passing through a few different barns while racking up four stakes placings and an overall bankroll of $186,952, enough to become one of the top earners for her sire, Delaware Township.

She won four races and placed in 19 others, and had made a gallant late move for second in her 40th lifetime start on June 1 this year when one of her front legs suddenly snapped during the gallop-out of a $20,000 claiming race at Northlands Park. Debie was destroyed that night for humane reasons, we were told by email, along with the last remaining dreams of her devoted followers.

The timing was terrible. Since Debie had been toiling away in claiming races, winless at the age of 7, a few of us in her early inner circle had hoped we finally might have a chance to guarantee her future as a broodmare, and to possibly name some of those foals we all thought she was destined to have.

It was a bittersweet ride in a game that is too often punctuated by cruel fate. If there is a lesson to be learned, perhaps it is that owners should be cautious and think twice before they name a horse after someone, unless they are planning to secure that horse’s future long after the headlines have faded. Although it was certainly a well-meaning gesture at the time, Debie Ginsburg’s loved ones are now left behind to mourn not just once, but twice, for two connected souls that were tragically lost.