Trenton, NJ --- When a horse is as demanding as Table Talk, she better be good.
Trainer Bart Dalious thinks she is.
Dalious is getting Table Talk prepped for Saturday’s C$457,500 Fan Hanover Stakes for 3-year-old female pacers at Mohawk Racetrack. Table Talk, who was winless in her first eight career starts, has won two consecutive races and five of her last nine.
But make no mistake, she is a handful.
“She’s kind of temperamental, she demands everything,” Dalious said with a laugh. “When you come into the barn she’s the first one you have to mess with. She has a heck of a personality, she demands attention. Keeping her happy is tough.
“If you don’t pay attention to her right away she starts kicking and tearing the walls down. After breakfast, you walk into the barn, you’ve got to do something with her first or she’ll start pawing, kicking at the gate. She’s a friendly type of mare but you’ve got to mess with her all the time; brush her, turn her out. Maybe I’ve spoiled her a little bit, but that’s just her. I’ve got a lot of nicks on my shoulders and arms where she bit me.”
But the trainer knows it’s all for the cause.
“She’s an adventure, she’ll make you pull your hair out,” he said. “But you have to treat her like that to get results, that’s for sure.”
And he has been getting results.
Owned by Frank Deliberti’s Wiz Kids Stable, Table Talk was purchased as a yearling for $3,500 at the Standardbred Horse Sale in Harrisburg and has made $169,238. She is by stallion Bettor's Delight out of the mare Place At The Table, who is a full sister to multiple-stakes-winner Armbro Amoretto.
Table Talk won a division of the New York Sire Stakes on May 30 and won her Fan Hanover elimination by a neck over Major Dancer at 37-1 odds. She has been building