A good few years ago, Col. Moe was riding David Vance’s string of horses trained for Dan Lasater. The Colonel was winning a lot of races, was leading rider at Liberty Bell and other tracks with the string, but made the mistake of telling a good acquaintance about a filly Vance had who was showing a lot more than her conditions suggested.
She got claimed and the Colonel got canned.
So he was surprised several months later when he was named on a Vance horse starting in an allowance at Delaware.
The horse in question was a stakes winner named Jet Diplomacy. The Colonel recalled: “This sucker was the fastest five-furlong turf horse I’d ever been on. He was a flying sonofabuck.
“But Lasater had taken him to Florida, stood him at stud for a year, and it hadn’t worked for some reason, they brought him back to the track, and this was his return race.
“I knew I wasn’t exactly Vance’s favorite jock, so I figured something was up. When they threw me up on Jet Diplomacy, the horse set about clearing out the whole paddock at Delaware.
“He crashed into our lead pony, busted the rider into the dirt, wheeled and took out the outrider, knocked that horse down broadside, flipped that rider for yards, and people were scrambling everywhere to get out of the way.
“The horse was roaring he was so mad, he was tearing around the paddock bucking and kicking, and I was determined he was going to get to the gate or I’d die trying.
“The horse’s bucking and jumping sent owners and spectators flying over hedges, but I got him onto the track and into the gate. He won the race too.
“Vance thought he’d thrown me to the wolves, but he let me ride the horse back in a stakes, and we won that too.”
This was a payback that paid both ways.