Rough Ride

Slumped down in a chair in the racing office the next day, his Vikings cap pulled low over his eyes, Renshaw grumbles, "I wanted that one. She's better than that." It's no comfort to him that the favorite horse won the race or that Prado's Trick did much better than anyone expected under Panas' hands.

Ciavaglia seemed to be taking things better, although he looked glum as he huddled with Panas on the track after the race. "He told me, 'Yeah, you got blocked a little bit. But the horse is still young. She's learning.'"

Mark Graham

Deirdre Panas, riding Eagle Lake, gets nipped at the finish line by Secret Brick last Sunday in a stakes race at Lone Star Park. The winner was ridden by meet-leading jockey Corey Lanerie.

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More About

• Deirdre Panas
• Anne Panas
• Houston (Texas)
• Horse Racing
• Triple Crown

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Panas wanted the win badly, too, but she seems to take the wins and losses with an evenness that comes with the miles, the long, rough ride of a decade in the sport.

"If I think any race is the race, the one that is gonna make or break my career, I'm gonna guarantee it's gonna be a mess," she says. "It means overriding, being too tense. I used to do that earlier in my career. I'm more relaxed about it now. I think I have a tremendous amount of patience. It's hard when you don't win, but after you've survived as long as I have, you realize there will be another race. I've been riding for 10 years, and I'm still here.''