San Luis Rey, a Year After the Fire

Joe Herrick didn't have to come back to San Luis Rey Training Center Dec. 7.

The trainer's horses, along with half of San Luis Rey's equine population of about 450, are still stabled at Del Mar as a fire sprinkler system gets installed in the massive, tent-like stables that have replaced those that were warped into ungodly shapes by the devastating fire that hit the Bonsall, Calif., facility a year ago.

He didn't have to come, but he felt an obligation a year to the day after he was severely burned on his head, face, arms, and hands as he tried to save his horses. Forty-six horses who were stabled at San Luis Rey died in the Lilac Fire or from injuries sustained because of the blaze, and Herrick did all he could to save as many as possible.

His white pickup truck was parked just beside a special walking ring outside the rebuilt San Luis Rey barn area. The walking ring, which features a young, chest-high palm tree and a patch of grass in the center of it, was untouched on that terrible day, while practically everything around it was scorched beyond recognition.

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In what almost felt like an intrusion, San Luis Rey general manager Kevin Habell and a turf writer pulled up to Herrick in a golf cart. Habell, a mountain of a man with a booming voice he picked up from his drill-sergeant father, bear-hugged the trainer, and the turf writer probably made a mistake by opening his mouth.

"How are you doing today?" the turf writer asked, as if there would ever be a suitable answer to explain the emotion of the day.

Herrick answered with a shrug as a tear rolled down his face that still carries the burn scars, like the hills that surround San Luis Rey, of the horrific events that occurred a year ago.

With a little time, the words came easier.

"Sometimes it feels like yesterday," Herrick said. "You'd like to put it away, but it's always there. … I just needed to come back and pay my respects."

It was fitting that the large tents and replacement stalls were not full of horses on this specific day, because their absence made one remember those that were lost. There are still horses on the grounds in the elevated adobe barns that were largely untouched by the fire, but there was no hustle and bustle on a cool, clear morning, a day after a harsh storm hit Southern California and created several small rivers on the San Luis Rey backside. Exercise-rider banter, some cooing pigeons, and a groom smacking a nail into a wall were the only momentary breaks from the serenity, which is part of the appeal for the training track off the beaten path.

Those at San Luis Rey Friday who went through the fire mostly said they're doing OK, but a small quiver behind a voice or a hesitation in speaking indicated the recovery process is still ongoing. The barns may be rebuilt, and the spirits may be strong, but the memories don't depart so easily.

"Nothing is normal after the fire," said Herrick, who in a few days will bring his horses back to San Luis Rey, where they have been (other than their time at Del Mar during its recent meet) since the facility reopened in April. "I don't even want to think about the things I saw here that day. It's funny, because I hadn't been having nightmares, then last night they made a comeback—just because it's on your mind. I kept telling myself, 'It's just another day, Joe. You'll be all right.'"

The visceral memories of the unimaginable heat, the endless smoke, and that smell aren't things that just fade after a year. And even if they do fade in the slightest, there are enough fires that occur at all times of the year now in California that it doesn't take much to bring those memories flooding back.

On top of the deadly fires that have hit Northern California and Southern California in recent weeks, about a month ago a fire crept far too close to San Luis Rey for comfort.

Seeing the smoke wafting in the distance made trainer Michele Dollase remember the endless smoke that overwhelmed her barn during the fire. In the adobe barns a tier above the burning barns, Dollase's stalls were untouched by flames but were consumed by the smoke as trainer Dan Dunham's stables were engulfed in the flames.

"The smoke from Dunham's barn kept blowing directly into my barn—we were like 30 feet away," Dollase said. "And it was thick, thick smoke. You couldn't see. It was dark."

For Linda Thrash, trainer Phil D'Amato's assistant at San Luis Rey, the recent fire caught her going through the same processes—get as many halters as you can on the horses, get prepared, and hope for the best.

"There have been two or three occasions where there were fires close by, and I'm thinking, 'I don't know if I can go through this again,'" said Thrash, who lost two horses to injuries after she made the brutally difficult decision to let her horses run free so they wouldn't burn alive in their stalls. "And about a month ago, there was (a fire) that got very close. You know you have to do what you have to do, but you just never want to go through that again.

"On the day of that one fire, I got kind of worried, because I put (my staff) on alert. Put halters on all the horses, pull down the hay racks. It was a mile and a half away as the crow flies. When you have all of this flammable stuff—hay, shavings, and stuff—it only takes one ember to drop in."

Along with the recent fires, there are also other little reminders. For Dollase, there is her barn cat, Boo, who survived the blaze and still takes up residence in her office; there's the breaking news-interrupted Days of Our Lives episode that still sits on her DVR from that day (and was unwatched until just recently); and there's trainer Richard Mandella's gray filly she cares for at San Luis Rey.

"Once something like this happens to you, everybody is on alert to everything," Dollase said. "It's funny, there's a filly—her name is Littlefirefighter. She came in about three weeks ago, and I told Richard, 'We don't say fire around here.' So her name here is 'Little shhh firefighter,' because you don't say the word 'fire' loudly around here."

For Herrick, the constant reminder is Lovely Finish, the filly he saved from the fire who now shares his burn scars and has run three times since that December day. Herrick's pride and joy, she's placed in all three maiden special weight races and is still looking for her first win. But he glows when he talks about how much she's improved and how she's put away all her fears about the experience that caused her so much pain.

"Right when I get here in the morning, she starts hollering at me to walk her," Herrick said. "The first time I brought her out here, walking on this lower road, she realized where she was and kinda lost it. Now she stands right here and stares at those hills. She's faced her fears and conquered them. She impresses me so much because, 'Yeah, I was afraid of this area, but I'm over it.' She's like a warrior."

As for the future and what the horsemen and Habell have changed at San Luis Rey, it isn't only about the new tent barns with the fire-resistant white tarps spread over the top.

For Dollase, she's trying to get money together to buy a small horse trailer—just in case—because one of the biggest issues on the day of the fire was that closed roads in the area restricted the amount of trailers, trucks, and vans that could get in to transport the horses away.

For Habell, the changes have been pretty wide-ranging. Every "dirty" palm tree (those that have the beard-looking curtain of dead fronds that hang from the top) within 500 yards of any barn on the property has been removed. They were one of the main culprits that led to the spread of the fire as embers hit them, caught them on fire, and the dry fronds exploded to send more embers onto and into the barns.

He's also mandated that combustible material—feed, hay, shavings, etc.—be held in large metal storage containers outside of the tent barns and behind metal doors in the adobe barn. And around seemingly every corner there is a schematic of every fire extinguisher on the grounds (and there are many).

Steps are being taken to ensure that what happened a year ago never happens again, and as hard as it is to remember, the experience has forever brought the horsemen and staff at San Luis Rey closer together.

"Everyone puts their discrepancies aside, especially on this day," Habell said. "We're back at it, and everyone knows it happened, but it's like it didn't happen. It's hard to think about everything at once because your mind is going crazy, but we're trying to move on."