Entertainment
Nick and the Mouse
By Peter Valing published Nov 1, 2008
Felicella is having a rough day. Of the three horses he has running this Labour Day, one was scratched at the starting gate. Another has come in dead last. Spaghetti Mouse, the star of the Felicella stable and the crowd favourite at Hastings, is scheduled to race in less than an hour. He’s squaring off chiefly against Rosberg, a seven-year-old who recently performed well in Dubai’s prestigious Godolphin Mile. Nick’s wondering if the Mouse really can win his fourth stakes race in a row.
The tote board (the Mouse is the 3:2 favourite) suggests the crowd is confident in the six-year-old bay gelding. “Expect the Mouse to rock and roll out of the gate,” begins the paddock-side commentary. “The Sam W. Randall Plate could be his once again.” Characteristically, Nick stands apart from his family, jockey, and trainer, his lined face hard. When the horses exit the paddock to parade before the stands, he remains behind. Seconds before the bell, he’s still sitting there, three flights down from his family box, alone. His arms are locked awkwardly around a post, a position he maintains until the horses enter the home stretch. He gives the impression that owning a horse of the Mouse’s caliber is more curse than blessing.
Horsemen are generally born of horsemen, and money is often passed on alongside the passion, but when a young Nick arrived from Naples over a half-century ago, it was a livelihood, not thoroughbreds, that preoccupied him. Being resourceful, he converted a street-level coffee shop on Commercial Drive into a restaurant. Big portions, stiff drinks, and late hours made Nick’s Spaghetti House a natural haunt for the racing crowd coming off the track just a mile down Hastings. “After the races,” Nick recalls, “all the jockeys, trainers, and grooms would come down and have dinner and drinks. They were good-time people, spent lots of money, and were always talking horses.” It wasn’t long before the talk rubbed off and he and wife, Pauline, made their cautious entrance into the sport of kings: in 1979, Nick purchased a cheap horse named Fire Ball that he raced at Hastings.
