I only ever spoke to Pajeen once, when she and my son Jack shared an apartment in Louisville during a meet at Churchill Downs.
She was young and pretty and gentle and ladylike, and she had a big bright smile and soft eyes.
She passed away recently, suddenly, at the age of just 37. She suffered from low blood pressure. She just fell asleep and never woke up. Natural causes. She stayed sleeping gently as those who loved her wept.
Mimi Davis, my friend and sometime work colleague knew Pajeen for the best part of nine years, from when Pajeen stayed with her during a spring meet at Keeneland. Mimi asked if I could say something for her.
She told me about Pajeen’s passing, how she was friends with Pajeen and her mother, Regina. She told me how clever Pajeen was. Her grades meant she could have studied at either veterinary or medical school.
Pajeen was the daughter of Hall-of-Fame trainer Buddy Delp, the man who trained 1979 Kentucky Derby winner Spectacular Bid, a four-time champion. Delp said he was the greatest horse ever to look through a bridle.
Mostly, though, Mimi just told me how nice she was, how sometimes she seemed overlooked, as quiet, nice people sometimes are. And she told me how kind she was, and knowledgeable about horses. In fact, if Mimi ever needed to know about a certain medication or drug she had never heard of, she would quickly text Pajeen for advice.
Mimi told me how close Pajeen was to her mother, how they spoke virtually every day, how Mimi spent Thanksgiving with them in New Orleans.
Later I spoke with Regina. “I feel like my sense of gravity Is all askew,” she said. “My mind is not able to concentrate. The silence from her is very painful. We would talk and laugh together every day. She was my best friend and she told me I was hers. It’s been very hard.
“My sister didn’t have children, so Pajeen was like her baby too. We are going to meet up with Pajeen’s friends in May. Mimi said we would all get together. She was loved by a lot of people. Aside from her own family, she had a family of friends at the racetrack as well.
“She was born in New Orleans. I never thought I would have children. I was 34. We named her Pegeen, which means ‘little pearl’ in the Gaelic language, but someone in Racing Form printed her name after her birth as Pajeen. So we decided to keep it!
“When Pajeen was about 12, the Racing Form ran a short story competition for people with interesting tales to tell. She wrote in and told them how she got her name and she won the competition. They sent her a Racing Form mug!”
Regina said Pajeen had an enquiring mind. “She was a real renaissance woman. I took her to plays and museums and zoos as a child in New Orleans and Chicago.
“When she was a little girl, I told her she had been so good that I would like to get her something she didn’t have that she would really like. I did that twice for her. The first time she asked for a telescope, the second time she asked for a Latin/English dictionary so she could learn the roots of English words. I said, okay …
“She took her SAT’s and they were so high, she skipped 12th grade and went straight to college. She spoke French and Spanish fluently.
“When she went to the University of Maryland, she was taking grade 3 courses that seniors would take.”
Pajeen and her year-younger brother, Cleve, had been walking hots by the age of ten at their father’s barn and moved on to ponying and then galloping. So, Pajeen decided to eschew veterinary or medical school to work at the track as assistant to several trainers. She even trained together with her brother in their own right for a period.
“But her last two times as assistant, she was humiliated by the trainers and treated very badly. I could tell she was depressed, so I went to see her in New Orleans. I have a bitterness towards them because of that. She didn’t deserve that. She was very knowledgeable about horses.”
When she walked away from the racetrack
In 2017, Pajeen decided to walk away from the racetrack. She worked in a library for a while, and applied to go study to become a nurse.
Early this year, she returned to the track to save money in case she was accepted for school. She took an assistant position with Richard Baltas in California, her first time out there. That was where she passed away two months ago. Regina said how helpful and kind Baltas and his wife had been. How they had helped her so much.
“I was so pleased to see some of the comments on Facebook from her friends in racing, and I was touched with what so many people said,” Regina said. “It made me feel better to know that they will sincerely miss her because that means she conducted her life with dignity and love. It really helped me.
“Her acceptance letter for nursing school arrived last week.”
I’ve known something like this before. The same thing really. Another good young person, he would ride a couple of sets for me. He had served his country in the UK and now wanted to work in racing. He tried to get a license to ride as an amateur over jumps. I promised to give him some rides, but the authorities kept turning him down.
Words of comfort
He just didn’t wake up one day. He had experienced a fit before apparently, which was why he couldn’t be licensed to ride races. He didn’t want to be champion rider or anything, just to pull the silks on a couple of times, experience the rush of the race. Life couldn’t even give him that.
They say the good sometimes die young. Why wouldn’t God want them up there with him, rather than down here among the pain and struggle.
I was brought up Catholic but do not practice now. I hope, though, I have some spirituality, and even though the odds of me making it to the good place are about 200/1 and drifting, If I do ever make it there, then I will have some tough questions to ask.
It is a fact, though, that every eternal atom we are created from, all the trillions and trillions of them, shall one day be a part of something else. Maybe the breeze running through your hair, or a rain drop running down your cheek, Regina. Maybe part of a big kind smile, or shining brown eyes. Perhaps a part of a blade of grass or a pretty flower, or a foal running in a field. Or a mighty oak.
I think that is why at times I have taken some comfort in the words of the poet Mary Elizabeth Frye:
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there I do not sleep,
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow,
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain,
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of the beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the star shine of the night,
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there I did not die.
Pajeen was ‘the light of our lives’, her mother told me. What can I add to that.
In memory.