Cat Man still riding high after Breeders' Cup Sprint triumph
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It might well be impossible to find someone loving life more than Wayne Catalano these days.
Still euphoric from winning the Breeders’ Cup Sprint last weekend with Aloha West, Catalano and his wife, Renee, took their sweet time returning from California to their Airstream trailer parked in a southern Indiana campground just across the Ohio River from downtown Louisville.
“Stopped off in Chicago to enjoy all this with family,” Catalano said before he returned Tuesday evening to Louisville.
Indeed, it was quite a whirlwind for Catalano, 65, before he and Aloha West took their separate ways in getting back Wednesday to Churchill Downs. By month’s end, they’ll both head off to Catalano’s native New Orleans, where Aloha West eventually will begin gearing back up at Fair Grounds for a winter campaign that may ultimately take him to the Riyadh Dirt Sprint on Saudi Cup night in late February.
In the meantime, incoming phone calls have been incessant for the former jockey fondly known as Cat Man or Cat Daddy “or whatever that guy said I should be called on a cooking show on TV, ‘Something in the kitchen with Cat,’ ” he laughed. His post-race interviews during which he said his stable numbers are down apparently were effective.
“Phone’s been ringing, yes it has,” he said. “Hell, I went on national TV crying about not having enough horses. I don’t want to become a jockey agent and make a million dollars!”
Catalano has an 18-stall allotment at Fair Grounds, which starts its four-month meet Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 25), and the reality is that number might be close enough.
“My operation has been split up long enough – this year I had 15 at Keeneland and four at Churchill – and I don’t want to do that anymore,” he said. “I’ve had enough. As good as the purses have gotten in Kentucky year-round, eventually I just want to have my year-round business here, all in one spot.”
The BC Sprint will be run next November at Keeneland, and Catalano can only hope to have Aloha West primed for a repeat. This was just his 15th Breeders’ Cup starter but his fourth victory, following Dreaming of Anna (Juvenile Fillies, 2006), She Be Wild (Juvenile Fillies, 2009), and Stephanie’s Kitten (Juvenile Fillies Turf, 2011).
“That’s almost 27 percent,” he said. “This game’s been pretty good to me.”