Off early Spa wins, Hough takes aim at bicoastal stakes

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Though he hadn’t run a horse here in eight summers, trainer Stanley Hough still appreciates how hard it is to win a race at Saratoga.

In a span of 48 hours Hough made it look easy, winning an allowance race Friday with He Hate Me and a maiden race Sunday with Scars Are Cool. They were Hough’s first two Saratoga wins since Tar Heel Mom won the Grade 2 Honorable Miss in August 2011, the last summer he ran a horse here.

“I’ve been here so long off and on, and the pressure is always to get that first win, get it out of the way,” said Hough, 71, who has 15 horses stabled at Saratoga with a dozen more based in Kentucky. “You look at a condition book and say ‘I think I can win this one, I think I can win that one’ then you get in a race and say ‘God, it looks tough.’ You can second and third yourself to death, and it gets harder and harder, so I was glad to do that.”

Hough, who returned to training last fall after a 6 1/2-year retirement, will attempt to do something this weekend he says he’s never tried: win graded stakes in New York and California on the same day.

In New York, Hough will run the promising 3-year-old Global Campaign in the Grade 2, $600,000 Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga. In California, Hough has shipped in Recruiting Ready for the Grade 1, $250,000 Bing Crosby at Del Mar.

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Hough trained from 1969 through the spring of 2012, winning more than 2,100 races and a bevy of stakes. Hough had knack for developing young horses, including Caller I.D., Proud Appeal, and Discreet Cat.

Hough retired in the spring of 2012, shortly after one of his main clients, Joyce Robsham, moved horses from his care. Hough noted that Paul Robsham, Joyce’s husband, had died a few years earlier and Joyce had a new advisor, who ultimately convinced her to make a change.

“Because of my relationship with the Robshams, I thought I would just end [my career] with them,” Hough said. “I had been fortunate to be financially secure, so I decided that was a good time.”

Hough had shares to a couple of stallions he had trained, Discreet Cat – who won first out at Saratoga and was bought shortly thereafter by Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum – and Adios Charlie, a graded stakes winner. Hough bred a few mares and gave the resulting foals to others to train. Golf and cards helped occupy the remainder of his free time.

In 2015, when Hunter Rankin became president of the racing end of Kevin Plank’s Sagamore Farm brand, the first call he made was to Hough. Rankin is the son of Alex Rankin, for whom Hough trained, and Hunter Rankin admired the trainer growing up.

Hough went to work for Sagamore as an advisor, helping pick out horses to buy at auction. Last summer, though, when Sagamore trainer Horacio DePaz needed time to focus on family business, Hunter Rankin asked Hough if he would consider training for Sagamore.

“I asked Stan to consider taking another run at it,” Rankin said “He’s not going to do it forever, obviously. He does want to retire eventually and have a life. We have some horses he really wanted to see through. From my point of view, there are as good a horseman out there, but there’s nobody better.”

Among the horses Hough wants to see through is Global Campaign. A son of Curlin purchased as a yearling for $250,000, Global Campaign won the first two starts of his career this winter at Gulfstream. He went into the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth on March 2 and finished fifth, but emerged with a foot injury. Hough had the foot right by the second Saturday in May when Global Campaign won the Grade 3 Peter Pan at Belmont.

Foot issues crept up again and Hough was forced to miss a planned start with Global Campaign in the $500,000 Ohio Derby. Global Campaign’s foot seems right now, and Hough is hoping the horse can show his talent again in the Jim Dandy despite having 11 weeks between starts.

“I think he’s a really good horse,” Hough said. “It’s got to come from that. You can’t do it with a mediocre horse.”

Hough believes Global Campaign will do enough by the time he’s done racing to be a hot stallion prospect.

“If he develops like I think he will, the most he’d run is through next year because he’s definitely going to be a stallion,” Hough said.

Recruiting Ready was one of the first horses Hough was involved in purchasing for Sagamore. He won his debut in May 2016 at Pimlico by 10 1/4 lengths for DePaz. Since then, he has won four stakes, including the Grade 3 Gulfstream Park Sprint. Most recently, he was third, beaten a half-length by Catalina Cruiser in the Grade 2 True North at Belmont.

While he is nominated to the Grade 1 Alfred G. Vanderbilt at Saratoga on Saturday, that race is expected to attract Mitole and Imperial Hint, horses who have combined to win 20 of 32 starts. The Bing Crosby looks to be coming up a bit softer than that, and offers the winner a fees-paid berth into the Breeders’ Cup Sprint on Nov. 2 at Santa Anita.

“Recruiting Ready was one of the first horses Stan and I bought together,” Rankin said.

He Hate Me was also part of that group, and coming off his win here on Friday is likely headed to a stakes race somewhere. The maiden win by the 3-year-old Scars Are Cool on Sunday was just another reminder of how much Rankin and Hough believe in Global Campaign.

Rankin said that while he and Hough have always liked Scars Are Cool, “You’re thinking Global’s got a few more gears than he does.”

“He’s always been a really exciting horse and we really want to see him through our program,” Rankin said.