Got Shades to get first shot on dirt in Lecomte at Fair Grounds

Got Shades has made his mark on the grass as a multiple stakes winner, and he finished a troubled fifth in last weekend’s $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Santa Anita. But when he runs next, he will move to dirt for the Grade 3, $200,000 Lecomte at Fair Grounds, trainer Danny Pish said. That race is Jan. 18.

Got Shades was en route to his Texas base Monday night. He will spend the rest of the month at Pish’s farm near San Antonio, then ship to the trainer’s Fair Grounds division in early December. The Lecomte will be his first start on dirt following a season in which he won his maiden in the $50,000 Sunny’s Halo at Louisiana Downs and captured the track’s $100,000 Sunday Silence.

“This horse has a dirt pedigree,” Pish said of Got Shades, a son of Pollard’s Vision that he trains for Dennis E. Foster.

Pish said the first opportunities to race Got Shades around his preferred two turns came on turf. Got Shades performed well and punched his ticket to the Breeders’ Cup when he finished third in the $100,000 Zuma Beach at Santa Anita in October. In last weekend’s Juvenile Turf, he had to check when making his bid from 10th.

“On the far turn, as the field bunched up, we took the worst of it,” Pish said. “I can’t tell you how proud I am of the horse to regain his composure and come with a rally, because he was checked sharply. To re-rally from that and finish fifth speaks strongly of the horse’s class and the fact that he does belong at that level.”

Got Shades was the first BC starter for Pish, 47, a Southwest-based horseman.

“It was a great experience,” Pish said. “Santa Anita is a beautiful racetrack, and with all the history there, it was an outstanding experience.”

Pish will be active Saturday night at Retama, as he has a handful of horses pointing to the $75,000 El Joven and $75,000 La Senorita, a pair of one-mile turf races for 2-year-olds. One candidate for the La Senorita, for fillies, races for Foster.

Uncertain plans for Wine Police

Wine Police was the first BC starter for trainer Henry Dominguez, who like Pish is based in the Southwest. The multiple stakes winner finished eighth in the $1.5 million Sprint, beaten less than five lengths. Dominguez said Wine Police will likely run again before the end of the year in plans to be determined with owners J. Kirk and Judy Robison.

Dominguez said he felt Wine Police’s race in the Sprint was impacted by circumstances surrounding his final work at Santa Anita on Oct. 26. The horse had to be pulled up after about a quarter-mile due to the fatal breakdown of Points Offthebench. Wine Police came back out after the break and went five furlongs in 1:01.

Dominguez, 55, said he otherwise enjoyed being a part of the Breeders’ Cup.

“It was great. It was exhilarating,” he said. “I never had experienced it before. We had a lot of fun. We didn’t do as well as we wanted, but a lot of others didn’t, either. It was fun, and it’s something everybody should get to experience.”

Wine Police shipped back into his Zia Park base Monday.

Groom of Alysheba dies

John Cherry, the groom of Alysheba who spent five decades in racing, died Sunday night in an Oklahoma City hospital, according to friends. He was 69. Cherry had been battling leukemia. Services for Cherry, a native of Indiana, will be Nov. 12. The arrangements are being handled by Fitch-Denney Funeral Home in Lawrenceburg, Ind.

Cherry was a constant by Alysheba’s side from his 2-year-old season on, tending to the horse during a career in which he won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness in 1987 and captured the Breeders’ Cup Classic in 1988 to clinch Horse of the Year. In all, Alysheba won 11 of 26 starts and $6,679,242.

Trainer Joe Petalino, a former assistant to Alysheba’s trainer, Jack Van Berg, said Cherry was a perfect fit for the high-energy Alysheba.

“He was good for that horse and that horse was good for him,” Petalino said. “John was real quiet around him, was good to get along with, and that horse liked him for those reasons.

“John was very dedicated to the horses.”

Cherry went to work for Petalino more than two decades ago and remained with the outfit up until he was hospitalized this past spring when in Hot Springs, Ark. Petalino looked after Cherry during the Oaklawn meet, then made arrangements for Cherry to be moved, in a sense with the stable, to a hospital near Remington Park.

During his career, Cherry also spent time working for trainers Willard Proctor and Gordon Potter, for whom he groomed Royal Glint, a multiple stakes winner who banked nearly $400,000 while racing around the country in the 1970s.