Hovdey: Barber hopes for heroics from Wonder Gadot

As CEO of MGM, Gary Barber is a key player in the entertainment business. “Wonder Woman,” starring Gal Gadot, was one of the biggest, most entertaining hits of the 2017 movie season. It makes perfect sense, therefore, that Barber should own a filly of quality named Wonder Gadot.

“That’s how highly we thought of her,” Barber said this week, as Wonder Gadot was preparing to run in the Rachel Alexandra Stakes on Saturday at the Fair Grounds.

Warner Bros., led by Barber’s racing partner Kevin Tsujihara, made “Wonder Woman,” while MGM under Barber has had to be content with the two most recent James Bond films along with the breakout success of “Vikings” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” from its TV division.

Clearly, Barber has the kind of day job that usually spills over into his nights. Even so, he finds time to make the races at Santa Anita and Del Mar when his horses run, and few owners are more passionately competitive than the native of South Africa, whose best runners have included Breeders’ Cup winners Catch a Glimpse and Tourist, and Canadian Horse of the Year Lexie Lou.

Barber has yet to make a mark in an American classic event, but Wonder Gadot could check that box. The daughter of Medaglia d’Oro has won half of her six races, including victories in Woodbine’s Grade 3 Mazarine Stakes and the Grade 2 Demoiselle in New York. In her lone appearance on the national stage she sustained a rocky trip in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Del Mar, finishing sixth.

Mark Casse produced Wonder Gadot as a 3-year-old on Jan. 13 in the Silverbulletday at the Fair Grounds. She lost by a neck to the well-regarded Stronger Than Ever from the barn of Ken McPeek.

“I thought she got a little compromised by the pace of the race,” Barber said. “The horse she was chasing the whole way actually finished last. Still, she ran a good second and didn’t give up. She’s a fighter.”

And therefore well named. The pronunciation of that name, however, became an internet meme and late night talk show running joke last year as Gal Gadot, a native Israeli, made the rounds promoting “Wonder Woman.” The temptation to apply a French twist was hard to resist, especially for fans of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.” In fact, it’s pronounced “guh-DOTE.”

“With a soft T,” Gadot explained.

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Wonder Gadot has suffered similar confusion. It was no surprise that announcer Robert Geller got it right in her Woodbine races, and Larry Collmus was spot-on during her frustrating Breeders’ Cup run. But John Dooley went with “ga-DOE” in the Silverbulletday, which fortunately did not affect the way she ran. He’ll get another chance on Saturday.

Barber’s description of Wonder Gadot as a fighter will be thoroughly tested in the coming months. In contrast, his 3-year-old filly War Heroine is already valiant beyond words.

After winning a Del Mar maiden race by nearly seven lengths in November, the daughter of the Australian stallion Lonhro was primed to take on Dream Tree in the Starlet Stakes at Los Alamitos on Dec. 9. Then came the Lilac Fire of Dec. 7, when War Heroine was among the 70-some horses in the Peter Miller stable at San Luis Rey Downs directly in harm’s way.

“I’ll never forget that call,” Barber said. “I must have spoken to Pete maybe 25 times in a two-hour span. It was frightening, horrific. The worry was just getting them out safely, whatever they had to do.”

And so they turned them loose, herding them away from the burning Miller barns onto the training center property. Of the approximately 400 horses evacuated to emergency locations, Barber owned all or part of 25.

“For about 36 hours we didn’t know where War Heroine was,” Miller recalled. “Then she turned up at Trifecta Farm, near San Luis Rey.”

Forty-six horses were killed in the fire, including five trained by Miller. All of Barber’s 25 survived. The subsequent flood of aid to the displaced horse and human population to Del Mar was inspiring, and Barber did his part, including his purchase of a donated season to the Coolmore stallion Uncle Mo.

“You never know how people will react until something like this happens,” Barber said. “It was so heart warming to see the response of the community. It didn’t matter whose horses or whose people were involved. Everybody was just trying to do what was right by the sport. Sometimes out of tragedy comes community bonding.”

War Heroine returned to the races on Jan. 7 in the Santa Ynez Stakes at Santa Anita, one month to the day after the fire. She showed her natural speed but then stopped badly to be a well-beaten sixth. Miller said she scoped with a bit of mucus and gave her a couple of quiet weeks, then circled the 6 1/2-furlong Sweet Life on the grass as a sensible step to see if she had completely recovered. She had.

“That was incredible,” Barber said afterward. “She is all heart.”

Wonder Gadot might end up the star of the Barber stable this season, but in terms of sheer drama she’ll never top War Heroine, who won the Sweet Life by half a length, with the third-place filly another half back and gaining fast. Her name was Out of the Flames.