Hovdey: Firing Line furthers the mark of Zetcher

There will not be any lifting high of the Woodlawn Vase at Pimlico on Saturday after one of the eight horses entered wins the 140th running of the Preakness Stakes. For starters, it’s way too big, at nearly 30 pounds and three feet tall. Besides, the Maryland National Guardsmen on duty might have something to say about too much manhandling of the most valuable trophy in sports since they will be watching it like a hawk all day long. Imagine being the guy to drop $4 million worth of ornate sterling silver on national TV.

The raising of the trophy has become a Triple Crown race tradition, akin to a matador brandishing two ears and a tail after dealing with an especially cooperative bull. For purposes of photographs, and safety, a 14-inch replica of the Woodlawn Vase is passed around the winning stand before it is sent off to the engravers, where this year, for the first time since the Lazy Lane Farm of Joseph Allbritton won the 1991 Preakness with Hansel, there is a very good chance the letter “Z” will be etched into posterity.

Ahmed Zayat won the Kentucky Derby with American Pharoah by a hard-fought length over Arnold and Ellen Zetcher’s Firing Line. Now both colts are back for more on Saturday, giving the Zetchers a fighting chance to bask in a little Triple Crown glow of their own.

It has been only 14 years since the Zetchers won the Manhattan Beach Handicap at Hollywood Park with one of their very first horses, Gabriellina Giof, in her very first start. It got better.

Over the following decade-plus, they have won races like the Acorn Stakes, the Pacific Classic, the Fantasy Stakes, the Del Mar Derby, the Hollywood Oaks, the CashCall Futurity, the Santa Anita Derby, the Santa Anita Oaks, the Del Mar Futurity, the Triple Bend, and the La Canada Stakes with horses like Richard’s Kid, House of Fortune, Fairly Ransom, Midnight Interlude, Liaison, Rolling Fog, Fashion Plate, and E Z’s Gentleman.

“I’m beginning to think that Firing Line might be the best horse we’ve owned,” said Arnold Zetcher, a man not given to hyperbole. “I know there is nothing like winning the Kentucky Derby. But the way he finished second, my goodness, how can you be anything but thrilled to death?”

Zetcher is a lifelong fan whose St. Louis roots meant his racetrack of first exposure was the long-gone Cahokia Downs, located just across the river. As he pursued a career in retail, running companies like Bonwit Teller and then Talbots, Zetcher made sure his road trips to visit far-flung stores included a visit to a local track.

A Talbots stock split in 2000 gave Zetcher, 74, the ability to realize his dream of owning horses, and his retirement in 2007 inspired him to become a more hands-on manager of his racing and breeding enterprises.

“There is nothing more thrilling than winning a race, and the bigger, the better,” Zetcher said. “But I find just as much fun and satisfaction in the business side, making the decisions that keep a stable viable. I find if you let that part of it go, it can spoil the fun.

“When we bought our first horses, I really didn’t know what I wanted,” Zetcher added. “I had to learn that it is usually the trainer who will steer an owner one way or another, depending on their contacts and their style of training.”

Zetcher began with Ron McAnally, then shifted his patronage to Bob Baffert before adding Chad Brown and Simon Callaghan, the trainer of Firing Line, to his business mix. It was Callaghan and agent Ben McIlroy who found Firing Line at the 2014 Keeneland April sale of 2-year-olds for $240,000.

“We were high on him from the start, which is unusual for me, and I was a little bit skeptical in the beginning,” Zetcher said. “But Simon was very consistent in his evaluation of the horse’s talent, and then jockeys would come back and sing his praises after working him.”

After winning the Sunland Derby and suffering tough losses this year in the Kentucky Derby and Robert B. Lewis Stakes (to American Pharoah’s stablemate Dortmund), there is not much left for Firing Line to do except win a big one. Ellen Zetcher’s tastes in décor run to the modern in their Century City home in California, but the replica of the 155-year-old Woodlawn Vase would fit right in, if it is meant to be.

The trophy was commissioned by Kentucky breeder Robert Alexander in 1859 for his Woodlawn Farm and delivered by Tiffany & Co. the following year. In short order, a colorful history ensued, during which the elaborate silver dingus was buried and exhumed, made its way to the racing circles of New York and New Jersey, then finally landed in Maryland, where in 1917 it became the permanent symbol of the Preakness.

The detail of the trophy is fascinating, from the horse-headed tack trunks supporting a base, upon which a mare and foal are posed in a fenced corral, to the four winged figures surrounding the centerpiece and holding victory laurels aloft. The vase is crowned by the mounted figure of Alexander’s great stallion Lexington, who sired Preakness, among many others.

Lexington can be found in about 99.9 percent of the Thoroughbreds running today. The Zetchers don’t know about all those others, but they remain eternally grateful that he sired Florence, a foal of 1869 and the dam of Kentucky Derby winner Hindoo, who sired Sallie McClelland, the dam of Audience, the dam of handicap star Whisk Broom II, the sire of John P. Grier, the colt who gave Man o’ War a scare in the 1920 Dwyer.

John P. Grier sired Miyako, the dam of Geisha, whose son Native Dancer won the 1953 Preakness and then sired Raise a Native, who sired Kentucky Lill, the dam of Emma’s Dilemma, who in 2007 foaled Line of David, the winner of the 2010 Arkansas Derby. His first crop is led by Firing Line.

“I never would have thought 20 years ago I’d be doing this at this level and having the success we’ve had winning some very special races,” Arnold Zetcher said. “We cherish every one of them, and we hope we have one more to add to the list.”