Hovdey: Mandella patiently made his way to 2,000

If bad things come in threes, then Richard Mandella would have been perfectly justified if he stayed in bed Friday morning with the covers pulled over his head. Anyway, it looked like rain.

The week began digesting the news of the death of The Tin Man, a noble animal who spent all of his eight years at the racetrack spoiled rotten by Mandella and his crew. They were rewarded with seven campaigns of various duration, highlighted by trips to the mountaintop: He captured an Arlington Million and was one of the few American runners who came close to winning a grass race in Dubai.

Then on Thursday, the day after Mandella had entered two-time champion Beholder in Saturday’s $300,000 Vanity at Santa Anita Park, the 5-year-old mare came down with a temperature that knocked her out of the race.

No one should have been too surprised. Beholder is a violin string of a Thoroughbred, brilliant in her intensity to stay on pitch, and she has pulled this stunt before. But still, she could have waited until next week.

The Beholder setback followed on the heels of yet another Kentucky Derby that went into the books without Mandella’s serious involvement. There is a list posted somewhere with the names of the game’s most successful trainers who somehow neglected to win America’s greatest prize – topped by John Nerud, Allen Jerkens, and Bobby Frankel – and among those still active Mandella is right there alongside Ron McAnally, Bill Mott, Jonathan Sheppard, and Steve Asmussen.

“I think they’re saving the Triple Crown for me,” Mandella said.

Mandella did his best to divert attention from the Kentucky Derby last Saturday by winning the Precisionist Stakes at Santa Anita Park with Catch a Flight, which marked victory No. 2,000 for the trainer in a career dating back to 1974, when he flew the nest of Lefty Nickerson to take a private job for Roger Braugh.

One thing led to another, then another, and pretty soon Mandella was in the Hall of Fame. That was 14 years ago, with a Class of 2001 that included Paseana, Maskette, Holy Bull, and Earlie Fires. Since then Mandella has done nothing to make them turn the plaque around. Still, as long as he holds a license there are always going to be mornings like Thursday morning when he arrives at the barn and the groom says, “Boss, we got a problem.”

“I was shocked,” Mandella said Friday. “We take every horse’s temperature at 5 a.m. She had a temperature of 102 and change that went up to 103. We took a blood and the white count was up, so we put her on penicillin and gentamicin, and a little bit of fever medicine, and the temperature hasn’t come back.”

Beholder was knocked out of the Breeders’ Cup Distaff last fall when she spiked a fever the day before pre-entries. On Friday morning, Mandella was encouraged to see that she was not as sick this time around.

“By yesterday afternoon she was looking for her feed,” he said. “Hopefully it was just a little bug, and that’s it. I don’t think we’ll miss much with her. She was acting as tough as a colt through all of her training and getting her back to the races.”

Patience is a virtue imposed on horse trainers. Not all of them come by it naturally. Mandella already has gone through two long recoveries with Beholder, and he’s not about to rush things now. Whether or not she can make the $1 million Ogden Phipps at Belmont Park on June 6 remains up in the air.

The Tin Man, Affirmed’s last good son, tested Mandella’s patience with tendon trouble on and off for most of his life, but that did not stop him from winning $3.6 million for his breeders, Ralph and Aury Todd.

At the age of 9, in late 2007, The Tin Man underwent surgery to clean up some chips in an ankle. The procedure went well but the post-op was a disaster when the old boy fractured a knee in recovery. He was retired, first to River Edge Farm in Buellton and then later to the nearby property of the Todd’s daughter Stacey Nance.

“He had a great life up there,” Mandella said. “He loved watching all the action at the ranch. But then he came down with some kind of virus that turned into pneumonia and just ate his lungs up real quick.”

The Tin Man gave Mandella 13 of his 2,000 winners. The trainer was asked if he remembered his first, dating back to the summer of ’74 at Hollywood Park.

“Oh yeah,” he replied. “Her name was La Mesa, a 4-year-old maiden with Bill Shoemaker. She hadn’t run in a couple months and won first time out. My mother was there to see it. I thought it was easy.”

Four decades later Mandella knows better, and knows how special a milestone like Catch a Flight’s Precisionist win should be. The Argentine-bred son of Giant’s Causeway is well positioned now to make noise in such West Coast events as the Gold Cup at Santa Anita and the Pacific Classic as the summer unwinds.

Catch a Flight also could be nicknamed Zelig, the Woody Allen character who had a knack for showing up at historic moments. Earlier this year he provided Gary Stevens with North American win No. 5,000. The coincidence was not lost on his trainer.

“We’re going to start renting him out for special occasions,” Mandella said.