King's Plate 2023: Kaukokaipuu takes Holder to a place he's never been

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Kaukokaipuu has thrust little-known trainer Tedston Holder into the King’s Plate spotlight, and the 54-year-old lifelong racetracker from Barbados is confident that his oddly named colt will give a good account of himself in the $1 million Canadian classic on Aug. 20.

Kaukokaipuu, who placed in five of seven 2-year-old outings, never earned his diploma until his second start this year in a seven-furlong maiden-special, which he won by 9 1/2 lengths. He doubled up in the seven-furlong Queenston Stakes and then gave the favored shipper, Turf King, a run for his money most recently when second in the Grade 3 Marine, a 1 1/16-mile event that was his first start around two turns.

Kaukokaipuu recorded his second breeze since the July 1 Marine last Saturday, when he outworked his full sister, Hallanvaara, during a six-furlong drill in 1:13.80. Holder bypassed the July 23 Plate Trial Stakes and said the handsome gray will work just once more before the Plate, with a two-minute lick in between.

“I got my four races in,” Holder said. “He’ll work a maintenance half-mile, on the Monday or Tuesday before the race. The Marine was his peak race, so far. Hopefully, there’s some more left in the tank.”

Holder felt that Kaukokaipuu was unlucky not to win his maiden at 2.

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“He was good last year – just had some unfortunate trips,” Holder recalled. “He was knocking heads with the best of what we had, and at no stage was he embarrassed.”

Kaukokaipuu is a Finnish word referring to a feeling of lust, nostalgia, or homesickness for a country where one has never been. The son of Mr Speaker is owned by Culpepper Island Syndicate, which is made up of Holder’s family members from six countries – Canada, Sweden, Japan, Australia, Finland, and Barbados.

“I was looking for a tongue twister with something that was a bit majestic, because he looked like he was going to be a nice horse early,” Holder said. “They came up with that name.”

Holder said one of the reasons why he bought Kaukokaipuu for a bargain $10,000 at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton October yearling sale was that he already owned Hallanvaara.

“She had a lot of talent, but she took a spill one morning and got loose in the barn,” Holder recalled. “That slowed her down, but she was still competitive for $25,000.”

Jockey Rico Walcott, another Barbados native, has been along for the ride. An eight-time leading rider in Alberta, Walcott committed to ride Kaukokaipuu on the road to the Plate in the spring and has stuck with him in his first full-time stint at Woodbine.

“I just wanted someone to commit,” Holder said. “He introduced himself to me a couple years ago in Barbados. That was big of him because back then I hadn’t done anything special. He made a point of introducing himself to me, and I thought that was big of him. I respect his numbers.”

Kaukokaipuu has a tendency to lay in during the stretch, and Walcott said he’s always prepared for it.

“He’s done it from the very first time I rode him,” Walcott said. “When I ride him here in the [Plate], I’ll make sure I have my stick in left hand ready for that when I turn for home.”

Walcott’s reign as the perennial leading rider in Alberta ended in the spring of 2019, when he had brain surgery following a series of seizures at age 30.

“I woke up in the hospital and they told me I had a brain tumor the size of a golf ball that had to be removed,” Walcott recalled. “They never said it was cancerous. They said it was too big for the space it was in. I have a metal plate in my head with four screws. I spent a couple days in the hospital, then I went home. Within about four weeks, I was back riding horses. When I came back, everything was good, but I was tired and a little heavy from the steroids they had me on that blew me up. Everything is healed up now. The Lord wasn’t ready for me yet.”

Holder has been training on and off since 1998, with 43 wins to his credit, and Kaukokaipuu has been his standout runner. As a young Black man growing up in Barbados, he said he was fortunate to fall into the right crowd.

“I was looked after,” Holder said. “There was a white man who treated me like his son. He put me on the right path. I was driven to school most days, which didn’t happen with the average kids from my neighborhood. I used to hang out with [jockeys] Slade Callaghan and Chris Griffith.”

Holder said Chris’s older brother Ricky, a popular jockey in Ontario in the late 1980s and 1990s, was instrumental in his decision to immigrate to Canada.

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“Ricky was the reason I came here,” Holder said. “I lived at Ricky’s house from 1989 to 1993. All his kids still call me Uncle Ted to this day. Ricky paved the way for me and he introduced me to a lot of guys in the jocks’ room.”

Sadly, Ricky Griffith died on Tuesday after a long battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also knows as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

“He went peacefully in his sleep, at home with his family,” Holder said. “The last time he texted me was after the Queenston to congratulate me.”

In the post-race television interview, Holder dedicated his first stakes win in the Queenston to Griffith, a fitting tribute to his longtime mentor.

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