With legal issues as background, Runhappy gets ready for new season

LEXINGTON, Ky. – It’s the calm after the storm. Runhappy is laying down in his stall in a private barn on the southwest corner of the Thoroughbred Center, a training facility just outside of town, oblivious to the tumult that once surrounded him and became magnified because of his brilliance.

It’s March, and his next start won’t be until May 7, Kentucky Derby Day, when he’ll put a six-race win streak on the line in the Grade 2 Churchill Downs Stakes. The work toward that comeback begins now, however, amid the tranquility of an out-of-the-way facility that belies the controversy that has swirled around him.

“We love it here,” said Laura Wohlers, who trains Runhappy for her brother-in-law, Jim McIngvale, who is known as Mattress Mac as owner of the Houston-based Gallery Furniture stores. “We get him out of his stall anytime we want. He grazes, he swims. He’s happy and healthy.”

This side of American Pharoah, Runhappy might have been the most compelling story in North American Thoroughbred racing in 2015. His racetrack accomplishments were extraordinary – he won 6 of 7 starts last year, including the Breeders’ Cup Sprint and the Eclipse Award for top sprinter – but it was the train wreck of human drama that took the story to another level.

McIngvale fired trainer Maria Borell on Nov. 1, the day after Runhappy won the BC Sprint, and gave the horse to Wohlers, who had trained the horse for the first two starts of his career. Both sides say the firing came over a dispute about training the horse between Borell and Wohlers, who is McIngvale’s racing manager.

McIngvale has declined to pay Borell the standard 10 percent commission that a trainer receives from purse earnings on Runhappy’s stakes wins, saying she agreed in writing to work as a private trainer for a base salary devoid of commissions. Soon after the Breeders’ Cup, Borell filed a lawsuit in Fayette County (Ky.) Circuit Court that alleged her character was defamed and asked that she be paid the commissions, which amount to about $124,000.

Richard Getty, the Lexington attorney who represents Borell, said earlier this month that a motion by McIngvale to dismiss the suit was denied Feb. 12 and that he is considering a motion to separate her financial claims from her defamation claims. The financial claims are expected to be easier to litigate, said Getty, who is working pro bono.

When asked about the litigation, Wohlers declined to comment.

“We’d rather not talk about that,” she said.

Borell has moved to south Florida, where she has compiled six starts and no wins between two horses at Gulfstream Park this winter.

Meanwhile, life goes on.

After he won the Dec. 26 Malibu Stakes at Santa Anita for Wohlers, Runhappy was sent for some downtime to a farm outside of Austin, Texas. On Feb. 28, he returned to the Thoroughbred Center and began easy morning jogs shortly thereafter. He’s now up to daily gallops and is expected to have his first breeze toward the end of March, said Wohlers.

The Grade 2, $500,000 Churchill Downs is a seven-furlong race that will serve as a starting point for Runhappy. McIngvale and Wohlers are planning this year to be quite different from 2015, when the focus for Runhappy was strictly on sprint races.

“We know he’s very fast,” Wohlers said recently at the barn, “but we honestly think he’s capable of going a mile and a quarter. But that’s getting a little ahead.”

If all goes well enough on Derby Day, Runhappy likely will run five weeks later in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Mile on the June 11 Belmont Stakes undercard, said Wohlers, with maybe the 1 1/8-mile Whitney at Saratoga being the main summer goal.

Regular rider Edgar Prado, who was injured two weeks prior to the Malibu and was replaced by Gary Stevens, will have the mount back for the Churchill Downs, said Wohlers.

Wohlers said McIngvale has been inundated with offers from major breeding farms in Kentucky and beyond seeking full or partial ownership in Runhappy, but no decision is imminent. “There aren’t too many farms that haven’t approached us,” she said.

Wohlers’s twin sister, Linda, is married to McIngvale, and Wohlers is a longtime employee of Gallery, both with the furniture company and in overseeing his racing stable. Wohlers and her husband, Kelly, have moved from Texas to live in Lexington for at least the next two years. The hope is for Runhappy to compete not only this year at 4 but next year at 5.

“We’ll do all we can to keep him happy and sound,” she said. “Hopefully, he’ll take care of the rest.”

– additional reporting by Matt Hegarty