Majestic Harbor defies Father Time

NEW ORLEANS – Majestic Harbor, who is getting ready for the New Orleans Handicap, is sending out positive signals to trainer Paul McGee.

“He rides his bicycle to and from the track,” McGee said, explaining that Majestic Harbor pumps his legs energetically, “dancing and prancing.”

It would be understandable if Majestic Harbor, 8 years old and having made 39 starts, had lost a bit of enthusiasm for being a racehorse. But that’s not what McGee is seeing.

“I really think he is, in fact, as good as he ever has been,” McGee said. “He’s got a lot of bounce to his step. He’s really enjoying his job right now.”

Coming off a victory in the Grade 3 Mineshaft Handicap on Feb. 20, Majestic Harbor is still doing his job quite well. By running no worse than fourth in the Grade 2, $400,000 New Orleans Handicap on March 26, Majestic Harbor would surpass $1 million in earnings. He has won nine races, including three graded stakes, and earned $990,254.

McGee has shared the training of Majestic Harbor with California-based Sean McCarthy. McGee on his own trained the millionaires Suave, Bet On Sunshine, and Honor in War.

Majestic Harbor flashed talent as a youngster. After finishing second in a Churchill Downs maiden race in his debut at 2 in the fall of 2010, he finished third at Churchill in a maiden race won by Shackleford. Fort Larned was fourth in that race. Majestic Harbor, who won his maiden early in 2011 at Fair Grounds, then ran ninth in the Louisiana Derby.

He came out of the race with a knee injury. Surgery wasn’t needed, and the injury healed as Majestic Harbor was given nearly a year off from competition.

“We were pretty certain we had a horse with ability,” said Loren Hebel-Osborne, one of several partners in the Gallant Stable ownership group. “We just had to go through some growing pains and baby steps.”

Majestic Harbor, who has won at least one race each year since he was 3, didn’t break through with a stakes placing until he was 6.

In his second stint in California under McCarthy, Majestic Harbor opened his 2014 campaign with a second-place finish in the Grade 2 San Pasqual at Santa Anita. Two starts later, he won the Grade 3 Tokyo City Stakes. After finishing third in the Grade 2 Californian, Majestic Harbor became a Grade 1 winner in the Gold Cup at Santa Anita. That year, he earned $450,260 in eight starts.

In 11 races last year, 10 of them under McGee, Majestic Harbor piled up $230,740 in earnings. He closed the year by finishing second in the Grade 2 Greenwood Cup at Parx and the Grade 2 Marathon Stakes at Keeneland and running third in the Grade 3 Hawthorne Gold Cup.

Majestic Harbor was lucky not to fall in the stretch run in the Louisiana Stakes in his first race this year. Coup de Grace veered into Ride On Curlin, who slammed several times into Majestic Harbor. He was moved up from fifth place to fourth when Coup de Grace was disqualified.

Rebounding with a clean, front-running trip in the Mineshaft, Majestic Harbor defeated Eagle by a head. “For him to come back and run the race he did in the Mineshaft, he had revenge on his mind,” Hebel-Osborne said. “He was not happy. He wanted to keep racing.”

He still does, McGee said. “I’m really happy with the way he came out of the Mineshaft,” he said.