Metanovic sets sights on even bigger derby for Metaboss

ALBANY, Calif. – When bloodstock agent Mersad Metanovic purchased a Street Boss weanling for $10,000, he was hoping he’d made a bargain purchase of a good, useful horse.

Little did he imagine that he’d just purchased a colt who would win the race he’d always dreamed of winning, the El Camino Real Derby.

But Metaboss did just that, winning the $200,525, Grade 3 race and earning 10 Kentucky Derby qualifying points for Metanovic, four partners, and trainer Jeff Bonde on Saturday at Golden Gate Fields, thrusting himself into contention for a far more important derby on the first Saturday of May in Kentucky.

“I had been going to Bay Meadows all my life until it closed down,” said the 43-year-old Metanovic. “My dream was to win this race. I knew at the top of the stretch he was going to win. It’s amazing what he’s doing. It’s beyond my imagination. He’s done everything we’ve asked of him.”

Metaboss will next be asked to run in the $550,000 Spiral Stakes on March 21 on Turfway Park’s synthetic surface. Event of the Year, who won the 1998 El Camino Real Derby, as well as 2000 El Camino Real Derby also-ran Globalize, won Turfway’s signature race.

“To go anywhere outside the state after the El Camino Real, he had to run one-two,” said Metanovic.

If he wins the Spiral, he likely would find himself in the Kentucky Derby on May 2, 15 days prior to his actual third birthday. And though the Derby is a possibility, Metanovic said he’d long envisioned the $1.25 million Belmont Derby Invitational for 3-year-olds on turf at Belmont Park as a realistic goal for the colt.

Metanovic has been a full-time bloodstock agent for seven years but worked part time for 20 years while doing his day job with three Silicon Valley startups.

He works hard and tries to use all the things he’s learned along the way. Because he specializes primarily in horses costing $10,000 to $60,000, Metanovic works closely with veterinarians looking for horses with no physical problems.

He liked Metaboss immediately, just as he liked the Bonde-trained Eclipse Award winner She’s a Tiger.

Metaboss’s sire, Street Boss, was a multiple Grade 1-winning sprinter. His dam, Spinning Yarns, was stakes-placed, and her first foal, Tejedor, was second in a 1 3/16-mile stakes race in Puerto Rico, followed by a fourth in a 1 1/4-mile stakes race against older rivals.

“No. 1, he was brought by a good consignor,” said Metanovic. “He had a beautiful walk. He was a well-mannered horse. I decided to take a shot because I had a good feeling.”

The good feeling has been proven correct.

And there was a little bit of payback in the El Camino Real Derby, where Metaboss beat Cross the Line, a half-brother of Ria Antonia, who won the 2013 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies when She’s a Tiger was disqualified.