No Marathon three-peat for McDonald

There won’t be a trainer three-peat in Sunday’s Humboldt County Marathon in Ferndale. Melanie McDonald, who won the 1 5/8-mile race with A Thousand Aces in 2013 and Mahogany Run last year, is not entering a runner this year.

“I did not have anything I thought was viable,” she said.

Mahogany Run is in training but not ready to go the marathon distance, McDonald said.

“Next year, I hope to have both Mahogany Run and A Thousand Aces ready,” she said.

McDonald uses old-school long gallops to prepare her runners for the Marathon.

“Every horse, even sprinters, has to have a good foundation,” she said. “I remember many years ago an old trainer told me, ‘If they can’t gallop, they can’t run,’ so I just gallop them so they get used to it, and then I back off a few days ahead of the race.”

Fifteen runners were nominated to the Marathon, one of three stakes on Sunday’s closing-day card. There also is a stakes for mules and one for Arabians.

One of the nominees to the Marathon is 2012 champion Steel Blue, but the one to beat appears to be Blues Buster, who won the Oak Tree Handicap at the Oak Tree at Pleasanton meeting before fading badly on turf in the Joseph T. Grace Handicap at Santa Rosa.

There’s quite a jockeys’ race at Ferndale, with three riders going head to head into the final three days of the meet.

Defending champ Joe Crispin rode four winners Sunday and is the leader with 44 points (jockeys get 5 for first, 3 for second, 1 for third). Hugo Herrera, the 2013 champion, had three wins Saturday and is second with 43. Jake Samuels, who had three winners Friday, is third with 42.