Runninforhoody has karmic edge in Barretts Debutante
LOS ALAMITOS, Calif. – The filly Runninforhoody is picking up where the Ice Bucket Challenge left off. And if the results of a horse race hinged on good vibes, she would be a cinch on Saturday at Los Alamitos.
“I’m a big believer in karma,” co-owner Ian McLean said. “And we are loaded with karma.”
Runninforhoody will run for Hoody – the nickname of co-owner Darren Dent – in the $100,000 Barretts Debutante against probable favorite Just Google Me. Like the Ice Bucket Challenge, Runninforhoody is raising awareness of a disease Dent faces daily.
Dent and McLean have been friends since elementary school. Dent, 50, was found in 2007 to have amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Within three years of diagnosis, near-total paralysis had set in on the former athlete.
Dent is “locked in,” a term for a person unable to communicate verbally due to paralysis. However, Dent smiles, moves his eyes and communicates by sending signals to a letter board. Mentally, he is “100 percent there,” McLean said. Think Stephen Hawking.
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Using a nerve in his thigh, Dent is able to navigate Daily Racing Form, scroll up and down, and signal his girlfriend and parents to run bets.
Yes, Dent and McLean also are lifelong horseplayers. They would cut high-school class for an afternoon of underage betting at Bay Meadows or Golden Gate Fields. “That’s how we got into horse racing, as gamblers, all these years,” McLean said.
They often talked about owning a racehorse, but priorities shifted with ALS. McLean, who owns an engineering company, had an idea to buy a horse and present an ownership stake to Dent for his 50th birthday.
In May, McLean and trainer Aggie Ordonez scouted the Barretts sale of 2-year-olds in training and bought a filly sired by Globalize for only $5,500. “She was on the small side, but we liked her,” Ordonez said.
How did they get her so cheap? “We’re still trying to figure that out,” Ordonez said.
McLean gave Dent a 25 percent ownership stake in the filly and renamed her Runninforhoody. The filly took an immediate liking to Dent. She nudged his wheelchair, tugged his clothing. She was playful, as if she knew the person she was named for.
The question was, could she run? She came around quickly and made her debut July 16 at Sacramento. She won by a neck under jockey William Antongeorgi while McLean, Dent and his family, and three dozen friends whooped and hollered.
One month later, Runninforhoody finished second in a $56,000 stakes at Santa Rosa. She will enter the Barretts Debutante with the field’s second-highest last-out Beyer Speed Figure, a 61.
Dent will not make the trip to Los Alamitos, but while he watches from Northern California, his owner’s license will be proudly displayed on his clothing. “He wears it like a badge of honor,” McLean said.
Runninforhoody has inspired Dent, the ALS community, and his lifelong friend. McLean said the filly serves as a reminder: “Don’t give up. Don’t quit. You can find a passion. You can find something.”
While the Runninforhoody story is sentimental, the favorite for the Barretts Debutante was named through pure hilarity from an incident involving a celebrity.
The actor Reese Witherspoon was arrested in 2013 for disorderly conduct while her husband was being arrested on suspicion of DUI. The arresting officer did not recognize the actress, who asked while being handcuffed, “Do you know my name?” Horse owners Chad Calvert and Scott Rollins read an account of the incident – perhaps apocryphal – that claimed Witherspoon also said, “Just Google me.”
Calvert and Rollins thought the story was hilarious and named a pair of 2014 Barretts yearlings after the account. Do U Know Who I Am is a gelding who has not started. A filly, purchased for $17,000, was named Just Google Me.
Just Google Me won her debut at Los Alamitos in July and followed with a third and a second in California-bred stakes at Del Mar. Edwin Maldonado rides the filly, whose runner-up finish last out earned a 66 Beyer that tops the Barretts Debutante field.
“She was a little small when we bought her, but conformation-wise, she’s practically perfect,” Rollins said. “She’s a real efficient mover.”
The pace of the Barretts Debutante favors the closing style of both Runninforhoody and Just Google Me. Eight fillies were entered in the stakes, restricted to 2-year-old fillies offered at any Barretts sale.
Four front-runners are Mesquite Dancer, Sharp Holiday, Sambamzajammin, and Scarlet Emerald. The first-time starter Miss Injustice and the maiden second-time starter And in the End complete the field.