Side Glance, Suntracer wealthy despite rarely winning

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing,” football coach Vince Lombardi once famously said. But would Lombardi have turned down an ownership stake in the 7-year-old gelding Side Glance, or even the 6-year-old horse Suntracer?

Side Glance has won just one of his last 17 starts but has banked almost $2.5 million in purses during his 36-start career. He won $500,000 merely by finishing fourth for the second year in a row in the Dubai World Cup this past March.

Side Glance did what he almost always does racing in the 2013 Arlington Million – pick up a nice check with a high-placed loss, in this case a third – and as one of just seven entrants in this year’s Million, the odds are that his earnings will get another boost Saturday.

Suntracer rides a 13-race losing streak into the American St. Leger Stakes on the Million undercard, his last win having come in October 2012. But Suntracer’s bankroll stands at a little more than $613,000, and the American St. Leger, where he’s one of the favorites, is worth $400,000.

So, no, international horse racing is not American professional football.

Side Glance is the most international of horses. Based in England with trainer Andrew Balding, Side Glance’s last race came July 6 in the United Nations Stakes at Monmouth Park, a relatively nearby location considering Side Glance’s global wandering.

Since March 2013, he has raced twice in Dubai, started once in England, came to Arlington for the Million, gone on to Australia for two races in the fall, and from there bounced over to Hong Kong. After a short winter break, it was back to Dubai for two more starts, on to Singapore, back for one race in England, and then the United Nations.

“He wasn’t Group 1-class in England, and there are easier options with very good prize money abroad with this type of horse,” Balding said of his decision to internationalize Side Glance. “It helps he’s a gelding and can cope with fast ground. You can’t go traveling hoping for rain.”

On Nov. 2 at Flemington in Australia, in the rich Group 1 MacKinnon Stakes, Side Glance did something rare – he won.

“He deserved to win a Group 1,” Balding said. “He’d been Group 1-placed so many times.”

Side Glance doesn’t show his age. He’s still sleek and spritely and had a spirited gallop on Arlington’s Polytrack on Wednesday.

Suntracer’s travels have been far more limited, but trainer Chris Block, like Balding, thinks Suntracer’s failure to find the winner’s circle speaks to circumstances, not an inherent lack of will to win. A one-run closer who wears bubble blinkers to protect and old eye injury, Suntracer often finds himself at the mercy of pace and racing luck.

“It’s not been so much that he wants to run along there and not get the job done,” Block said. “He’s kind of a hard-luck horse. He’s a victim of circumstances going on in front of him for sure, but he is going to come with a solid run.”

It’s a run that doesn’t always win races, but winning isn’t everything.

Belisarius changes hands

The Aidan O’Brien-trained Belisarius has been sold to Gary Barber, Wachtel Stable, and Brous Stable and will remain in the United States after the Secretariat.

A half-interest in O’Brien’s other Secretariat starter, Adelaide, has been sold to Australian connections, and Adelaide is being pointed to Australian races during the second half of his season.