Trainer Martinez finds it difficult to celebrate One In Vermillion's Allen Jerkens triumph
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Like trainer Brendan Walsh here three weeks ago, following Pretty Mischievous's victory in the Grade 1 Test, his counterpart Esteben Martinez found it difficult to celebrate after One In Vermillion rallied from last to upset Saturday’s H. Allen Jerkens following the catastrophic injury suffered by New York Thunder when 1/16-mile from an apparent one-sided triumph in the Grade 1 race for 3-year-olds.
Somewhat lost due to the unfortunate and heartbreaking circumstances that cast such a pall over the Allen Jerkens was that One in Vermillion gave Martinez, who is currently stabled at Canterbury Park in Shakopee, Minnesota, the first Grade 1 victory of his seven-year training career.
“It was hard to enjoy it (his first Grade 1 win) like I was supposed to after watching what happened to New York Thunder,” Martinez said by phone while on the road back to Canterbury with his pride and joy, One in Vermillion, in tow, late Sunday morning. “Obviously I felt terrible for both the horse and his connections and had very mixed emotions in the moments immediately after the race.”
One in Vermillion went postward at 19-1 odds, the second-longest price in the field, in the seven-furlong Allen Jerkens despite having won six of a dozen previous starts, including the seven-furlong Laz Barrera by 5 1/4 lengths this spring at Santa Anita and being ridden for the first time by the meet’s leading jockey Irad Ortiz Jr.
Although One in Vermillion had been on the lead in the majority of his earlier races, including the Laz Barrera, which he won in gate-to-wire fashion, he found himself at the rear of the compact six-horse field of the Allen Jerkens, nearly a dozen lengths off the lead after the opening half-mile. One in Vermillion went seven wide into the stretch before finishing best of all down the center of the course to win going away, by 1 3/4 lengths over Verifying, while posting a career-best 100 Beyer Speed Figure.
“He didn’t break real well like he usually does and it was a good idea by Irad to take him back like he did,” Martinez said. “Watching the race, I never thought he was going to make it from that far behind. Then I saw what happened to the leader and he was flying out in the middle of the track and at that point I felt like he was going to win.”
Martinez said One in Vermillion came out of the race in great shape before embarking on the 20-hour ride back home to Canterbury with a scheduled overnight stop in Ohio to break up the long journey. Although he has not picked out a definite spot for One in Vermillion’s next start, Martinez said the Grade 3, $400,000 Oklahoma Derby, going a 1 1/8 miles at Remington Park on Sept. 24, would likely be next.
“A mile and one eighth might have been just a little too far for him when he finished fifth in the Santa Anita Derby earlier this year, but I think he’s very good at distances anywhere from seven furlongs to a mile and one sixteenth, so the race at Remington should fit him well,” Martinez said.
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