Murray Rojas wanted to make sure everyone understood why Wise Mac did not make his debut until two weeks before he became a 4-year-old.
“He was absolutely crazy,” the Penn National-based trainer said. “It took us that long until we could deal with him. We broke him at our training center right across from Penn National. We brought him to the racetrack. He couldn’t deal with it.”
They took him to a farm, hoping peace and tranquility could calm down the horse.
Gary Stevens spent most of Thursday afternoon watching the hours go by, planted on the couch with his dogs and a movie.
“It feels like the day before a Breeders’ Cup Classic,” Stevens said. “I just want tomorrow to get here.”
The Doug O’Neill stable did not want to lose its Pennsylvania Derby winner Handsome Mike, but a mix-up put him in the sales ring at Del Mar last Sunday night with a price on his head before the people in charge figured it out.
Peter Miller did not want to lose Stealth Drone, the barn’s first-time starter in the first race Wednesday at Del Mar, and thought an $80,000 claiming price would be enough to discourage takers. It did not, and now Stealth Drone lives with Handsome Mike in the O’Neill shedrow.
What’s the best way to get to the Travers – the $600,000 Jim Dandy over the Saratoga track or the richer and usually glitzier $1 million Haskell at Monmouth?
In recent years, the Haskell has usually been the more compelling race, but the Jim Dandy has been a more successful launching pad for Travers winners.
Untapable’s attempt to beat colts in the $1 million Haskell Invitational on Sunday comes along at an appropriate time, at least in terms of relevant history. It was just shy of 100 years ago that the filly Regret made her racing debut in the 1914 Saratoga Special and beat the best colts around, including subsequent champion Pebbles.
What ever happened to horses like Cure, the 10-year-old who has been racing at Penn National since December 2012 and ran in his 90th career race June 18, getting his 19th win?
The Illinois-bred gelding made his debut March 24, 2007. He raced for the next 3 1/2 years at Hawthorne and Arlington Park. Since then, he also has raced at Tampa Bay Downs, Belmont Park, Saratoga, Aqueduct, and Parx Racing. Cure has been claimed 19 times, for as little as $4,000 and as much as $25,000. The horse has run hard for just about everybody.
Opening day at Del Mar is to horse racing what Jackson Pollock is to Da Vinci. It is a madcap abstract of a sporting event, more like an annual hadj for upscale pilgrims, some 42,000 strong.
If you’ve been to opening day, you’ve seen the costumes and the accessories. You can imagine the hours spent on the selection of colors and styles, the agonizing decisions over ratio of material to skin, over razor settings for the perfect stubble, over bow tie, porkpie, sleeves rolled above or below the elbow, strapless, backless, or sideless. Or all of the above.
It is no big deal for a horse named for one guy to win a race named for another.
Dr. Fager, named for the neurosurgeon who saved trainer John Nerud’s life, turned the trick in both the 1968 running of the Whitney, named for the legendary racing family, and the Vosburgh, named for the legendary racing secretary who would have thought the 139 pounds Dr. Fager carried that day was maybe a little bit light.
Has anybody ever seen California Chrome and Shared Belief in the same place?
Allegedly, Shared Belief was going to prepare for a Kentucky Derby assault after clinching the 2-year-old male championship with a 5 3/4-length win in the Dec. 14 CashCall Futurity at Hollywood Park. Then, word came early this year that he had a foot problem. The gelding disappeared from the work tab and was eventually declared out of the Triple Crown. The foot, we were told, needed time to heal.
How tough is it to get pumped for Del Mar? Not very. Just find a place to stand in the sun, close your eyes, and wait for a cool breeze to blow in from the coast. Any coast. Then imagine the sound of Trevor Denman, the aroma of fresh kettle corn, and the taste of an overpriced Delmargarita. See? You’re already there.
