Maryland has long been home to top apprentice riders. Put Victor Carrasco firmly on the list, which spans 40 years, starting with Chris McCarron (1974). In addition to McCarron, eight other Maryland-based jockeys have won the Eclipse Award as leading apprentice: Ronnie Franklin (1978), Alberto Delgado (1982), Allen Stacy (1986), Kent Desormeaux (1987), Mike Luzzi (1989), Mark Johnston (1990), Jeremy Rose (2001), and Ryan Fogelsonger (2002).
Everyone who has ever pushed through the Hollywood Park turnstiles is feeling obligated to rake through their personal past for seminal experiences at the urban Inglewood, Calif., track. And why not? When it comes to the end of the Hollywood era, most folks already have gone through the first four stages of the grief cycle outlined by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in “On Death and Dying” – denial, anger, bargaining, and depression.
That leaves only acceptance, which always goes down easier when accompanied by the soothing drug of selectively fond memories.
The people behind the leading contenders in the large field of 2-year-olds suiting up for Saturday’s $750,000 CashCall Futurity have at least one thing going for them. There is no Mike Pegram colt in the mix.
With three winners in the 32 runnings of what used to be called the Hollywood Futurity, Pegram is the most successful owner in the history of the mile and one-sixteenth main track event. John and Betty Mabee’s Golden Eagle Farm and W.T. Young’s Overbrook Farm each won the Futurity twice.
It was a big deal at the time, my first trip to Hollywood Park, but not so much because of where I was going with my dad but who we were going to see that summer afternoon.
We were going to see Hill Rise, my Thoroughbred hero, who had seduced my fertile teenage imagination with his towering physique and commanding presence – and that was just on TV. I had survived his bittersweet spring of 1964, when Hill Rise hurtled through the Santa Anita meet unscathed before Northern Dancer ruined his/my day in the Kentucky Derby.
It is safe to say that no race for 2-year-old Thoroughbreds has had more impact on what happens next than the CashCall Futurity.
(There will be a brief musical interlude while my nerd base thumbs through their American Racing Manuals for possible refutation. Good luck.)
The race was called the Hollywood Futurity from 1981 through 2006, at which point owner Paul Reddam stepped up to sponsor the race through his CashCall financial loan company. Along with it came a history to die for.
In a sport with great characters, there are few more interesting than trainer Ron Glorioso, the former Pennsylvania state cop. Glorioso, 72, is never going to be at the top of the standings at Parx Racing. He rarely has more than 12 horses in his barn.
But give the man a horse who can run, and he knows how to find the winner’s circle. He’s been doing it for almost 40 years. His former wife was credited with the first 280 wins of Glorioso’s career, but he certainly was a major factor in them.
Greg Ferraro was ready to pack it in. The ordeal already had lasted for months, as he slowly recovered from liver transplant operation he received at Louisville’s world renowned Jewish Hospital Transplant Center in the spring. Then, while recuperating at the home of his close friends Jon and Sarah Kelly back in California, infection set in and the transplanted organ began to fail. His doctors wanted to do a second transplant, but Ferraro didn’t like the odds.
“I was ready to say no,” Ferraro said. “When you already know something about medicine, you know how sick you are.”
In case anyone has failed to notice, there are no borders to the Thoroughbred world. Once welcomed into the culture a person tends to roam freely, sometimes aimlessly, from country to country, farm to farm, track to track, fluent in the language and customs, entirely comfortable with a lead shank or a form book, requiring only directions to the nearest racetracker’s pub.
