Thursday, January 26, 2012

Looking Like a Million

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla., January 26, 2012—The Sunshine Millions program has always been one of my favorite race cards, a state’s rights version of the Breeders’ Cup. Same principle, only Kentucky- and New York-bred runners need not apply.

Make no mistake. The event normally draws the best of the best that are born and bred in either Florida or California. This year is no exception, even if Santa Anita was a little late to the table this time around. But all’s well that ends.

The 2012 roster is as strong as any renewal ever offered, including two filly champions, the juvenile heroine of 2010 Awesome Feather and last year’s Filly & Mare Sprint queen, Musical Romance. Both are Sunshine State-breds.

At the Gulfstream venue alone, where six Sunshine Million events will be staged, compared to three at the other Stronach Group track, Santa Anita Park, 17 graded stakes winners will vie for combined purses worth over $1.3 million.

On the Left Coast, meanwhile, two worthy open events, the storied Santa Monica and the Santa Isabel will complete the five-stakes program.

Normally a successful handle generating event, the Sunshine Millions will proud added wagering interest with a promotional “Luck Pick 6,” in recognition of the HBO series of the same name that debuts officially Sunday night.

The Lucky Pick 6 is a $1 wager with a mandatory payout featuring three races from each venue in a separate pool, with no ties to the traditional Pick 6 wagers offered at either venue, so that any existing carryovers apply only to traditional Pick 6 wagers.

The message seems obvious: Bring Money.

The 17 graded stakes winners from the 48 entrants at the Hallandale track have accounted for 30 graded events. Forty eight horses in six races isn’t much by numbers but even the reputation horses won’t have it easy. To wit:

The undefeated Awesome Feather holds a significant edge on her recent performance figure and it’s difficult to knock perfection. But Tiz the Argument is very good now and picks up another recent champion, Ramon Dominguez.

Another filly capable of an upset is Sweet Repent. She has excellent back figures on the Equiform scale and her victory in this race two years ago was significantly faster than Awesome Feather in an Aqueduct 9 furlongs last out. The question is whether she’s the filly now that she was then.

Awesome Feather made the developmental transition from 2 to 3 in her return following a lengthy absence due to a tendon injury. Making her first start for Chad Brown, she won an overnight sprint and parlayed that prep into a winners’ circle visit following the Grade 1 Gazelle.

Brown seems to be carefully managing her 4-year-old season as she tries to extend her undefeated record to nine.

The tendon has not been an issue and Brown was quoted to say her training schedule has gone without a hitch since shipping south. The filly is owned by Frank Stronach; the talented, young Jeffrey Sanchez rides the “house horse.”

The other champion, Musical Romance, is a bit of a throwback, having run 14 times in her Eclipse season. She will pay the price for those prestigious 2011 victories, debuting as a 5-year-old shouldering highweight of 123 under the allowance conditions. There’s that, and the competition, too.

Pomeroys Pistol runs very hard here and retains leading rider Javier Castellano. Then there’s the early gas of either Beat the Blues and/or It’s Me Mom, shipping in from New Orleans and Tampa, respectively, not to mention the solid late kick of the improved Honey Chile beneath the patient Julien Leparoux.

The day at Gulfstream concludes with the Sunshine Millions Classic and the return of a second “house horse,” the very popular and talented Mucho Macho Man trained by Kathy Ritvo, wife of Gulfstream’s president and CEO, Tim Ritvo.

He looked great paddocking between races on Wednesday as he was striding out beautifully as he walked, acted like a complete gentleman, the Florida sunshine making his brown coat glisten, more closely resembling burnt orange.

Dominguez rides the 5-2 second choice. Turbo Compressor, from the Todd Pletcher, shed is the 2-1 early line favorite by virtue of two big-figure scores at the distance. Adios Charlie, 3-1, was an extremely impressive winner over the course going a flat mile, his second Gulfstream victory in as many starts.

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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

When Maker’s Horses Talk, Fans Listen

HALLANDALE BEACH, January 22, 2012—To talk with trainer Mike Maker, who will start the first champion he ever trained, Hansen, in Sunday’s Holy Bull Stakes, you’d never guess he attended Wayne Lukas University for aspiring horsemen. Put another way, loquacious wouldn’t be the first word that leaps to mind after meeting him for the first time.

While apparently not the touchy-feely type, what Maker is, aside from being one of the game’s top young horsemen and a rising star, is a good man with an easy smile, sense of humor and, apparently, a devoted dad.

Asked whether he enjoyed the post-Eclipse ceremonial dinner, Maker explained: “I took my son with me and he crashed, so we just went up to our room.” If that sounds old school, here’s more A-B-C type information about Maker.

Leaning up against Gulfstream’s Barn 16 wall watching Hansen cool out--which didn’t take long, the colt stopping only once to visit the water bucket—the trainer had no idea how fast Hansen had worked.

Either he’s one of those ‘time only counts in jail’ types or, more likely, is from the school of ‘it’s not how fast you run, it’s how you run fast’.

Sunday’s Grade 3 will be the champ’s first test on the road back to Louisville, the site of his title clinching victory and as it turned out, the work was pretty damn fast. In company with a fast, stakes winning stablemate, Lou Brissie, the clockers’ watch read 59.81 with Hansen finishing about two lengths in front. Exercise rider Joel Berrientos, who “weighs less than 140,” was aboard.

Hansen’s work was the third fastest of 39 recorded at the distance. “Nothing out of character,” Maker told Gulfstream Park publicist Ed Gray.

Unable to resist the temptation, I asked Maker to gauge his colt’s fitness level for Sunday’s flat mile where he will meet, among others, the highly regarded and talented Algorithms and Consortium. Both benefit from recent races over the track.

“I expect him to run his race,” is how Maker put it. Well, if that’s the case, then he’ll win. Why? Because, so far, he doesn’t know how to do anything else. Maker explained that the gray hasn’t lost much training time, freshened only “30 days” after his Breeders’ Cup score. “We’ve had no bumps in the road, hopefully that trend continues,” Maker said last week.

Hansen wound up winning the championship by a much wider victory margin than the one he had on Union Rags at the finish of the Juvenile.

Maker was asked about that rival’s tough Breeders’ Cup journey, one that had trip handicappers believing that the best colt lost the race. Maker offered a different perspective.

“[Union Rags] started out two months earlier. That should have compensated for the bad trip.” And then added: “He was the only horse to go wire to wire those two days at Churchill.”

Maker is not concerned that Hansen’s speedy style is a hindrance in either his training or in his future races. “It’s no different than a closer; you’re dependent on the pace. You just hope that no one makes him go quicker earlier than he has to.”

How many preps he will have before May’s big dance will depend on what happens in the Holy Bull. When asked if the Florida Derby was the logical final prep race, he nodded affirmatively without really confirming anything.

Maker knows that he can prep anywhere, especially since Hansen’s first two starts came on a synthetic surface, winning both by a combined margin of more than 25 lengths. That makes Turfway Park and Keeneland viable options. Given his training program, Maker seems likely to consider the Wood Memorial’s four-week Kentucky Derby spacing as too short.

Besides, Maker calls Kentucky home and when he returns to Churchill Downs it will be to a venue at which he set a record for victories at the 2011 fall meet.

Hansen is Maker’s first Eclipse champion but he won’t allow himself to get all emotional about that, either. “It means we did something right,” he said.

On Maker’s website, there’s a quote from Lukas about one of his star pupils: "Like all these young guys that are successful, he's grown up with it. He [was] a success in our program at every level. He's a very astute trainer with good horsemanship skills.”

Here’s another famous line from mentor Lukas: “People have opinions; horses have the facts.”

Maker seems to have learned that lesson, too. He allows his horses to speak for him and, since going out on his own nine years ago, they have done precisely that, loudly and clearly.

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Saturday, January 21, 2012

Team Work At Its Best

HALLANDALE BEACH, January 21, 2012—It certainly has been a good week for the Team Valor people and their trainer, Graham Motion.

Win the 2011 three year old Eclipse championship Monday night in Beverly Hills then finish one-two in the feature at Gulfstream Park on Saturday.

But, incredibly, they were trumped!

It happened in New Orleans where the former Kentucky Governor, Brereton C Jones and Larry Jones, the Jones boys, won both stakes for sophomores, the Silverbulletday with the filly Believe You Can and the Grade 3 LeComte with Mr. Bowling.

Better yet, Brereton bred both horses; Larry trained then both--and the horses got each other ready. You don’t see that every day.

Locally, things went pretty much according to plan, even if it was the longer half of the uncoupled Team Valor entry, Howe Great, who finished first by 2 ½ lengths over 11-10 favorite Lucky Cappy.

The Team certainly made good use of their “entry,” as speed type Howe Great went to the front under no real pressure while setting a moderate pace, presumably setting the table for the more accomplished late running Lucky Chappy.

‘Chappy’ made a very good rally down the center of the course but never loomed the winner. He is certain to benefit from the race and might make the trip over to Dubai with his Derby winning stablemate.

“I talked to Edgar [Prado] before the race and we agreed that if no one else wanted the lead we’d be happy to take it,” said Motion.

“I knew Lucky Chappy would be up against it as he always breaks a step slow. It’s possible we’ll take one of them to Dubai.”It sounded like that would be Lucky Chappy. The UAE Derby is run over the same synthetic Tapeta surface over which the Motion horses train at Fair Hill.

Besides, going synthetic to dirt worked last year pretty nicely for this outfit. “We’ll also look at the Palm Beach here later in the meet. We haven’t ruled out anything for either of them, including dirt.”

No such decisions for the Jones boys to make. They and their horses appear right on schedule for anything they want to do, like, perhaps, the Oaks and Derby on the first weekend in May.

“We were confident that she’d go far,” said trainer Jones in the winner’s circle following the Silverbulletday about Believe You Can’s two-turn debut.

“I’ve probably trained more (Proud Citizens) than anyone,” speaking of his latest female stakes winner. “If they are good sprinting, they are better going long.”

Jones trained another daughter of Proud Citizen, Brereton Jones’s Proud Spell, who won the Fair Grounds Oaks en route to the Kentucky Oaks four years ago.

It was the same story for the duo in a deep and very contentious LeComte. “It was one of the most competitive LeComtes I’d ever seen,” said winning rider and Louisiana native Robby Albarado.

Albarado rated the winner, got him comfortable enough while stalking the leaders from close range, took the lead three-sixteenths out and held Mr. Bowling together as late running Z Dagar made a final late surge that appeared to be the winning run. Larry Jones never lost confidence.

“Right after his early races, Jose Carabalo got off and said be sure to enter him in any long race, he’ll run all day.” And apparently likes it in NOLA, too.

“He seems happier here than anywhere we’ve brought him. I’ll enter him back in the Risen Star if they let me back in. He and the filly have been working with each other since we got here. They got each other ready.”

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