Sunday, March 14, 2010
Half a Loaf at Oaklawn?
Miss Kratchnut, ring up those folks at Guinness. You know, the ones who dabble in world records. They need to know that a record was set when the sound of a groan traveled 450 miles, from Hot Springs, Arkansas, to New Orleans, Louisiana. Another record may also have been set: A man complaining after he saved four and a half million dollars.
The new entry, under horse racing, should read: Cella, Charles, owner of Oaklawn Park race track, etc., etc. Tell them one of their sub-editors can fill in the rest. The part about the four and a half mill isn't for sure, it should be confirmed by April 9, but the groan was not only the farthest, it was also the loudest. Bartenders at Pat O'Brien's, in the French Quarter, reported the shattering of dozens of hurricane glasses.
Miss K., a funny thing happened on the way to the $5-million Apple Blossom, which is supposed to bring together, for the first time, the reigning Horse of the Year, Rachel Alexandra, and the mare who never loses, Zenyatta. In their preps for Oaklawn, run 20 minutes apart on the same day, Zenyatta won her race at Santa Anita, but before that Rachel Alexandra was beaten at the Fair Grounds, losing for the first time since George W. Bush was president. Wouldn't this be a kick in the head: The purse for the Apple Blossom drops to $500,000 while Rachel Alexandra stays home, licking her wounds, and the second betting choice at Oaklawn becomes Zardana, the Brazilian-bred mare who was the party-pooper at the Fair Grounds.
After Rachel Alexandra's defeat, her trainer, Steve Asmussen, talked in hushed tones about Arkansas and anywhere. "We'll have to be cautious," he said, "we want to do what's right for (the filly). . . No crystal ball could see that far ahead." There were no immediate comments from Jess Jackson, who owns Rachel Alexandra, but before the race he told the Daily Racing Form: "I'm willing to walk away from a $5-million shot for the health of the horse."
The track is sold out, Hot Springs doesn't have a hotel room left, people around Oaklawn are salivating over how much they can charge to park cars in their front yards, and a TV network, probably ESPN, is on tenterhooks about whether to even cover the Apple Blossom. At eBay, however, the news must be traveling with all the speed of a limpet. A few hours after Rachel Alexandra's loss, somebody was still trying to sell four reserved seats for April 9 at $250 a copy, and a set of those trading cards of the two horses, whipped up by the Hot Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau, was listed at $32.67. Then if you really want to get crazy on the risky if-come, there's a four-bedroom house to be rented, for the week, for $3,000. Bring your own grits.
Rachel Alexandra went into the gerrymandered Fair Grounds race 80 per cent fit, according to her own camp, but there were only four opponents and no wild concessions in the weights. Zardana, a 6-year-old, had earned just over $300,000, to Rachel Alexandra's near-$3 million, yet the winner enjoyed only a two-pound edge in the imposts. There is irony all around with the Zardana connections. She's trained by John Shirreffs, Zanyatta's trainer, and while the storyline of Shirreffs "scouting out" the opposition prior to their Oaklawn showdown might play in Peoria, it was no more than a contrivance, because the way I hear it is that Shirreffs wasn't particularly enamored about running in New Orleans. It was Arnold Zetcher, the owner of Zardana, who pushed the button. Oaklawn might have to settle for stablemates Zenyatta and Zardana as its consolation storyline.
Zardana was ridden by David Flores. Yes,
that David Flores, who back in April of 2008 stayed at Santa Anita to ride El Gato Malo in the Santa Anita Derby while Zenyatta was shipped to Oaklawn for the Apple Blossom. As Mike Smith reminds himself every night at prayer time, Flores never got the chance to ride Zenyatta again. Looking back, staying at Santa Anita was not an outrageous choice. El Gato Malo was favored, and could have been Flores' Kentucky Derby horse for the West Point Thoroughbreds outfit. Zenyatta was only three wins into what has become a 15-race streak, she had never run on dirt, and wouldn't even be favored at Oaklawn, what with Ginger Punch in the field. El Gato Malo finished fifth, never made the Kentucky Derby, and Mike Smith's career went into rewrite.
"I'm sorry (Rachel Alexandra) lost, but she lost to a better horse," the typically diplomatic Jerry Moss, co-owner of Zenyatta, said after the topsy-turvy developments at the Fair Grounds and Santa Anita. The truth be known, the Zenyatta camp was more disturbed--and surprised--by Shirreffs losing out to Asmussen in the Eclipse Awards voting for top trainer than they were Rachel Alexandra outvoting their mare for Horse of the Year. "A double for John," Ann Moss, Jerry's wife, said after Zenyatta's latest win. "He's the best trainer in the whole world!" When you hang up on Guinness, Miss Kratchnut, please make a note of that.
Written by Bill Christine
Sunday, March 07, 2010
Ready for Her Closeup
It's hard to believe that it's been almost 30 years since Gato Del Sol won the Kentucky Derby. Hard to believe, too, that it's been nearly 10 years since Gato Del Sol's congenial trainer, Eddie Gregson, killed himself, by handgun, only a few hours after he had saddled a couple of horses at Hollywood Park. Gregson drove cross-town from the track to his home, had a drink with his wife Gail and their good friend Trudy McCaffery, and then said he was going to his Pasadena office to catch up on a few things. They found multiple suicide notes near Gregson's body.
Gregson got back to the Derby only once after Gato Del Sol's 21-1 win in 1983; he saddled Candi's Gold, another longshot, for an eighth-place finish in 1987. A grandson of Candi's Gold, Alphie's Bet, won the Sham Stakes at Santa Anita and immediately became one of those out-of-the-weeds horses that become, most times for just a heartbeat, a blip on the Kentucky Derby radar. Alphie's Bet is trained by Alexis Barba, who was Gregson's assistant at the time of his death. I wonder if Barba ever gets mail intended for Alexis Barbara, a model, wannabe actor and daughter of a South Florida plutocrat. You would not confuse them on the street. Barbara is 23, Barba is 55. Barbara is a size two and Barba. . . well, you get the idea.
Not being Matt Drudge, I don't know if Alexis Barbara is happy or not. Her romance with a pro tennis player is long over, and in her last two movies she played "herself" and "Soda Girl #1," which I suppose is a step up from "Soda Girl #2." Alexis Barba, I can vouch for. She's ready for her closeup, and she is deliriously happy, though a trifle puzzled. A half-hour before Alphie's Bet's win in the Sham, another of her 3-year-olds, Make Music for Me, also won a stakes race at Santa Anita. So Barba has two promising colts stabled at her Hollywood Park barn, and only one Santa Anita Derby to run them in. "I hope I don't have to run them together until the Kentucky Derby," she said after Alphie's Bet piled on top of Make Music for Me's win.
Making it easier is that Peter Johnson Sr. (from Santa Barbara, but not related to Alexis Barbara) is a co-owner of both colts. Separate ownerships of horses with a common goal can make for a sticky wicket. By contrast, Barba can leave one horse at Santa Anita, send the other out of town, and explain herself away with one phone call.
Make Music for Me's win came on grass, and in an ungraded stake, but by frequently taking on, and running well against, Lookin At Lucky, one of the current Kentucky Derby glamour-pusses, Barba's horse has accumulated more than $200,000 in graded purse money, which should be enough to get him into the gate at Churchill Downs if there's a run on the entry box. Alphie's Bet's position is tenuous. The $90,000 he earned in the Sham is all he's got in graded company, which means he must do more, on the track and in the counting house, to ensure a spot in the Derby.
Make Music for Me is an odd duck. He runs better in stakes races, good stakes races, than he does in maiden races, and he was a maiden, through six starts, prior to his win at Santa Anita. Barba, seeming to know what she had, has been begging him to step up for a long time. His debut race, at Hollywood last summer, was hardly notable, yet there he was, a month later, finishing less than a length behind Lookin At Lucky in a stake at Del Mar. That was also only the second start for Lookin At Lucky, but they had already revved up his ballyhoo machine. A month after that, in the Del Mar Futurity, Make Music for Me tried Lookin At Lucky again, and the result was virtually a carbon copy.
In October, Keeneland must have thought it had a bad connection when Barba called to say that she was coming with her maiden for the Grade 1 Breeders' Futurity. In his first time around two turns, in a race won by the blossoming Noble's Promise, Make Music for Me was an unapologetic fourth. In late November, after skipping the Breeders' Cup, Make Music for Me fell back into the maiden ranks at Hollywood, and at 2-5 he beat only two horses. But back in the big leagues, he was third, only a length and a quarter from the front, against Lookin At Lucky and Noble's Promise in the CashCall Futurity. Bettors no longer knew what to do with him. He was a 28-1 overlay in the CashCall, and almost 7-1 when he finally won one. Wearing blinkers for the first time, he beat an undistinguished bunch that nevertheless had amassed 18 wins in mostly minor races from Wolverhampton to Del Mar.
Alphie's Bet also ran in a stake before he broke his maiden. He was second to Caracortado, who's still undefeated, in a race for California-breds on Santa Anita's opening day. Alphie's Bet's maiden win came on grass three weeks after that.
Alexis Barba took over the horses after Eddie Gregson killed himself in 2000, but she wasn't left with much. The previous year, the Gregson barn had won only 13 races. The Make Music for Me-Alphie's Bet parlay gave Barba her first stakes wins ever and four wins for the meet, which is more than she won in 2006-07 in all of California. Her colt Victory Pete created a mild stir in 2008, but a bruised foot knocked him out of the Arkansas Derby and cost Barba all chance of following her mentor to Kentucky. Her ticket's not punched for Louisville this time, either. But what she's got for the moment is better than Soda Girl #1, any day.
Written by Bill Christine
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Wonderland
I don't always listen to Roger Stein's weekend radio shows, but February 27 was a good morning to be dial-side. Stein, a veteran trainer, prides himself on getting racing's top newsmakers, and before Frank Stronach had unpacked his suitcase for a rare visit to California, Stein latched on to him for an interview.
The day before Stronach came on the Stein show, Stronach was quoted by Art Wilson, a columnist for a chain of papers that includes the Los Angeles Daily News. Stronach told Wilson that one of the racing surfaces under consideration, when Santa Anita tears up its Pro-Ride track after the current meeting, might consist of dirt, sand and a small amount of fiber. "Just picture a beach," Stronach said. "It's similar to sand on a beach. It's a very safe surface."
Stronach said that he installed this relatively new surface at his track in Austria, but otherwise the only places it's been tried are at show-horse rings and a training center in Europe. "You water the track from underneath," Stronach said. "You can absolutely control the moisture content."
That Santa Anita, after failed experiences with Cushion Track and Pro-Ride the last few years, would consider another experimental surface, at a great cost, is (a) surprising, (b) preposterous, and (c) unbelievable. But if what Stronach told Wilson was fantastic, that was only prelude for a bizarre half-hour interview on the Stein show.
Stein, who doesn't settle for vague answers, did everything but shake Stronach by his lapels in an attempt to get him to answer questions directly. A few excerpts:
Stein: Would you dare make the same mistake with this racing surface that's already been made?
Stronach: We need to control the ingredients. It's like cooking soup. If you can control the ingredients, such as putting in the right seasoning, you'll be all right.
Stein: Frank, let me get one clear answer from you. Have we seen the last of the synthetics at Santa Anita?
Stronach: I don't want to shoot out (sic) of my hip. We need to find the overall solution by working with horse ownership.
Stein: I ask you, on behalf of the thousands of fans, the bettors, the whales, the horsemen, have we seen the last of the kind of track that's out there now?
Stronach: We need to get this thing in a public forum.
Stein: It sounds like you're not ready to say yes or no to this question right now.
Stronach: I don't want to sound threatening, but we have to sit down and fix what's wrong.
Stein: Frank, you say you have an engineering background. I don't know about your engineering background, but you must have a minor in dancing.
Finally, Stein said goodbye to Stronach. Before breaking for commercials, he said to "Bettor Bob" and Jonathan Hardoon, who also appear on the show:
"Maybe you guys can tell me what happened. I'm going to spend the break picking myself up off the floor. Who do you think we should have on tomorrow? Should we have Frank back on?"
"Bettor Bob" laughed. "Not unless you can find new ways to ask the same questions," he said.
"That was a scary interview," Hardoon said.
About an hour after Stronach's appearance on the show, Santa Anita announced that it had lost another day of racing because its Pro-Ride track wouldn't drain properly following a steady rain. This was the track's 16th cancellation since 2007. The Sham Stakes, an important race for a few Kentucky Derby hopefuls, was rescheduled for March 6. Anybody out there want to buy a used Daily Racing Form for the latest rained-out day? I paid $6.05, retail. Will accept any offer.
Written by Bill Christine
