Monday, August 30, 2010
Racing’s Savior (Age 11)
DEL MAR, Calif., August 31, 2010--On Pacific Classic day, my wife Pat and I sat in the Del Mar clubhouse next to a young girl and her grandparents. Pat said she was about 12, I said 10, so let's make her 11. Like the intrepid reporter I am, I never got her name, so let's call her Kelly. Had she been around 20 or more years ago, racing should have bottled her, and anyone like her, and saved them for the many rainy days ahead. The train has all but left the station for this once grand old game, but it is still a delight, watching someone getting awestruck by these wonderful animals while learning the sport at the knee of her elders.
"Kelly" has been a quick learner, believe me. Many girls her age see horses as pets, faithful riding companions, but Kelly's interest went beyond that. She had neatly folded her track program inside a smart blue wallet, and brought a large paper clip to mark her place as Del Mar's card moved along. As the numbers of the first four finishers went up on the tote board, and the payoffs were posted, she dutifully recorded them in her program. She looked like the kind of girl who would have brought a backup pen, had the first one gone dry.
Listening to the conversation out of one ear, I gathered that Kelly's grandparents were circumventing the minimum-age betting rules by agreeing to place two bets throughout the day on her behalf. I would like to think that Kelly's betting money came from lemonade sales, but only Norman Rockwell could play Norman Rockwell. "She's the only one winning," the grandmother said halfway through the card, and when she added that Kelly was $18 ahead, the girl nodded and beamed.
Kelly's other bet was going to be on the Pacific Classic. She volunteered that Temple City, trained by Carla Gaines, was her horse. Because the horse had a win over the track? No, that wasn't it. "A woman has never won the Pacific Classic before," Kelly said. "I think she's going to win today."
I told Kelly that that was only half-right. A female jockey, Julie Krone, rode the winner of the Pacific Classic (Candy Ride, 2003). "Oh," Kelly said. I just know she had committed that to memory as well.
Well, Temple City didn't win, and sweet young Kelly didn't win all of her bets. But by my calculations, she took home more money than what she started with. Her grandparents will be back, and so will she, which is the tonic that racing has so little of. When Alan Balch was the marketing genius at Santa Anita, a long time ago, he grouped fans into three categories: new, occasional and regular. "Our job," Balch said, "is to keep the regulars coming back for more, and upgrade the other two groups over time. Make the new fans into occasional, and the occasional into regular."
It wasn't calculus, but not many tracks gave ear to what Balch said then, and fewer do now. The first personnel cuts sometimes include the marketing department; when Kenny Noe ran Belmont Park, Saratoga and Aqueduct, he said: "Marketing is what my wife does when she goes shopping." Today's tracks are too busy scrambling just to find horses to fill tomorrow's race card. Balch looked to the Los Angeles Dodgers for some of his inspiration, and while baseball and racing are poles apart, there are analogies that can't be ignored. Baseball, like the horses, is played almost every day, and a typical game takes a long time to complete. For starters, the Dodgers aren't a bad model to build on. They draw three million people, more or less, just by opening the gates, but they still prowl the landscape for fresh bodies to put in the seats.
On a number of levels, racing still doesn't get it. The product still costs too much, from the takeout to the concession stands and all points in between. Twenty dollars for valet parking. At Del Mar, directly behind our section, was a popcorn stand, and Kelly's grandparents would have had to pay $3.50 for a cup of popcorn. If you sneezed with it in your hand, it would be all gone. Rita Rudner, the standup, once complained about movie-house concession prices, but she could just as well have been talking about the race track. "You could buy a
silo of popcorn for what they charge at the movies," Rudner said. At Del Mar, a silo of popcorn would send Bill Gates to the poorhouse.
After Richard's Kid won the Pacific Classic for the second straight year, we said goodbye to Kelly and her grandparents, and walked out of Del Mar having been humbled at the windows once again. We took the shibboleth, "You can beat a race, but you can't beat the races," to the nth degree. A second box of popcorn would have left us destitute.
Written by Bill Christine
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
PPs and the Pacific Classic
LOS ANGELES, August 24, 2010--I love poring over past performances of old warhorses that run on and on, like a Russian novel. John Henry, of course, was the nonpareil. I showed Lefty Nickerson, one of the early trainers of John Henry, his lifetime PPs once, and Lefty looked at the sheet and laughed. "Hey, look at this," Nickerson said, pointing to the fourth race of an 83-race career. "Larry Munster fell off John Henry once."
Even if he doesn't run on August 28 in the Pacific Classic at Del Mar (the Del Mar Handicap is a softer spot the next day), the early presence of Unusual Suspect in the richer race has given me a chance to peruse the PPs of a doughty 6-year-old who has at least been there, while not doing that. It has taken Unusual Suspect 50 races to win eight, and he has never won anything more important than a Grade 3, but he has somehow put almost $850,000 in the till. Any horse who pays for his keep in this fragile business is a horse to be cherished.
They keep running Unusual Suspect until he gets it right. He ran seven times at two, 14 times at three, 11 times at four, nine times at five and he's already gone nine times to the post this year, at a time when you might think fatigue could be setting in. If not desperation. He has won one of his last 19 races, which has come as no surprise to bettors, who haven't made him the favorite in any of those starts. In fact, he's been the favorite only four times in all 50 races, and none since 2008. Twelve different jockeys have ridden him, and I was hoping that his trainer, Barry Abrams, might bring in Russell Baze from Northern California to ride him in the Pacific Classic. Baze's cousins, Michael and Tyler Baze, have already ridden him. I can see the entry in the record book now: Most jockeys, same surname, riding same horse--3, Unusual Suspect.
You can see what Abrams, who has never had a Pacific Classic starter in the 19 years the race has been run, is up against. Whenever it seems like it's time to drop Unusual Suspect into racing's low-rent district, Abrams' horse up and runs a big race in graded company. He made up almost 19 lengths in this year's San Juan Capistrano Handicap at Santa Anita, getting beat by a half-length. He was second in the San Luis Obispo Handicap, a Grade 2 race. That $850,000 has come in dribs and drabs, but it still spends.
Last time out, Unusual Suspect finished second in the Cougar II Stakes at Del Mar, which at a mile and a half ought to make the Pacific Classic distance of a mile and a quarter seem like a walk around the block. Winner of the Cougar was Temple City, a 5-year-old who had never won a stake. Third, behind Unusual Suspect, was Richard's Kid, who won the Pacific Classic in a $50.80 stunner last year. Abrams must be thinking, if those two horses are in the Pacific Classic this time, why shouldn't I be?
Awesome Gem, another Pacific Classic hopeful, also has a delicious set of PPs. The 7-year-old gelding has run 36 times, which means that Awesome Gem and Unusual Suspect have run 86 times combined. The rest of the expected Pacific Classic field, seven horses, has run only 120 times. Unlike Unusual Suspect, who has run mostly in California, Awesome Gem hardly ever runs in the same place twice. He has no debts, having earned more than $2 million, but he keeps moving. When he ran at Lone Star Park earlier this year, that was his 11th track.
Awesome Gem has only won eight races, but 17 seconds and thirds give him a right to dance every dance. A partial list of the horses he's faced is an impressive cast: Curlin, Goldikova, Einstein, Gio Ponti, Kip Deville, General Quarters, Lava Man, Battle of Hastings, Arson Squad and Rail Trip. He beat Rail Trip in July, winning the Hollywood Gold Cup, and he finished third as Curlin won the 2007 Breeders' Cup Classic. He will become the first horse to run four times in the Pacific Classic, after a pair of sevenths and a second-place finish behind Student Council in his first try.
Student Council, $48.80, was one of those choice longshots that have befuddled many Pacific Classic bettors over the years. This time, more horses have reasons to lose the race than win it. Awesome Gem is 0 for 7 at Del Mar, counting his grass races. Crowded House hasn't won in two years. Dakota Phone's win in the San Diego Handicap was his first in two years. Hold Me Back is 1 for 8 since early 2009. Isle of Giant's took nine races to break his maiden, just eight months ago. Richard's Kid has won once since the last Pacific Classic. The Usual Q.T. is 8 for 10 on grass, winless otherwise, and his win last month in the Eddie Read Handicap at Del Mar was on turf. Temple City won the Cougar II in his last start. If I were the linemaker, I would throw the numbers into the air, and hope nobody gets hit with them on the way down.
Written by Bill Christine
Monday, August 16, 2010
After Paying His Dues, He Gets His Due
Don Pierce is one of the best. I think he's underrated, and he doesn't get the chance he deserves considering the caliber of rider he is. The proof is that when he does get the opportunity in a big race, he's always right there on the money. Yet, he's never received the proper recognition."
--The Shoe: Willie Shoemaker's Illustrated Book of Racing, by Willie Shoemaker and Dan Smith
LOS ANGELES, August 17, 2010--Had Bill Shoemaker still been alive, he would have been in the front row cheering, or even better on the stage handing out the bijou, when Don Pierce was inducted last week into the Racing Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Enshrinement for the 73-year-old Pierce was a long time coming, and to be honest I thought his chances had dipped to zero and none after several times on the ballot. When we talked at length in March, on the day Santa Anita honored Calvin Borel with the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award, I didn't even bring up the Hall of Fame. At that time, Pierce, and those who remembered how he could ride the hair off a horse, had given up hope.
Pierce and Shoemaker were peas in a pod for decades, during a time when they battled for both mounts and wins, and stables of brilliant horses dotted the California landscape. The first time Pierce met him, Shoemaker, an incurable prankster, stuck a scorching-hot spoon in his hand. That was Shoemaker's way of saying he liked you. When it came to mounts, Pierce did most of the battling, with an eye to his backside to see if his golfing, drinking and gin rummy-playing compadre might be sniffing around to pull rank on one of Pierce's choicer mounts.
One of those times came in 1964, when Pierce won the Santa Anita Derby with Hill Rise, but was bumped by Shoemaker for the Kentucky Derby. For Pierce, it was a crushing blow. He would never win a Derby, and this was his big chance. It is easy to forget now, because Northern Dancer's win that year came in the fastest Derby ever run, but Hill Rise was the favorite in the race and the consensus choice as the best 3-year-old in the country. At Churchill Downs, Hill Rise had a nightmare trip and still only lost by a neck. "He should have won," Pierce says now. "Shoe and his agent, Harry Silbert, submarined me for the mount. But there was no way I was going to get mad at Shoe. He was my pal. I didn't understand what went on then, but I understand it now. Harry did the right thing. He was just doing his job."
Two years before, in the Santa Anita Handicap, there was a three-horse betting entry of Olden Times (Shoemaker's mount), Prove It (Alex Maese) and Physician (Pierce). It was commonplace at the time, as the stewards winked at the practice, for jockeys riding coupled horses to share their commissions from the purse, but Physician, had he been running alone, might have gone off at 100-1. "Pierce can't win this race," Shoemaker said to Maese. "It'll just be you and me out there."
On the turn for home, Physician and Pierce unleashed a tremendous rally. They went by Olden Times as though he were on a treadmill. Shoemaker, looking to his right, saw Pierce going by and yelled out: "You're in!"
Pierce, looking over his shoulder as Physician pulled away, yelled back: "(Eff) you!"
The two little men looked at each other and laughed till they almost cried in the jockeys' room.
There was another time when Pierce was supposed to ride Hill Rise in a big race, but didn't. Hit with a suspension, the best Pierce could do for the 1966 San Juan Capistrano Handicap was sit in the Santa Anita Turf Club and watch the race. And by the way, he had placed a $100 win bet on Hill Rise's nose. But when George Royal made his winning move under the iconic John Longden, who was riding his last race, Pierce stood and cheered with the rest of the throng.
For Pierce, the cheering stopped in 1985, after more than 28,000 races and 3,546 wins. The pain from a back injury, from a spill at Hollywood Park the year before, was still with him. This January morning, Pierce dressed at home as he prepared to go to Santa Anita to work a few horses. He walked down the stairs and got as far as the front door. He thought for a moment, then turned around and went back upstairs. After taking off his boots, he made phone calls to a few trainers. He told them that Don Pierce wasn't working there anymore.
Written by Bill Christine
