Archive for the ‘Racing Greats’ Category

By Ray Paulick
Based on comments from trainer John Oxx, there seems little doubt that Sea the Stars, who ran his consecutive Group 1 win streak to six with a victory in Sunday’s Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp, will be retired to stud for the 2010 breeding season. There has been no indication, however, that 27-year-old Christopher Tsui, owner of this racing superstar, has had serious discussions with any specific stallion station in Europe or the United States. Bloodstock experts peg the colt’s value at stud in excess of $50 million, even in the currently depressed market.

Thirty or more years ago a horse like Sea the Stars would almost certainly stand in Kentucky. That’s where the money was for major stallion syndications, and it was home to the world’s finest broodmares, giving a stallion prospect the best chance possible to succeed at stud. John Galbreath brought Roberto home to his Darby Dan Farm in Kentucky after the son of Hail to Reason raced to glory in the United Kingdom. Nijinsky II, a son of the great Northern Dancer, was retired to Claiborne Farm following his outstanding career in Europe carrying Charles Engelhard’s colors. John Gaines populated his stallion roster at Gainesway Farm with a number of top Europeans runners.

Times have changed. Like those horses mentioned above, Sea the Stars has raced exclusively on grass, and American breeders in the present era have shown an aversion to breeding to turf horses, no matter how accomplished they were on the racetrack. There are a few exceptions, among them Kingmambo at Lane’s End, Dynaformer at Three Chimneys, and Giant’s Causeway at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud. In addition, European sire power has skyrocketed, particularly at John Magnier’s Coolmore Stud in Ireland and Sheikh Mohammed’s Darley divisions at Kildangan Stud in Ireland and Dalham Hall Stud in England. European breeders have upgraded the quality of their broodmare bands to match this increased sire power.

“There is a prejudice here against grass horses,” said Barry Irwin of Team Valor. “The Keeneland sales have dictated what kind of stallions are accepted. I’ve got three mares I’m selling in Europe next year, but there’s nothing we can breed to here. The good thinkers like John Gaines have been replaced by guys who don’t have the same scope.”

That begs the question of whether a horse like Roberto or Nijinsky II would succeed in the United States in the current climate, and if contemporary American breeders would support Sea the Stars. Will Farish, owner of Lane’s End, thinks the answer to both questions is “yes.”

“I think Roberto and Nijinsky would succeed today if they got the support,” Farish told the Paulick Report, “though there are fewer people breeding for the classics now. Breeders over here have tended to have much more luck with our mile and mile and an eighth sires. They are the ones in most demand.”

Farish said he believes American breeders would support Sea the Stars even though “it’s been much harder to get people to breed to a grass horse.” He cited Giant’s Causeway as an example of a top-class European turf horse who has been well supported in the United States, though the son of Storm Cat is out of an American Graded Stakes-winning mare and showed good dirt form when narrowly beaten by Tiznow in the 2000 Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs. “With his outstanding race record and that pedigree (by Darley’s leading sire Cape Cross out of Arc de Triomphe winner Urban Sea, who produced Epsom Derby winner and top sire Galileo) I would think you could stand Sea the Stars anywhere and he would get tremendous support,” Farish said.

Headley Bell of Mill Ridge Farm in Kentucky concurs. “He’s exceptional in that same kind of category (as Nijinsky II and Roberto). He’s an extraordinary horse, and the cream of Thoroughbred breeders around the world would want to breed to him,” Bell said. “You could make 40 phone calls and sell him out (for syndication as a stallion).”

The Irish National Stud has been the only farm mentioned as a leading candidate to land Sea the Stars, and that’s because of an existing relationship with the horse’s owner. Urban Sea, dam of Sea the Stars, was kept there until her death earlier this year. “They’ve done an incredible job of making stallions,”  Bell said of the National Stud. “John Oxx is such a class person. I would think they would lean in that direction.”

Standing Sea the Stars in the U.S. would seem to be a longshot at this stage. The increased size of stallion books and the emphasis on commercial breeding has contributed to the squeezing out of turf sires in the U.S.

“Grass horses haven’t been very popular the last 10 or 15 years,” said one breeder who asked not to be named. “Maybe breeders will start breeding for the winner’s circle instead of the sales ring.”

“Commercial breeders have hit a bubble,” said Thomas Gaines, son of the Gainesway Farm founder who co-owns Gaines-Gentry Thoroughbreds. “We’ve grown the commercial breeding part of the marketplace more than we’ve grown the number of people who show up and buy yearlings. Commercial breeding is contracting now because there are not enough people to buy the horses. Supply and demand has to recalibrate.”

Gaines said one mark of a stallion’s success today is “when the breed-to -race people start breeding to them, and half or more of a stallion’s book consists of people breeding to race. There are still a lot of those people out there, and they’ll support a horse like Sea the Stars. If he stood at a farm in Kentucky, you’d also have a lot of Europeans sending their mares here. That’s how it was in the 1980s.”

Bernie Sams of Claiborne Farm isn’t so sure. “Grass horses are a hard sell whether they ran overseas or here,” said Sams. “I wonder how many grass-type mares are left in Central Kentucky. Look at those races run over the weekend in France and England; Europeans are breeding to European stallions.”

It’s not just the bias against grass horses that adds to the challenge of making a stallion, said Sams, it’s getting a competitively sized book of mares. “How would you do with a horse like Danzig nowadays?” he asked of Claiborne’s late three-time leading stallion who went to stud off just three races, none in stakes. “Because of book size, if you had to get a horse like him started, it would be tough. Book sizes have hurt to an extent.”

Clifford Barry of Pin Oak Stud agrees. “Trying to get 150 mares to a horse is the biggest difference between now and 20 years ago,” he said. “But if you’ve spent a lot of money on a stallion prospect, you’ve got to try and recoup that cash. And there’s going to be some guys that aren’t going to recoup that money.

It could happen, judging from the results of Monday’s two Grade 1 races for 2-year-old colts, the Three Chimneys Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga won by the Lukas-trained Dublin, and the Del Mar Futurity won by the Baffert-trained Lookin at Lucky. Both colts turned in strong performances to win their respective races, and they each have the pedigree to continue as the races get longer. It’s a long, long way, however, from the first Monday in September to the first Saturday in May, and a lot can happen. But Lukas and Baffert each are well stocked with well-bred and talented 2-year-olds, and history shows they know what it takes to win the Kentucky Derby.

It would be great for this sport if these two Hall of Famers and now-fast friends do show up at Churchill Downs with the leading Derby contenders next spring. Lukas and Baffert have been the two most recognizable faces and best spokesmen for the game when the media and general public are paying attention—during the Triple Crown.

Seven Derbies have passed since Baffert last stood in the infield winner’s circle and it’s been 10 years for Lukas. They were synonymous with the race in the 1990s, when the sport and the industry at its foundation were going through better times. Neither Lukas nor Baffert is big enough or strong enough to save the sport on their own, but their success can help move it back into the spotlight.

It was hard to believe when reading David Grening’s Daily Racing Form recap of the Hopeful that Lukas has gone nearly four years without a Grade 1 victory—his last one coming with Folklore in the 2005 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Belmont Park. That’s a huge drop from the 1980s and early ‘90s when “D. Wayne off the plane” was winning Grade 1 races in bunches, from coast to coast. There were the 10 consecutive North American training titles by money won, from 1983-92, and four more from 1994-97. In 2008, Lukas finished 93rd by money won. Lukas also started a horse in 20 consecutive Kentucky Derbies, from 1981-2000, a total of 38 in all (and, yes, I know, and Wayne probably would admit that some of those horses didn’t belong). But he’s been without a starter in five of the last nine Derbies, a race he won four times between 1988 and 1999.

Some of Lukas’ most important owners, like Bob Lewis and W.T. Young, died, and some others moved on to different trainers.

Baffert hasn’t experienced quite as severe a drought, but he, too, has weathered some storms in recent years. Prince Ahmed Salman and Bob Lewis were important patrons of Baffert, and his stable suffered from their deaths. Like Lukas, Baffert also lost some owners to other trainers, but he’s had some loyal ones, too, like Lookin for Lucky’s owner Mike Pegram, who convinced Baffert to make the transition to Thoroughbreds. 

Baffert won the North American money title four consecutive years, from 1998-2001, but in three of the last four years (2005-08), he slipped out of the top 10. In six years, from 1996 (when Cavonnier fell a nose short of the Lukas-trained Grindstone, almost giving Baffert a Derby win as a rookie) to 2001, Baffert started 11 horses in the Derby. In the eight years since, he’s had just seven Derby starters. He’s won the Derby three times, with two seconds and two thirds.

While both came from the Quarter horse ranks, they were more rivals than friends in the 1990s when Baffert appeared on the Thoroughbred scene and threatened Lukas’ dominance over the sport. But as the years have passed and both men have mellowed, they’ve become good friends. Baffert even asked Lukas to introduce him at this year’s Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, something Lukas did with his usual flair.

Both are enjoying a revival in 2009. Baffert surged to third in the trainer money-won standings following an unforgettable Labor Day weekend at Del Mar that included three Grade 1 victories (Zensational in the Pat O’Brien, Richard’s Kid in the Pacific Classic, and Lookin at Lucky in the Del Mar Futurity—all for different owners). Lukas, though ranked 42nd by money won, is just getting his 2-year-olds going, and he has said he’s loaded, thanks to some new owners, including Legends Racing (which also has horses with Baffert and Nick Zito) and Scott Ford of Westrock Stable, along with some mainstays, including Dublin’s owners, William Mack and Robert Baker.

“This was my No. 1 pick in the sales,” Lukas said of Dublin (who was one of two Grade 1 winners at Saratoga over the weekend sold as yearlings by Gerry Dilger’s Dromoland, the other being Spinaway winner Hot Dixie Chick). “I still haven’t lost my eye in that part. I like to play in the main arena – these 2-year-olds, when they turn 3, that’s the name of the game.”

The boys—Lukas and Baffert–are back, and I think the game is better off because of it.

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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By Ray Paulick
Racing fans have read the superlatives or come up with their own adjectives in the wake of super filly Rachel Alexandra’s dominating victory over a very good field of 3-year-old colts at New Jersey’s Monmouth Park in Sunday’s Grade 1 Haskell Invitational, her eighth consecutive victory. They’ve also heard the declaration by majority owner Jess Jackson that he has no intention of running the daughter of Medaglia d’Oro in the 2009 Breeders’ Cup, because the event’s traditional “dirt” races are being held for the second year in a row on the Pro-Ride synthetic surface at Santa Anita Park in Southern California.These are heady days for Jackson, who has his sights on a third consecutive Horse of the Year crown, following Curlin’s titles in 2007 and ’08. Jackson blames Curlin’s fourth-place finish in the 2008 Breeders’ Cup Classic on the track that he calls “plastic,” and it’s harbored within him a grudge against the synthetic surfaces that the California winemaker just won’t let go of. The defeat didn’t cost Curlin the second of his two Horse of the Year titles—he’d done enough earlier in the year to warrant the award—but Jackson remains convinced that it was the track surface alone that forced the son of Smart Strike to ride off into the sunset of his outstanding career with a stinging defeat.

In truth, Curlin’s performance level was in decline when he came to the Breeders’ Cup. The trip to Dubai for the World Cup has taken a toll on many winners, from inaugural hero Cigar, who wasn’t quite as invincible after his victory there in 1996, to Well Armed, the 2009 victor who finished last in Sunday’s San Diego Handicap at Del Mar, his first start since his record-setting 14-length World Cup win.

Yet Jackson ignores the fact that Curlin was hard-pressed to beat Past the Point and Wanderin Boy–two horses who had never been in his class—in his final two starts before the 2008 Classic, the Woodward at Saratoga and Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park. And Robbie Albarado, a fine rider who fit Curlin well, rode him like a 1-9 shot at Santa Anita, as if he were up against a field of allowance horses or minor stakes winners. Given the circumstances of Curlin’s demanding campaign, the overconfident way he was ridden, and the quality of the international field he was facing in the Classic, there should have been no disgrace in defeat. Jackson and trainer Steve Asmussen chose to make the synthetic track the scapegoat, however, and they haven’t let up since.

Anyone who’s had their hands on a good horse, much less an extraordinary one like Rachel Alexandra, knows it presumptuous to point for a race too far into the future, but that’s what Jackson is doing. He’s trying to dodge criticism from ducking this year’s event by saying he’ll run Rachel Alexandra in the 2010 Breeders’ Cup at Churchill Downs on a conventional dirt track. Everyone hopes she stays healthy and sound for that long, but, realistically, what are the chances of that happening? Distant, I would think, especially if she continues to race on conventional dirt tracks that have been sealed in advance of rain, as Monmouth’s was on Sunday for the Haskell. Much as Jackson disparages synthetics, I would think he’s been around this game long enough to know that a sloppy, muddy or sealed racetrack is probably the most dangerous on which a horse can race or train.

I’m not here to defend synthetic surfaces. They have their detractors and defenders among people who know more about them than I do. Perhaps some horses do not race on synthetics as well as they do on a conventional dirt track. All synthetic tracks are not alike, either, and how they are maintained can be a critical factor in their ability to provide a safe racing surface. The debate over perceived difficulties in handicapping races on these surfaces is a completely separate issue. The idea behind synthetics, first and foremost, is to promote safety for horses and riders. Their use should begin and end on that subject alone. The installation of synthetics was done with what may have been a false sense of urgency. In hindsight, it would have been better to conduct research and compile data on their impact on musculoskeletal injuries.

Breeders’ Cup officials had their reasons for holding the event at Santa Anita in consecutive years, and I think that decision was a mistake that will not be repeated—unless either Churchill Downs or Keeneland become the permanent site for the championships (an unlikely move, at least in the near future). Having said that, though, the competition at last year’s two-day event was outstanding and, for the most part, formful.

Jackson doesn’t owe the fans anything. He’s put up his money and can do whatever he chooses with his horses. But for him to boycott the 2009 Breeders’ Cup with the sport’s biggest star, despite evidence that Rachel Alexandra has performed well on synthetics over Keeneland’s Polytrack, reminds me of the spoiled kid who didn’t like the way a game was going and decided to take his ball and go home.

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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I yearn for Hollywood Park yesterday.

Times change, though I often wish they didn’t. The death knell for Hollywood Park came when Churchill Downs Inc. sold the track, three years ago last Tuesday to the Bay Meadows Land Co. Then CDI president Tom Meeker said California “has forsaken racing and its needs.” If things were grim for the sport in California then, how do you think it looks now, with Bay Meadows also bought and closed for development by the same Bay Meadows Land Co., and Golden Gate Fields and Santa Anita Park in the middle of owner Magna Entertainment’s bankruptcy proceedings.

But Hollywood Park yesterday was the place that solidified my love of the sport. My first racetrack experiences were in Chicago in the mid-1970s, but it wasn’t until I moved to Southern California in the spring of 1979 that I got to see the best of what racing offered.

That was the year Affirmed carried 132 pounds to victory in the Gold Cup, covering the mile and a quarter in an incredible 1:58 2/5 while pushed the whole way by the Italian champion Sirlad. It was the year a hotshot California-bred named Flying Paster, winner of the Hollywood Derby, would carry the hopes of West Coast racing fans to the Kentucky Derby, where he would be crushed by Spectacular Bid, a colt who would come West a year later and continue to dominate that same rival.

Legends like Shoemaker, Pincay, McCarron, Hawley, and McHargue populated the jockeys room, Trainer Charlie Whittingham dominated the big races, and the stands were packed to the gills every weekend. Little did I know then that the 24,930 average daily attendance from the 77-day meeting of 1979 was down considerably from just a few years earlier, when Hollywood averaged over 30,000. Santa Anita Park was getting the upper hand under the marketing innovations of Alan Balch.

Not to be outdone, track owner Marje Everett pulled out all the stops in 1980 to reverse the “sagging” business figures. On Sunday, May 4, 1980, the day after Genuine Risk beat the California-bred Rumbo in the Kentucky Derby, Hollywood Park tried something new–a “giveaway” for every paid admission, of a canvas tote bag. 

I was one of the 80,348 on hand that day, though I didn’t even know about the tote bag giveaway. I had come to see the ongoing rivalry between ex-claimer Wishing Well (who went on to produce Horse of the Year Sunday Silence) and Country Queen in the Gamely Handicap. I’ll never forget the traffic jam on Century Boulevard trying to get into Hollywood Park that day, or the lines for concessions and betting. I managed to snag one of the tote bags, and, somehow, 29 years later I still have it. Though it’s a bit the worse for wear, the bag is a reminder for me of the glory days of the sport.

That same year, Hollywood Park introduced Pick Six wagering (they even gave away a Pick Six beach towel in the image of a $100 bill….signed by “Secretary of the Treasury Vernon O. Underwood”) , and the racing was highlighted by incredible performances from Spectacular Bid in the Mervyn LeRoy and Californian Stakes (I kept my free “Bid and The Shoe” T-shirt for years until it mysteriously shrunk and no longer fit me). Average attendance soared to 31,150 in 1980.

Hollywood Park is where I stood in awe alongside my friend and former Daily Racing Form colleague Jay Hovdey, watching a 2-year-old daughter of Seattle Slew, named Landaluce, power her way to victory in the 1982 Lassie Stakes, a race since renamed in her honor. She drew off down the stretch of the six-furlong event to win by an implausible 21 lengths, covering the distance in 1:08 flat for an up-and-coming trainer named D. Wayne Lukas. It’s the track where the first Breeders’ Cup was held in 1984, when Everett pulled a few favors with her Hollywood pals and made it a star-studded event for people and horses. It’s been a huge part of racing history since its opening in 1938. Click here for a trip through Hollywood Park’s history in the introduction to the track’s media guide.

I could go on with the memories of this track, just as I could listen all day long to the deadly accurate and gravelly voiced race calls of the late Harry Henson. It’s not the same as it used to be—few places are—and since moving to Kentucky in 1988 I don’t get there as often as I’d like to.

I loved Hollywood Park, its horses, its people and its energy, but mostly for how it made me feel about racing.

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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By Ray Paulick
Mr. and Mrs. Jerome Moss’ Zenyatta kept her perfect record intact in Saturday’s Grade 2 Milady Handicap at Hollywood Park, rallying from last in the field of six fillies and mares to win by 1 3/4 lengths over her John Shirreffs-trained stablemate Life Is Sweet, with Allicansayis Wow third.

Jockey Mike Smith never went to the whip on the 5-year-old daughter of Street Cry, the 2008 Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic winner and Eclipse Award champion who was making her 2009 debut. The Kentucky-bred mare was taken far off the early pace set by Gambler’s Justice, attempted to move through along the rail past Life Is Sweet down the backstretch, but jockey Garrett Gomez closed the gap, forcing Smith to check slightly and take Zenyatta back and around Life Is Sweet.

Smith asked Zenyatta to pick it up around the three-eighths pole, and the long-striding mare burst toward the front in a flash as she has done in so many of her previous victories. Once the win was secured in the final furlong, Smith eased up on Zenyatta and she cruised to the wire. Life Is Sweet got through on the rail all the way, edging a hard-trying Allicansayis Wow for the place.

This was the 10th consecutive win by Zenyatta and a repeat victory in the Milady. She covered the 1 1/16 miles on the Cushion Track in 1:42.30. Early fractions were :23.79, :47.14, 1:11.32 and 1:35.96. She paid $2.40 to win as the heavy favorite. Click here for the Milady chart and here for video of the race.

"We were just playing some serious jockey games out there," Smith told TVG’s Christina Olivares after the win. "It was great. It was all clean and fair and not to hurt the horses any. (Gomez)  was just trying to keep me out. … I coulda shot myself in the foot there, but she’s so handy that whenever he did come over I just eased back on the pedal, she backed up for me and I got to her outside and it was pretty much over then."

"I really wasn’t happy with the way she was traveling down the backstretch," Gomez said of Life Is Sweet, a full sister by Storm Cat to champion filly Sweet Catomine, owned and bred by Mr. and Mrs. Marty Wygod. "Usually she is taking me somewhere and she wasn’t taking me today. … My filly ran a respectable race, but she didn’t run the races she was running (at Santa Anita, where she won three consecutive graded stakes)."

Gomez said after he forced Smith to go around him Zenyatta passed him "in three jumps. It was unbelievable. For a big mare to have that kind of acceleration power, it was quite impressive. She’s a huge amazon that covers so much ground."

"There was a little games playing," Jerry Moss told TVG, though he said he wasn’t aware of it during the live running of the race. "Whatever happened, happened and the race is done and we’re happy with the outcome."

Zenyatta began her career with a maiden victory at Hollywood Park Nov. 22, 2007, going 6 1/2 furlongs. She followed that with an allowance win the next month, and has run in Grade 1 or 2 races ever since. Her 2008 ledger includes victories in (chronologically) the El Encino, Apple Blossom Handicap, Milady Handicap, Vanity Handicap, Clement L. Hirsch Handicap, Lady’s Secret, and Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic. She was entered to race at Churchill Downs in the Louisville Distaff May 1 but was scratched when the track came up sloppy.

She carried high weight of 126 pounds in the Milady, conceding from four to 14 pounds to her overmatched rivals.

Zenyatta, a $60,000 yearling purchase, has won over $2.2 million. She was bred in the name of Eric Kronfeld’s Maverick Productions Ltd.

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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By Ray Paulick

Lane’s End Farm is expected to announce that reigning Horse of the Year Curlin will enter stud at the Versailles, Ky., farm in 2009 for a live foal stud fee of $75,000, the Paulick Report has learned. Lane’s End is owned by William S. Farish, vice chairman of the Jockey Club and former ambassador to Great Britain for President George W. Bush.

“Curlin has proven himself across two continents with 16 starts, the honor of 2007 Horse of the Year and the greatest North American money-earner in racing history,” Jackson said in the Nov. 15 announcement that Curlin would enter stud in 2009. “He always gave it his all and has done everything we have asked of him. I am proud to announce that he will start a new career in 2009 and contribute his soundness, stamina, durability and athleticism to the breed. I am looking forward to seeing his foals compete and possibly exceed his unequaled racing record.”

Curlin, who began his career under the care of Helen Pitts and was transferred to trainer Steve Asmussen after breaking his maiden at Gulfstream Park early in 2007, retires with record earnings of $10,501,800. He won 11 of 16 starts, with two seconds and two thirds. He won seven Grade 1 races: the Breeders’ Cup Classic, Dubai World Cup, consecutive runnings of the Jockey Club Gold Cup, Woodward, Preakness and Stephen Foster Handicap. Bred in Kentucky by Fares Farm, he sold for $57,000 at the Keeneland September yearling sale. Jackson, Satish Sanan and George Bolton bought at 80% interest in Curlin through bloodstock agent John Moynihan for about $3 million after the colt’s maiden win. Jackson eventually bought Sanan and Bolton’s interests.

Curlin’s sire, Smart Strike, stands at Lane’s End for $150,000. Also joining the 2009 roster at Lane’s End is War Pass, the 2007 2-year-old male champion and winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile who will stand for $30,000 live foal.

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