Posts Tagged ‘charlie whittingham’
Thursday, March 4th, 2010
By Ray Paulick
Every now and then you see a pedigree that brings back great memories, and that was the case for me when looking at the results of last Saturday’s Grade 3 Sabin Stakes on the main track at Gulfstream Park.
The winner, Aurora Lights, was winning her first American Graded Stakes in the Sabin, although she captured last year’s Canadian Grade 3 Selene Stakes as a 3-year-old. The daughter of Pulpit out of the Lord At War mare, Lady Lochinvar, races for the Chiefswood Stables of Canadian investment banker Robert Krembil and his son, Mark. They bought her for $800,000 during Tuesday’s select session of the 2007 Keeneland September yearling sale from Darby Dan Farm, agent for breeders Mr. and Mrs. Larry D. Williams.
Pulpit, a son of A.P. Indy who has gone on to be a very successful sire at Claiborne Farm, was an exciting racehorse whose career was cut short by an injury while running fourth to Silver Charm in the 1997 Kentucky Derby. The Derby was his sixth and final career starts—all as a 3-year-old. He had earlier American Graded Stakes victories in the Fountain of Youth and Blue Grass Stakes.
But it’s the female side of Aurora Lights’ pedigree that really brings back the memories for me. Lady Lochinvar was bred by the Wimborne Farm of Diane Perkins, who raced Lord At War and stood him to a very successful career at stud. Lady Winborne (spelled differently than Wimborne Farm), the dam of Lady Lochinvar, was an exceptional broodmare, producing 15 foals, 12 of which started and won. Among those foals are American Graded Stakes winners Al Mamoon, La Gueriere (herself an outstanding broodmare), and Lost Soldier, plus two other stakes winners.
Lady Winborne was sired by Triple Crown winner Secretariat out of Priceless Gem, who beat the great Buckpasser as a 2-year-old. Priceless Gem, by Hail to Reason, was produced by the Hall of Fame mare Searching. The female pedigree traces back to one of the most influential broodmares of all time, La Troienne.
It goes without saying that Aurora Lights has the pedigree and now the racing record to be a very valuable broodmare in the future.
I can’t say that I remember Priceless Gem’s defeat of Buckpasser, though I do remember as though it was yesterday when Lord At War won the 1985 Santa Anita Handicap for trainer Peter and Diane Perkins, trainer Charlie Whittingham, and jockey Bill Shoemaker.
Shoemaker had to choose between two horses for that year’s Big ‘Cap, Greinton, who was part-owned by Whittingham and trained by the Bald Eagle, and Lord At War, who was imported from his native Argentina the previous year and came into the race with four consecutive victories. Shoemaker made the right choice, going with Lord At War, giving the Hall of Fame jockey the 11th and last Big ‘Cap victory of his career. It was the sixth win in Santa Anita’s big race for Whittingham, who would come back to win it the following year with Greinton and get his eighth and final Big ‘Cap with Sir Beaufort in 1993.
As great as it was to see Shoemaker and Whittingham carry the day in 1985, the amazing thing about that year’s Big ‘Cap was the crowd: an all-time Santa Anita record attendance of 85,527. It wasn’t Lord At War they came out to see, it was the race itself, which Santa Anita’s creative marketing director, Alan Balch, promoted heavily as THE day to come out to the races in Southern California.
This Saturday will mark the 73rd running of the Arcadia, Calif., track’s signature event. And while the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap may not be the race it once was, with the Dubai World Cup later this month taking away some of the best horses, it’s still a race that’s worth a lot more than just memories.
A field of 14 will go in this year’s $750,000 Big ‘Cap, and though the turnout will be south of 85,527, there will still be a roar from the crowd when the horses break from the starting gate at the top of the stretch for the mile and a quarter run, just as there was back in 1935, when Azucar won the first edition of this great race.
Copyright © 2010, The Paulick Report
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Tags: A. P. Indy, American Graded Stakes Standings, Aurora Lights, big 'cap, bill shoemaker, Buckpasser, charlie whittingham, Chiefswood Stables, Claiborne Farm, gulfstream park, Hail to Reason, Keeneland, kentucky derby, La Troienne, Lady Lochinvar, lord at war, Mark Krembil, Paulick Report, Priceless Gem, pulpit, Ray Paulick, Robert Krembil, Sabin Stakes, santa anita, Searching, Selene Stakes, Silver Charm
Posted in American Graded Stakes Standings, Keeneland, santa anita park | Comments Off
Saturday, November 28th, 2009
By Ray Paulick
TOKYO, Japan–Mirco Demuro had just been punk’d by, of all people, Sir Michael Stoute, and he looked like a deer caught in the headlights.
 An Australian journalist wanted to introduce Demuro to the legendary British trainer during the cocktail hour of Friday night’s Welcome Party to the 29th annual Japan Cup. Demuro, Italy’s top jockey and last year’s Japan Cup winner aboard Screen Hero for Teruya Yoshida, said he’d never had the opportunity to meet Stoute, who will be saddling two-time Breeders’ Cup Turf winner Conduit in Sunday’s big event at Tokyo race course.
“Actually you rode for me once at Royal Ascot,” Stoute reminded Demuro (both pictured, left). “Finished second.” Then, with a perfectly timed pause, added, “Moved too soon.” No one enjoyed the good-natured ribbing better than Stoute himself, who let out a big belly laugh at his own joke. Demuro didn’t know what to say. But perhaps he’ll have the last laugh on Sunday as he tries to defend his Japan Cup title aboard Screen Hero.
Stoute is relaxed and confident as he bids for his third Japan Cup victory, having won back-to-back runnings with Singspiel and Pilsudski in 1996 and ’97. The native of Barbados, who has been among the world’s foremost horsemen for more than three decades, has won major races in 10 countries, including five Breeders’ Cups.
 I asked which of his international triumphs meant the most to him. “The Dubai World Cup,” Stoute said, without hesitation. “And for that I give a great deal of credit to Jerry Bailey.”
Stoute recalled how the Hall of Fame jockey worked Singspiel before the scheduled running of the 1997 World Cup but returned to the United States when the race was postponed after a deluge flooded the Nad al Sheba racetrack. “He came all the way back a few days later when the race was rescheduled,” Stoute said. “I think that breeze really gave him confidence in the horse.”
Another international visitor to Tokyo commented that Stoute has perfected the art of shipping horses around the world to win big races. “No, no, no,” he said. “No one’s perfected this. But you learn from the mistakes you make and from the things that go right. And no two horses react the same way to travel.”
Among other things, Stoute sends his own horse feed to Japan, well in advance of his horse, allowing the Japan Racing Association plenty of time to test its contents for any prohibited substances. Many other trainers are content to use the feed provided by the JRA. It’s a small detail perhaps, but it’s the kind of thing that adds up and pays off in the end.
 I MADE THE MISTAKE OF ASKING PATRICK LAWLEY-WAKELIN whether he’d been to the Japan Cup previously. “Last year,” he said, sadly, “but this is as far as we got.” Lawley-Wakelin, who is representing 2008 Canadian International winner Marsh Side on behalf of owner Robert Evans, was referring to last year’s Welcome Party, which he attended with trainer Neil Drysdale (pictured, left, with Northern Farm’s Katsumi Yoshida). The next day, Marsh Side was scratched from the Japan Cup due to a fever, and Drysdale and Lawley-Wakelin departed immediately for the Tattersalls December sale. Let’s hope they get a chance to stick around and see Marsh Side compete this year.
Drysdale was stunned to hear no American-trained horse had won the Japan Cup since Golden Pheasant captured the 1991 renewal for trainer Charlie Whittingham and jockey Gary Stevens.
“I should have won it in 2002,” said Drysdale, recalling the running held at Nakayama racecourse while the Tokyo track’s grandstand was being rebuilt. Italian-based Falbrav and jockey Frankie Dettori edged the Drysdale-trained Sarafan and survived an inquiry after Falbrav drifted in and brushed Sarafan several times in deep stretch. “He really slammed us,” Drysdale recalled, “but the stewards let the result stand. There was no point in an appeal, since the same officials who looked at the original inquiry would hear the case.”
 THE WELCOME PARTY TOOK PLACE at the glitzy Ritz Carlton Hotel in the new midtown development adjacent to Roppongi. The JRA upgraded its host hotel this year to provide owners, trainers and jockeys a better experience during their visit to Tokyo (the international press remains at the Keio Plaza, a fine business hotel but not in the same class as the Ritz). It’s a smart move by the JRA, which has to compete with the Hong Kong Jockey Club for top horses and has lagged a step or two behind the HKJC as a host association and in providing a world-class experience for owners. Connections of Japan Cup Dirt horses will be staying at the Ritz Carlton in Osaka, near Hanshin race course, prior to next Sunday’s race.
The entertainment at this year’s party was quite different than anything I’ve seen in my previous 15 journeys to Tokyo for the Japan Cup. A group of Yabusame (yah-bu-sahmee) archers gave a demonstration of their martial arts skills, which entail riding on horseback at full speed and shooting a bow and arrow and several small targets. It’s a Japanese tradition going back nearly a thousand years to the days of Samurai warriors when the targets were more than wooden squares, and the skill was required to help protect the empire.
Of course, the originators of Yabusame never envisioned riding their horse into the Ritz Carlton ballroom, so some accommodations had to be made. The “horses” were decorated wooden mounts spun in a circle by an assistant, and the targets were only a few steps away on stage. But I think we got the point: don’t mess around with these fellows.
 IT’S BECOME SOMETHING OF A PAULICK REPORT TRADITION to comment on the food we enjoy at various industry gatherings, and the Japan Cup Welcome Party certainly offered a veritable feast, beginning with something called amuse bouche, contuing with a second course of ravioli style shogoin turnip, marinated seafood, crispy pasta, shiso and citrus fruit vinaigrette; followed by pan-friend sea bream, leak, taraba crab, clam sauce, braised savoy cabbage and green vegetable; and then a main course of pot-au-feu style beef fillet, chicken leg, autumn vegetables, truffle flavor white wasabi and seaweed salt. My favorite, though, was the “seasonal dessert sampler” of chestnut, sweet potato, Mont blanc, autumn fruits, apricot sorbet, wasonbon, and green tea sauce. I couldn’t really identify any of it, but it was all good!
Tags: Breeders' Cup, charlie whittingham, conduit, dubai world cup, falbrav, frankie dettori, Gary Stevens, golden pheasant, hkjc, hong kong jockey club, japan cup, japan racing association, jerry bailey, jra, mirco demuro, neil drysdale, patrickc lawley-wakelin, Ray Paulick, ritz carlton, screen hero, singpiel, sir michael stoute
Posted in International Racing, Japan, People | 1 Comment »
Thursday, July 9th, 2009
By Ray Paulick
How appropriate that just a few days before the Hollywood Gold Cup, the signature event of the Southern California racetrack of lakes and flowers, the Inglewood city council has driven the last nail into the track’s proverbial coffin. The once-proud Hollywood, a place where tens of thousands of people would come out for an ordinary day of racing, where champions like Citation and Swaps and Affirmed would make headlines, where people like Cary Grant and Elizabeth Taylor could be seen reading the Daily Racing Form and rubbing elbows with the fans…that track will soon be nothing but a memory as the Bay Meadows Land Co. prepares to bring in the wrecking ball and develop it into something called Hollywood Park Tomorrow.
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.Â
 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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Tags: affirmed, alan balch, bay meadows land company, charlie whittingham, churchill downs, country queen, d. wayne lukas, Harry Henson, hollywood gold cup, Hollywood Park, hollywood park tomorrow, inglewood city council, jay hovdey, landaluce, marje everett, Paulick Report, pick six, racing innovations, Ray Paulick, seattle slew, sirlad, spectacular bid, sunday silence, tom meeker, tote bag giveaway, wishing well
Posted in California, Hollywood Park, Racing Greats | 24 Comments »
Saturday, November 29th, 2008
By Ray Paulick
Mike Mullaney’s Daily Racing Form article about the European slaughterhouse death of Exceller in April 1997 was a shocking reminder of what can happen to any Thoroughbred, no matter how accomplished they were, when they are no longer considered useful as racing or breeding animals. But the great racehorse of the 1970s did not die in vain.
A group of fans discussing Exceller’s death on an online forum decided to do more than mourn his death. They pledged to support Thoroughbred rescue efforts, initially at the United Pegasus Foundation in California. They eventually forming the Exceller Fund to keep alive the name of the horse trainer Charlie Whittingham called the best Thoroughbred never to win an Eclipse Award. Exceller was, however, posthumously elected to the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame.
 This grassroots organization of racing fans and horse lovers began with just a dozen people, each pledging a minimum of $15 a month to support rescue efforts. The Exceller Fund’s membership has grown to well over 100 members and has saved more than 250 horses since its creation. There are no only employees, only volunteers, and the Fund’s annual budget is approximately $70,000. (Click here to see the Exceller Fund’s financials.)
Click here to learn about becoming a member of the Exceller Fund or here to make a donation.
Its mission statement – Providing a Future Beyond the Finish Line – allows the Exceller Fund to work with local horse rescue organizations to transition horses to a second career after racing or breeding by acquiring horses that might be at risk for slaughter and caring for them until a new home is found. Its Web site provides a list of horses the Exceller Fund has adopted out or helped in other ways.
Barbara Kraus served as president of the Exceller Fund until 2003, when Bonnie Mizrahi, who had been in charge of fund-raising, took the reins. In August 2008, top New York trainer Gary Contessa was named president, a move that increased the organization’s visibility. “To have a major trainer such as Gary Contessa want to be our president and champion our efforts is a thrill and an honor,” Mizrahi said. “I believe this will signal to fans that racing does not turn a ‘blind eye’ to the horses once they are done, and I hope it will inspire others to realize that the Exceller Fund wants to work with racing to provide a “future beyond the finish line” for these magnificent Thoroughbreds.”
Today at Aqueduct, the New York Racing Association will run a race in Exceller’s honor and present a check for $5,000 to the Exceller Fund. Wouldn’t it be nice if tracks from coast to coast honored the memory of this outstanding horse in a similar way?
The Paulick Report will spotlight a different charity each day of Thanksgiving week, when we traditionally take time to reflect and give thanks to the blessings we have and to help those less fortunate. This is a difficult time for many Americans, and charitable organizations are feeling the effects of the global economic crisis. We hope you’ll spend a few minutes to learn about some of the charities that make us a better industry, and consider giving to these or to others that we won’t have the opportunity to publicize. Remember that no gift is too small.
Copyright © 2008, The Paulick Report
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Tags: aqueduct, barbara kraus, bonnie mizrahi, charlie whittingham, european slaughterhouse, exceller, exceller fund, gary contessa, horse slaughter, mike mullaney, national musem of racing, New York Racing Association, nyra, Paulick Report, racing hall of fame, Ray Paulick, united pegasus foundation
Posted in Horse Slaughter, Horse Welfare, Industry Organizations, New York Racing Association | 1 Comment »
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