8/7/20 - She wins 18th in a row with customary charge before adoring fans at Del Mar on Saturday.
Please check out your favorite seach angine for more stories. The following is a good one which well captures the atmosphere.
Courtesy of the Los Angeles Times/Sports
ByBill Dwyre
In her advancing age, she has become poetry in motion. Johnny Tillotson could sing about her.
Zenyatta is now so much more than a racehorse that it defies description. All the superlatives have long ago been used up.
When she won her third consecutive Clement Hirsch Stakes on Saturday at Del Mar, something no other horse has done or probably will do, she simply continued to grow the legend. Her races, all 18 victories now without a defeat, remain thrilling while also being cookie-cutter.
She hung back again. She got interested near the final turn. She saw several horses in front of her and that was her signal to pass them. Once she got past them, including the hard-digging Rinterval, she turned off the afterburner and stayed just far enough in front to win. The margin of victory was a neck, and you had the feeling it could have been 20 necks.
This is not a new story, just the best one in racing in a long time.
The common perception these days about horse racing being near death does not apply when Zen-yatta runs. A crowd of 32,536 gathered in the place where the turf meets the surf, hung around all day, had a few drinks and got more and more excited as the time for the ninth race approached.
Afterward, Joe Harper, who has been in charge of this track all the way back to the days when jockeys had cardboard helmets, called Saturday "the best day Del Mar ever had."
Zenyatta doesn't so much win races as she does reduce everybody around her into a gathering of mush and gush. One sign said that Zenyatta was "The Queen of (our) Hearts." A TV interviewer got owners Jerry and Ann Moss aside and, instead of asking a question, slobbered an emotion: "Thank you so much for running her another year," he said, badly damaging his chances for investigative reporter of the year.
But somehow, with Zenyatta, the excessive idolatry seems OK. Maybe it is because what she has achieved, and the class with which she has achieved it, deserves this.
Moss calls her a miracle. Her jockey, Hall of Famer Mike Smith, says that riding her is like sleeping in a king-size bed. Trevor Denman, the track announcer, told the crowd at least twice that the job trainer John Shirreffs has done preparing Zenyatta has been "superb."
Paddy Gallagher trained Princess Taylor, the mare that finished third in this $300,000 Grade I race. Afterward, he said, "We're thrilled to be third."
She now has songs written about her. They gave away sets of glasses with her picture on them. One man stood in a long betting line and ordered 20 win tickets on her, $2 each. When he left the window, he said he bought them not to cash, but to send to family and friends. Few horses graduate from a bet to a keepsake.
The plan, after Saturday's win, is to have one more preparation race before a second straight run at the Breeders' Cup Classic. That will be Nov. 6 in Louisville, Ky., and were she to win, she would be the second repeat champion, finish her career at 20-0 and take her place high among thoroughbred legends.
"If she can pull off two more," Smith said, "to me, she'd go down as the greatest horse of all time."
He didn't say greatest female horse, or greatest older mare, or greatest conqueror of California synthetic tracks. Just greatest horse.
Even Shirreffs, who manages his words as carefully as he manages the career of his superstar, bristled a bit when reminded that the Eastern press had taken its shots at his mare this week, including one newspaper story that said: "The best horse in the country will run today, and so will Zenyatta." That was a reference to Quality Road, who ended up losing in the Whitney Stakes at Saratoga.
"Certainly, she's the best horse in the country," Shirreffs said.
Perhaps the bigger drama than the race itself took place Saturday morning, when Shirreffs, who likes synthetic tracks like he likes worms for breakfast, took his concerns about the way Del Mar's surface was feeling and looking to Harper and other track officials. He was assured they could make it better with some treatment, including water. Shirreffs said OK, Zenyatta did her thing and appeared to come out of the race just fine, and Harper walked around after the race mumbling phrases to himself, most of them containing the words, "Thank God."
For Zenyatta, it was just another day at the office. She did her little dance in the paddock, then returned after winning to face the grandstand and take her bows from yet another adoring crowd. Smith, her passenger for all but the first three races in the 18-0 run, took her where she could be seen by the fans, got her turned around, smiled and looked to the heavens and directed her bows and prances.
Smith has had a long and great career as a jockey. Now, after Zenyatta's races, he is also becoming an orchestra director. Who needs a whip? Give Mike Smith a baton.
"I'm a fan too, right along with all of those people," Smith said. "I just happen to be the one sitting on her."
8/3/10- 'Streaking Showgirl's jockey is all smiles. Riding Zenyatta’s like ‘out-of-body experience’
Courtesy of the UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF
Del Mar — There was emotion in jockey Mike Smith’s voice Tuesday when he described what it’s been like riding horse racing’s present royalty, the Streaking Showgirl, Zenyatta, to the last 14 of her record 17 straight wins.
“As a rider, how blessed can you be to ride something like her?” Smith said of Zenyatta, tentatively set to run for her historic 18th straight win Saturday at Del Mar in the $300,000 Grade I Clement L. Hirsch Stakes. “I wish every rider had the chance to feel what I feel.
“But along with that certainly comes a lot of responsibility, a lot of pressure. I mean, it’s a wonderful thing, a great thing for me. It makes me focus more. When I get up on her, I’m just so proud to be up there. And I’ll tell you, when she runs, it’s almost like an out-of-body experience. I feel like I’m one of those people in the crowd cheering for her. It’s just an honor to be part of it.”
Zenyatta, named by owner Jerry Moss of A&M Records for The Police album, “Zenyatta Mondatta” (with the appropriate hit, “Don’t Stand So Close to Me”), is scheduled to arrive today at Del Mar after a van ride from Hollywood Park and train over the Polytrack surface Thursday and Friday.
Earlier in the meeting, Moss voiced concerns about Zenyatta’s hesitancy to train on Polytrack last year before the Hirsch, which she won only by the length of her head, the smallest margin of victory during her streak. She also won the Hirsch by one length in 2008.
Entries for the Hirsch will be taken today, although a final decision from trainer John Shirreffs on whether Zenyatta actually starts is not expected for another day or two.
“No, it’s not written in stone,” said Smith, a Hall of Fame jockey, regarding Zenyatta running here.
What is set in granite is the record Zenyatta has strung together since jockey David Flores rode her to her first three wins in late 2007 and early 2008. Smith has ridden her ever since, winning 11 Grade I races and three Grade IIs.
“It’s just incredible when you see what she has accomplished,” Smith said.
And yet, Smith is amazed people find a way to knock “perfection.” He still gets asked if her record is lessened because 15 of her 17 wins have been on synthetic surfaces at Hollywood Park, Santa Anita and Del Mar.
“It shouldn’t be because she’s won on dirt twice (at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas), and she’s proven that, if anything, she might be even better on the dirt,” Smith said. “Her largest margin of victories have been in the Apple Blossom both times (4½ lengths in 2008, 4¼ lengths in 2010). I mean, we’re in California here. We have synthetics here. We can’t help that.”
Smith says her record is even more remarkable considering her style of running off the pace and stalking rivals before making her powerful, patented late kick around and through traffic.
“To me, that makes her record more impressive,” Smith said. “Just about every horse she’s ever run against in every race, she’s had to get by almost every single horse. Incredible. A lot of races are lost because of a little traffic here and a little traffic there.”
Smith, who has won three Triple Crown races including the Belmont Stakes this year aboard Drosselmeyer and the 2005 Kentucky Derby on the Moss-owned and Shirreffs-trained Giacomo, says Zenyatta is a pure entertainer who has more than track intelligence. Smith said she even has overcome her jockey’s mistakes and still won, like in last year’s Hirsch when Smith said he was overconfident and almost waited too long to urge her to run.
“She’s extremely intelligent,” he said. “There’s a time when you can walk up to the stall and she can be the most loving thing in the world and she’ll let you pet on her. But there’s also a time when she lets you know it’s time to get down to business. When she sees me, she knows it’s time to work and she starts dancing and putting on a show. It’s a fun thing for her. She should be Entertainer of the Year.”
With possibly three more races (including the Hirsch) before she is retired, with her finale likely the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs, this could be her last race in Southern California if Shirreffs decides to ship Zenyatta back East for a race before the Breeders’ Cup.
“For me right now, it’s race to race,” Smith said. “I just want to continue to pull this off. If we can just pull this off to the end, then, God, wouldn’t that be amazing? It would be the greatest record of all-time.”
Ed Zieralski
8/1/10 - Proviso wins the Diana by a head
Courtesy of the ALBANY TIMES UNION
Claire Novak
SARATOGA SPRINGS -- A matter of mere inches separated the contenders, but Proviso prevailed in the $500,000 Diana on Saturday at Saratoga Race Course. The Bill Mott trainee held off long shot Shared Account and defending champ Forever Together to claim her third straight Grade I victory of the season by a head.
The margins that separated the top finishers were a head, a nose, and a head, testament to the class of the field.
"It wasn't a big field but it was an extremely talented field, and she got the job done," said jockey Mike Smith, who flew in from California to ride the 5-year-old daughter of Dansili in the 11/8-mile turf challenge. "I knew it was going to be a tough race and that no one was going to draw off and win it easily because they were all too good."
Smith's ability to relax the intensely competitive mare played a huge part in her win. She was rank in the early going behind a pedestrian early quarter of :24.70 set by Dynaslew, but settled down heading into the backstretch. By the time Smith angled her out coming off the final turn, she was ready for business. She claimed the lead in deep stretch and held on determinedly to get the score in a final time of 1:47.04.
"She's got a little bit of a tendency to want to be a little rank ... but (Smith's) got soft hands and he got along with her very well," Mott said of the duo, who teamed together for a June 5 score in the Just a Game Stakes at Belmont and before that beat male turf contenders in the March 6 Frank E. Kilroe Mile at Santa Anita. "She beat the boys and beat the girls twice; you'd have to put her close to the top of the division. I don't think it would be any stretch of the imagination to think that right now, at least at the distances we've run, she would be as good as anybody."
The Diana score boosts Proviso's bankroll to more than $1.4 million in 20 starts. It was her eighth victory. She returned $6.40, $3.90, and $2.90 to win; Shared Account and Forever Together followed.
Trainer Graham Motion, who conditions Shared Account, said the effort proved his filly belongs in Grade I company. And Jonathan Sheppard, trainer of two-time Diana winner Forever Together, said the results took nothing away from his contender, sent off as the 9-5 favorite after winning the race in 2009 and 2008.
"She ran well," he said. "It was tough for a little while to get her in high gear, but she tried hard and finished strongly. She won by a head last year, she lost by a neck this year, and she's still pretty darn good. I'm proud of her."
6/13/10 -SUPER AT 17 - ZENYATTA DOES IT AGAIN!
Courtesy of the TDN
Jerry and Ann Moss’s Zenyatta (Street Cry {Ire}) secured the 17th straight win of her unblemished career in Sunday’s GI Vanity H. at Hollywood Park. It wasn’t without
a few white-knuckle moments, however, as the towering filly needed every inch of the stretch to fight past an ultragame St Trinians (GB) (Piccolo {GB}) and win by a half-length. “Oh my lord, she ran her eyeballs out,” Smith said of the runner-up. “But we just kept on grinding, and [Zenyatta] hit her best stride 100 yards out, and I knew we had it won at that point.” Winning owner Jerry Moss said simply, “She’s otherworldly.” The victory moved Zenyatta past the likes of Citation, Cigar and Mister Frisky as horses with the longest winning streaks outside of statebred company.
Zenyatta was collecting her 14th straight victory in her historic tally over the boys in last year’s GI Breeders’ Cup Classic. She won by 1 1/4 lengths in the GI Santa Margarita H. in her seasonal debut at Santa Anita Mar. 13, then took the GI Apple Blossom by 4 1/4 lengths at Oaklawn Apr. 9. The margin of victory would be much closer in the Vanity. Settled a good 10 lengths off the dueling Miss Silver Brook (Cozzene) and Cherryblossommiss (Langfuhr) going into the first turn, Zenyatta edged a bit closer as they cruised through a half in :47.54 and three quarters in 1:11.91. She was within two lengths of the leaders wheeling into the stretch widest of all, but the scrappy St Trinians burst away with a quick turn of foot. Put to a drive under Mike Smith, Zenyatta closed with resolute strides and finally surged past in the shadow of the wire. “It's just incredible,” enthused Smith. “It was a gallant effort on St Trinians’ part—she really ran huge. When we headed for home, I hit a real big gear, and she hit another one right back at me, and I said “Whoa, she's serious--she's going to make me run.” I was working at it until the last 100 yards and then I knew I'd out-grind her.” Smith said he’d considered guiding Zenyatta toward the inside two furlongs out, but decided on the overland route instead. “We're carrying a lot of weight, and I just wanted to get that weight moving forward, so I tried to tip out as we came off the turn and use that momentum to kind of slingshot me--even though I was a little wide--to get her at least running. I didn't want to take a chance splitting them, because if Martin [Garcia, on St Trinians] saw me do that, he might make it tight on me. If I had to steady just for a jump, to get that weight going again is asking an awful lot. I knew he was probably going to take me out [wide], it was great race riding on his part. But it was just me and him. So as wide as he is, that's as wide as I'm going to be. Nothing matters at that point.”
While the New Mexican filly Peppers Pride (Desert God) concluded her career unbeaten with 19 wins to her credit--all in statebred company--most race fans would point to Citation’s and Cigar’s 16-race skeins as the standard by which modern-day win streaks are judged. A crowd of 12,232 lined up to watch Zenyatta make history, and roared with approval as she streaked under the wire still unbeaten in her 17th start.
Owner Jerry Moss was in awe after the race. AI’m going to be watching that [replay] 30 or 40 times,” he said. “I had a feeling she was going to make it somehow, like she always does, ever since she caught Anabaa’s Creation in that race at Del Mar [the 2009 GI Clement L. Hirsch, when Zenyatta won by a head]. She won, she got there, she gave away the nine pounds [129-120], and she came about seven wide. She’s just awesome. What can I say? Thereaction of the crowd was amazing. She’s such a fan pleaser. Everybody here loves her.’’ The bettors sent St Trinians off at relatively low 2-1 odds--Zenyatta was at 1-2 odds--and the five-year-old nearly posted the upset of the year.
“I don't know what to say,” jockey Martin Garcia offered. “I couldn't have asked her for any more. The other mare is just too much horse.” Said her trainer Mike Mitchell, “I wanted to be a little farther in front of her turning for home, because I know the kick that Zenyatta’s got. My mare has a big kick, too. She just got outrun. I’m happy. We’re all big fans of Zenyatta in my family, and I know that [St Trinians] didn’t shame herself.’’
6/5/10 - Mike Captures his first Belmont Stakes on DROSSELMEYER (SEE PHOTOS)
The 142nd running of the Belmont Stakes may have lost a lot of its appeal without a Triple Crown threat, but it meant a lot to jockey Mike Smith.
Smith, the veteran who has been based in New York for much of his career and won many stakes at Belmont Park, had never been aboard the Belmont Stakes winner.
That changed Saturday afternoon.
Aboard 13-1 shot Drosselmeyer, Smith tracked the moderate pace set by the front-running First Dude, moved up on the backstretch and turn for home before taking the lead in mid-stretch and holding off the late challenge of Fly Down. First Dude held on for third.
The winner, owned by WinStar Farm - which also owns Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver - and trained by Bill Mott, ran the mile and a half in a moderate 2:31.57 and paid $28 to win, $11.60 to place and $7.70 to show.
The favorite Ice Box, who closed strongly to finish second in the Kentucky Derby, "left his race somewhere," said trainer Nick Zito, and finished ninth.
"I've run here most of my career, and I still consider this home," said Smith, who captured the Belmont in his 13th try. "It's unbelievable." In a classy gesture, Smith dedicated the win to jockey Richard Migliore, another New York rider who announced his retirement earlier in the week. "This is for you, Mig," Smith said.
6/5/10 - PROVISO scores in the JUST A GAME G1 (SEE PHOTOS)
PROVISO (GB) has not been the easiest of mares for Bill Mott to train. He politely describes her as being “sensitive to things around her.”
“She’s not nervous,” the Racing Hall of Famer said of the Juddmonte Farms' homebred five-year-old Dansili (GB) mare. “But she is high strung.”
On Saturday, in front of a packed grandstand at Belmont Park, Proviso was on her best behavior for jockey Mike Smith and rewarded Mott and Juddmonte with a half-length victory in the $400,000 Just a Game Stakes (G1) on the turf.
In recording her second straight Grade 1 victory, Proviso stalked the early pace of Speak Easy Gal, then motored to the lead approaching the final furlong and held off late bids from runner-up Phola and My Princess Jess, who was third.
Proviso covered one mile in 1:34.09 as the 11-to-10 favorite in the six-horse field.
“She has been a little more relaxed lately and that made her easier to ride and has added lengths to her,” said Smith, who rode Proviso for the first time in her previous start, a victory over males in Frank E. Kilroe Mile Handicap (G1) on March 6 at Santa Anita Park.
Saturday’s victory helped wipe away the painful memory of another Grade 1 stakes, the Juddmonte Spinster Stakes. Proviso crossed the finish line first in that 1 1/8-mile race last October for her former trainer, the late Bobby Frankel, but was disqualified and placed second.
There were no post-race jitters this time.
“The race pretty much developed like Bill envisioned,” Smith said. “He told me not to push her and her everything worked out.”
Mott said he probably would run Proviso next in the 1 1/8-mile Diana Handicap (G1) on July 31 at Saratoga Race Course.
“She’s been a nice filly,” Mott said, “and she’s come to hand.”
The win was the seventh in 20 starts for Proviso, who started her career in Europe. The $240,000 winner’s share of the purse pushed her earnings past the million-dollar mark to $1,165,473
11/07/09 -Zenyatta captures Breeders' Cup Classic
Courtesy of Sports Network
Champion mare Zenyatta came from last to win the 26th running of the Breeders' Cup Classic to conclude the two-day $25.5 million Breeders' Cup World Championships at Santa Anita Park on Saturday.
Undefeated in 14 career starts, Zenyatta was taking on male horses for the first time in the 1 1/4 mile climactic race. Zenyatta won last year's Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic on her way to becoming 2008 champion older female.
She was entered in the Classic this year in an effort to have her voted 2009 Horse of the Year. Three-year-old filly Rachel Alexandra did not run in the Breeders' Cup races because of Santa Anita's synthetic track.
The start of the Classic was delayed when Florida Derby winner Quality Road refused to go into the starting gate and then became very agitated once he was loaded. The colt was scratched from the race leaving a field of 12 to compete.
Regal Ransom set the pace with Rip Van Winkle in second while Zenyatta was racing last. Around the final turn jockey Mike Smith moved Zenyatta off the rail and into the middle of the track. The mare was six wide down the stretch.
Zenyatta, trained by John Shirreffs, recorded a three-quarter length victory over Arlington Million winner Gio Ponti with Twice Over finishing third.
The time for the Classic was 2:00.62.
Zenyatta, owned by Jerry and Ann Moss, pockets $2.5 million with the historic victory. The Eclipse Award winner now has lifetime earnings of more than $4.2 million.
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4/11/07 - Mike Smith Returning to Southern California Circuit
COURTESY OF THE BLOOD HORSE
Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith plans to ride on the Southern California circuit beginning with the final week of the current Santa Anita racing season, agent Brad Pegram confirmed Friday.
The 41-year-old jockey had been riding on the East Coast for nearly a year after spending the previous five seasons riding in California.
“He just likes California,” Pegram said of Smith’s decision to return to the Golden State. “He’ll be here, probably, the last week of Santa Anita. We haven’t finalized the dates yet, but he’ll be here full time by the first week of Hollywood Park.”
The Hollywood Park spring/summer meet gets underway April 25.
Smith, who was inducted into Racing’s Hall of Fame in 2003 and earned the Eclipse Award as the nation’s top jockey in 1993 and 1994, piloted Giacomo to victory in the 2005 Kentucky Derby (gr. I), and was also the regular pilot aboard 1994 Horse of the Year Holy Bull and 2002 Horse of the Year Azeri, as well as classic winner Prairie Bayou. Other leading mounts he had include Vindication, Skip Away, Unbridled’s Song, Inside Information, Paradise Creek, and Devil His Due.
In 1993 Smith set an all-time record for stakes victories with 62 and was the nation’s leading money-winner with earnings over $14 million. The following year he broke his own stakes record mark, reaching the winner’s circle on 68 added-money winners. His 10 career wins in the Breeders’ Cup World Thoroughbred Championships makes him the third leading jockey in the 23-year history of the event.
According to Pegram, Smith’s return is good timing, considering the recent defections of top jockeys Garrett Gomez and Corey Nakatani, who will be riding regularly in Kentucky over the next few weeks.
“Obviously, it leaves a lot of open horses and we’re getting a lot of support from (trainers), especially John Shirreffs and Jim Cassidy.”
4/10/07 - WELCOME BACK TEAM GIACOMO
A warm and unexpected welcome to some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet in racing. Only two years after Giacomo’s stunning upset victory in the Run for the Roses, here comes his half-brother, Tiago, trying to make some history of his own. Tiago’s Giacomo-like victory at odds of 29-1 in the Santa Anita Derby (gr. I) will bring back to Churchill Downs the familiar team of trainer John Shirreffs, owners Jerry and Ann Moss, Shirreffs' wife Dottie Ingordo, who is the Moss’ racing manager, and jockey Mike Smith. In today’s world of high-powered entrepreneur horse owners and massive training operations, we welcome a return visit from the Nelsons and the Cleavers to provide a warm, family-like atmosphere.
Tiago, as some might remember, was involved in that wild and wacky maiden race back on Jan. 21, in which he was forced out way past the middle of the track by a bolting Spankey Come Home. He cut back to the inside of Spankey and closed in on the leaders. He stuck his head in front, only to get nipped right on the wire by none other than Spankey Come Home. The subsequent no-brainer disqualification provided Tiago with the only victory of his career going into the Santa Anita Derby.
He had followed that maiden race up with an inexplicable seventh-place finish in the Robert B. Lewis Stakes (gr. II), after which Shirreffs took the blinkers off the colt and worked him a bullet six furlongs in 1:12 1/5 at Hollywood Park.
The Santa Anita Derby drew a field of 10 and lacked a standout, with most of the field given some kind of chance. Tiago, like his brother, lagged at the back of the field early, and then uncorked a big move around the turn, while saving ground. After straightening into the stretch, Smith must have felt as if it were the 2005 Kentucky Derby all over again, as Tiago came charging up the inside to defeat the Pletcher-trained King of the Roxy, who looked like a sure winner at the eighth pole. But the Team Valor colt, coming off only one sprint this year, was a tired horse and couldn’t resist Tiago’s late run. With this race under his belt, he should have a lot more foundation under him for his next start, which likely will be the Preakness (gr. I)
Although the closing eighth of :13 1/5 was just OK, the three previous splits of :23 4/5, :23 3/5, and :23 4/5 were strong, suggesting that Tiago is getting good right now, and despite having only four career starts (remember that no Derby winner had that few starts since Exterminator in 1918), he could be ready for a peak effort on May 5. Whether that is good enough to compete with the leading contenders we have no idea, which just adds to the uncertainty of the entire Derby picture.
Tiago doesn’t possess that long, sweeping stride of his brother, but he has a smooth, beautiful way of moving. And if you liked Giacomo (by Holy Bull) at a mile and a quarter, you’re going to love his baby brother, who is by Pleasant Tap.
9/4/06 - Noble Stella, Smith patient en route to Glens Falls Handicap triumph
Courtesy of the Thoroughbred Times Today
Gary Tanaka’s Noble Stella (Ger), under a masterful ride by jockey Mike Smith, won the $112,100 Glens Falls Handicap (G3) by a comfortable two lengths on Monday at Saratoga
Race Course. The 13⁄8-mile turf contest on Saratoga’s closing day attracted a field of nine fillies
and mares.
Noble Stella assumed her preferred position in front of the field leaving the gate but Sabellina soon charged past to take the lead, opening up as much as five lengths
on the backstretch. Smith was content to let Noble Stella track the leader from second until reaching the final turn. Moving to the outside, Noble Stella quickly closed the gap, drew even with Sabellina, and took command through the stretch, covering the distance in 2:16.02 over good turf.
9/3/06
- Breeders' Cup winning trainer Hauswald to become
Smith's agent
Phil Hauswald
will put his training career on hold to become the jockey
agent for Racing Hall of Famer Mike Smith when the fall
meeting at Belmont Park begins September 8.
The 47-year-old
Hauswald conditioned Epitome to a win in the 1987 Breeders'
Cup Juvenile Fillies Stakes (G1) at Hollywood Park. A native
of New Albany, Indiana, Hauswald saddled the Kentucky Derby
favorite Demons Begone in '87, but the Arkansas Derby (G1)
winner bled during the race and was pulled up.
Hauswald
conditioned Banker's Lady to a trio of Grade 1 wins from
1988-'89. His most recent graded stakes victory was with
Middlesex Drive in the 1999 Kelso Handicap (G2) at Belmont
Park.
Hausewald took out his trainer's license in 1985 after working
under Racing Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey for five
years. He has sent out one winner in from 34 starters this
season.
“I
have to really thank the Mosses for sticking with me. You
know, you get beat a couple of imes and a lot of people
want to make a change. But they stuck with me and we got
the job done. He might have redeemed himself today—and
he might have redeemed me, too.”
Racing Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith after
riding Jerry and Ann Moss’s Giacomo—winner of
the 2005 Kentucky Derby (G1)—to victory in the $300,000
San Diego Handicap (G2) on Saturday at Del Mar. Giacomo
was winless in four starts since his 50.30-to-1 upset in
the Derby
Giacomo's First Win Since Derby a Nail-Biter
by Blood-Horse Staff
Date Posted: 7/22/2006 10:09:03 PM
Giacomo tallied his first victory since capturing the 2005 Kentucky Derby (gr. I), closing from far back under regular rider Mike Smith to defeat Preachinatthebar by a head in a rousing finish to the $300,000 San Diego Handicap (gr. II) at Del Mar Saturday.
The 4-year-old gray colt was making his first start in the 1 1/16-mile San Diego since finishing a well-beaten fifth – 11 1/2 lengths behind Lava Man – in the Santa Anita Handicap (gr. I). Trainer John Shirreffs is pointing the son of Holy Bull to the $1 million Pacific Classic (gr. I) at Del Mar Aug. 20, where he could face Lava Man again. The San Diego and Pacific are part of a four-race series that Shirreffs hopes will end with Giacomo in the Breeders' Cup Classic Powered by Dodge (gr. I) at Churchill Downs in November.
Most thought the San Diego distance was too short for Giacomo and that he would need the race. That, coupled with a lack of early zip in the seven-horse line-up, allowed the late-running Giacomo to go off as the 9-2 fourth choice. He stopped the clock in a strong time of 1:42.
"I'm just so proud of this horse. He's just amazing," said Smith, the only rider Giacomo has had in his 13-race career. "He's a big horse and once he got rolling, I didn't want to stop him so I took the overland route.
"It reminded me of the Derby. He got up just in time."
With Spellbinder scratched earlier in the day, it was anyone's guess which horse would set the pace. It turned out to be Preachinatthebar, who set out at a surprisingly fast clip (:22 4/5, :46, 1:09 4/5) while pressured by Rathor, the slight 5-2 favorite. That set things up nicely for Giacomo, who had one horse beaten on the far turn but knocked off his rivals one by one before getting to the wire just in front of Preachinatthebar in the final stride.
It was 2 1/4 lengths back to Papi Chullo, ridden by Norberto Arroyo Jr., in third, but they were disqualified and placed last for shutting off Rathor in the stretch. That moved Southern Africa and Alex Solis up to third.
Giacomo has come in for some harsh criticism as a one-hit wonder since his Derby win (Jerry Moss, his original co-owner and breeder, is one of the founders of A&M Records), but he'd only lost four times since. He ran third behind, nearly 10 lengths behind Afleet Alex, in the Preakness (gr. I), then came out of the Belmont Stakes (gr. I), in which he finished seventh, with bone chips in an ankle and knee. After surgery, he returned eight months later to finish third in Santa Anita's Strub (gr. II) prior to his defeat in the Big 'Cap.
Prior to the Derby Giacomo had won just once in seven starts, although he had been quite competitive in all of those races. Giacomo, who is now owned in partnership by Mr. and Mrs. Moss and Stronach Stables, improved his record to 3-2-4 in 13 starts with earnings of $2,202,316
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