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Barely seven months from his last start, nearly three years removed from the biggest win of his racing career and in a venue that feels nothing like the racetrack, Called To Serve was still turning heads and still winning.
Every owner, trainer or rider that came with a horse to last month’s Retired Racehorse Project’s Thoroughbred Makeover at the Kentucky Horse Park also brought at least one fascinating story with them to Lexington.
Amazingly we’re a week removed from the 2015 Breeders’ Cup World Championships yet still in the process of unpacking, digging out and going through notes and voice recorders for snippets of information from a whirlwind weekend in Lexington.
Most of the social events are over, nearly all training is complete and Keeneland Race Course is decked out in purple. The 2015 Breeders’ Cup World Championships is here.
Graham Motion is on the road with Icabad Crane again. Just a little more than two years since saddling the multiple graded stakes winner for his last start, Motion and wife Anita will catch a flight Saturday morning to watch their 10-year-old gelding compete in the Hagyard MidSouth CCI* three-day event at Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington.
With 30 horses during the recently concluded meet at Saratoga and 40 at Belmont Park, Rudy Rodriguez was busy. Asked about making an appointment for a Stable Tour, Rodriguez laughed, “I’m here all day.”
Mark Hennig was ready to get back home to Belmont Park. Not because he isn’t a fan of Saratoga, but because he’s got plenty of young prospects he hopes to run there this fall and where he’ll get Merry Meadow ready for the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint.
The days were ticking away and Bruce Brown’s barn on the Oklahoma Training Track was showing the signs of a waning meeting.
Occupied stalls alternated with empty stalls along the shedrow, the horses left behind slated to run over closing weekend or those left behind not far from shipping back downstate to Belmont Park. He was fairly loaded for the last few days of the meeting, including a busy closing day when he was already back home in Floral Park with his wife and three children.
Abby Adsit is always on the go. She talks fast, walks fast and it’s easy to see she likes the action of the racetrack.
A majority of the horses that were in Adsit’s barn on the Saratoga Race Course backstretch this past meet near the three-quarter pole were claimers, along with her personal favorite and turf allowance mare Flamingo Lane.
In honor of the final edition of The Saratoga Special for 2015, we were proud to bring readers the “Little Guy” Stable Tour. We scoured the grounds, searching Horse Haven, Oklahoma, the main track, the harness track, the stakes barn and Gridley Street to bring you the trainers and horses who might not have made headlines this summer, but certainly earned recognition and respect. We even scaled a cyclone fence to track down a trainer flying below the radar. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to find the likes of Desmond Farrell, Lars Becdelamotte, Bill Allyn, Bill Hickey, Bill Heffner, Eddie Miller and we only found Joe Parker’s golf cart. Next year!
