Before he opened the meeting with a 2-for-2 record, trainer Jeremiah Englehart bore the ignominy of a perfect goose egg here at Saratoga Race Course, 0 wins in 59 starts. It was a blotch on Englehart’s otherwise successful resume that includes a victory in the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies and graded stakes victories with King Kreesa and Tamarind Hall.
Englehart, who starts favored Tahoe Tigress in today’s $100,000 Saratoga Dew Stakes, says he maintained perspective even as the losses mounted.
“It never bothered me that we had never won here,” the affable trainer said earlier in the meet. “It was kind of like the Red Sox before they won the World Series, or the Cubs now.”
Talk with Englehart for a while and it won’t take long to notice that he likes using sports analogies. You also see he is competitive enough that the losses here surely rankled him, and two wins early in the meet came as a tremendous relief.
“I was more happy for the barn than anything because it’s a big load off their shoulders, getting that first win out of the way,” Englehart says about the triumph of Winter Games in the first race of Opening Day. Shankopotamus followed with a victory July 23, allowing for another analogy.
To read more about Jeremiah Englehart and the Saratoga Dew, download Thursday’s digital edition of The Saratoga Special courtesy of Keeneland Sales.
