By Bill Finley
He was the huge square peg trying to force his way into an impossibly small round hole. The field for the GI Jockey Club Gold Cup included horses from Chad Brown, Todd Pletcher, Aidan O'Brien, Saeed bin Suroor and their owners, Phoenix Thoroughbreds, the Coolmore team, Calumet Farm and Godolphin. That doesn't even include the multiple Grade I winner and defending Gold Cup champion Diversify (Bellamy Road), who is trained by Rick Violette, Jr.
Did any of them even know who Uriah St. Lewis is? They do now.
St. Lewis crashed this party, which he has a habit of doing. Normally, he goes home empty. Not Saturday. His Discreet Lover (Repent) upset the Gold Cup, paid $93 and put $412,500 into the pocket of St. Lewis, who is the horse's owner and trainer.
“It's fantastic,” St. Lewis said. “It's one of the greatest feelings you could ever get. The horse, he does everything you ask him to do. He's a little horse with a big heart. Thank God. Thank God.”
Discreet Lover did win the GIII Excelsior S. in April, but over the years he's also run in and lost in two runnings of the GI Whitney H, two runnings of the GIII Pimlico Special, the GI Metropolitan Mile, the GI Woodward, the GII Indiana Derby, the GIII Smarty Jones and the GI Pennsylvania Derby, and that's just to name a few big races where he showed up and was defeated. In the 2016 Pennsylvania Derby, he was 248-1, which has to be some sort of record. In some of the other big spots he's competed in he was 86-1, 84-1 and 79-1.
You can't exactly blame the bettors for constantly overlooking Discreet Lover, whether it was Saturday or in any of his other races. It's not just the horse. St. Lewis, who is based at Parx, hasn't exactly been tearing up the racetrack. A native of Trinidad and Tobago who moved to Brooklyn when he was a teenager, he started training in 1987. His Equibase records only go back to 1988 and during that time, he's won with only 6% of his starters. He didn't win a single race between 2011 and 2012, going a combined 0 for 86. In 2007, he was 0 for 73. He had three winners in 2006, but started 140 horses.
Yet, he never lost faith in himself. St. Lewis and his family do most of the work around his stable, which keeps expenses to a minimum. With low overhead and running for the lucrative purses offered at Parx, he says his stable makes money. Yet, people look at his record and his penchant for running horses in spots where they appear to be way over their heads and wonder what is this guy doing?
“There are a lot of critics,” he said. “People said this guy is out of his mind when I ran him in the Met Mile. When I ran him in the Suburban, they said now he's really gone crazy. Fifty percent of the people will always like you and 50% of the people will always hate you. The 50% that hate me, the hell with them. People don't even know me and they say bad things about me. They say that guy is an idiot, he's stupid. Meanwhile, I'm eating good, living good and I have nice race horse.”
The Jockey Club Gold Cup is a “Win and You're In race,” so St. Lewis is eager to take his horse to an even bigger stage and says he believes he will win the GI Breeders' Cup Classic. First, however, he must get off the vet's list in New York. Veterinarian Dr. Jennifer Durenberger told the Daily Racing Form that Discreet Lover appeared to be in some distress after he galloped back to be unsaddled. All he needs to do to get off the vet's list is work a half-mile in :52 or faster no earlier than 10 days from his previous race.
St. Lewis (who bet $200 across the board on Discreet Lover Saturday) liked to bet and got a job at the New York tracks as a technician for AmTote. It was his wife, Amanda, who suggested he give training a try and St. Lewis went to Oklahoma before going out on his own to learn under trainer Robert Hayes. He won his first ever race in 1987 at Will Rogers Downs.
Over the years, the losses piled up, but he never got down on himself or stopped believing that he had what it took to win a race like the Jockey Club Gold Cup. The problem is, that's hard to do when you don't have any major owners and don't normally spend much at the sales. But a good horse can come from anywhere at any time.
At the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale in 2015, it was hardly a surprise that Discreet Lover wasn't drawing much attention. His sire stands for $1,000 and his dam never raced. But St. Lewis liked the then 2-year-old enough to spend $10,000 on him.
“When I saw him there, I thought he could run,” he said. “I like the Repent line. The dam (Discreet Chat, who is by Discreet Cat), it was her first foal, and I love to buy first foals because nobody knows what they can do. I bought him with the intention of making some money. I never thought he would turn out to be this great.”
Take nothing away from Discreet Lover, but the Gold Cup did fall into his lap. Aboard Diversify, Irad Ortiz Jr. rode as strange a race as you'll ever see a top jockey ride. He gunned the 3-5 favorite to the front in fractions of 22 3/5, 45 3/5 and 1:09. Aboard Mendelssohn (Scat Daddy), Ryan Moore took off after him as both horses got caught up in a pace that was certain to end up in defeat.
Running past exhausted horses in the stretch, Discreet Lover, Manny Franco aboard, beat Thunder Snow (Ire) (Helmet {Aus}) by a neck.
For St. Lewis, the story was not all sweet. Jose Flores was the horse's regular rider before being killed in a Mar. 22 spill at Parx. Otherwise, he would have been aboard in the Gold Cup.
“Every day, we think about Jose,” St. Lewis said. “Before this horse runs, we say a prayer for Jose and we always say Jose is on his back riding him. Manny is the jockey, but Jose is helping him. Jose Flores was wonderful with this horse. I wish he were still with us, but he is with us in spirit.”
Should he get off the vet's list, Discreet Lover will be seen next in the Breeders' Cup Classic. Despite the win in the Gold Cup, there will surely be some who believe the horse doesn't belong in the race. St. Lewis's' attitude: Let them think what they want.
“I own the horse,” he said. “Most trainers have to answer to owners. I don't. I can do damn well whatever I please.”
Accelerate is Awesome Again
Accelerate very well could be the most underrated horse of modern times. All he does is win and he gets little respect. He's won four Grade I's this year and it's quite a lineup, the GI Santa Anita H., the GI Gold Cup, the GI Pacific Classic and now the GI Awesome Again. He won that race Saturday by 2 1/4 lengths. He has swept the four Grade I's in Southern California for older dirt distance males.
Of course, he can't be Horse of the Year in the year of Justify (Scat Daddy) and the horse getting rave reviews coming out of the Awesome Again was not Accelerate, but runner-up West Coast (Flatter).
In the here's-something-you-don't-see-every-day department, co-owner Gary West told TVG moments before the race, “I don't expect him to win this race.”
Bob Baffert had been saying pretty much the same thing, that he didn't have the horse ready, but had to get a race into him to have him on top of his game for the Breeders' Cup.
With all that, West Coast ran a really good race, losing to Accelerate by 2 1/4 lengths. He looked like he was ready to pack it in at the three-sixteenths pole and maybe not even hit the board, but he fought hard in the stretch and never gave up. With what was said prior to the Awesome Again and with Baffert's mojo, a lot of people will be climbing on this horse's bandwagon before the Classic.
Now, who does “Big Money” Mike Smith ride in the Classic, West Coast or GI Pennsylvania Derby winner McKinzie (Street Sense)?
Santa Anita's card also included a new wrinkle. The second race was run at five furlongs on the turf course, the first-ever five-eighths grass race in the history of the track. Previously, all turf sprints have been run “down the hill” at the 6 1/2-furlong distance.
The Toronto Reds
That was a nice touch by Woodbine Saturday carding a $50,000 handicap race for chestnuts only. It's not something you can do every day, but to see eight chestnuts gather together is quite a sight and the fans always seem to enjoy novel races like these. Woodbine called the race The Lady in Red H. and combined it with a number of promotions. One was a random drawing where the winning fan got to make a $1,000 win bet on the race. The player got it right, wagering the $1,000 on the winner, 7-10 shot Unseen Angels (Kantharos). And the Woodbine racing office actually treated the race like a real handicap. The winner carried 126 pounds, spotting the competition as much as 16 pounds.
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