By T. D. Thornton
The Breeders' Cup is always a bit more interesting when underdog horses from smaller circuits are in the mix, and both Slammed (Marking) and Tyler's Tribe (Sharp Azteca) have the potential to bring outsized attention to their respective breeding programs in New Mexico and Iowa when they run in the Nov. 4 and 5 championships.
In the entire history of the Breeders' Cup dating to 1984–out of a pool of 4,344 horses–those two states have accounted for just one state-bred starter each.
Slammed will represent New Mexico, and you could say that she arguably has the better chance in her race, the GI Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint. After breaking out at Del Mar this summer, she's more proven at the national level, and she also owns a recent sharp win over the Keeneland surface, having earned a Breeders' Cup berth with an Oct. 8 GII Thoroughbred Club of America S. victory.
But figuratively, Slammed has to outrun the oddball specter that lingers from the only other Land of Enchantment-bred to give the Breeders' Cup a go: Ricks Natural Star, whose start in the GI Turf in 1996 rates as one of the most captivatingly bizarre happenstances in the history of the series.
As Andrew Beyer wrote in his Washington Post preview of that year's championships, “On a morning when the world's best horses were entered for Saturday's Breeders' Cup, the main object of attention at Woodbine Racetrack was a hopeless 7-year-old from New Mexico…. In the view of many at Woodbine, [Ricks Natural Star] is making a mockery of the sport's biggest event. To others, this quixotic venture epitomizes the romance of the game.”
When the gelding's offbeat owner and trainer, William Livingston, took out a loan and submitted a surprise $40,000 entry to enter his one and only racehorse against the planet's top turfers, Breeders' Cup officials were both appalled and perplexed. This was the era prior to the current stricter qualifying standards and more enlightened veterinary oversight, and to say the entry was off their radar would have been an understatement: Ricks Natural Star hadn't raced in over a year and hadn't won a race in three years, since besting $3,500 claimers on the dirt at Sunland Park.
Livingston, a veterinarian from New Mexico who claimed to treat everything from “parakeets to elephants,” had only gotten his training license just prior to the Breeders' Cup, and he told the media that he had conditioned Ricks Natural Star by driving alongside him on a ranch in a pickup truck.
Livingston then drove the gelding to Canada in a one-horse trailer, keeping his Turf entrant in a makeshift pen in the parking lots of motels when he stopped for the night. Informed by Breeders' Cup officials along the way that Ricks Natural Star lacked a required published workout that would preclude him from starting, Livingston made a side trip to Remington Park in Oklahoma so the gelding could stretch his legs in a leisurely six furlongs in 1:21.46.
There were border-crossing difficulties getting into Canada and Livingston arrived without proper tack and equipment, yet he delighted in showing off Ricks Natural Star, even allowing onlookers to climb atop the gelding's back for photo opportunities. This was the Breeders' Cup that would feature the mighty Cigar's final race (he'd finish third in the GI Classic), but all of the pre-event attention was riveted on Ricks Natural Star, with Livingston insisting he would win the Turf.
Local jockey Lisa McFarland was recruited (or perhaps drew the short straw) from the local riding colony to pilot Ricks Natural Star, and if her strategy was just to let him run freely then get out of the way of everyone else, she executed it with precision. Far underlaid in the betting at 56-1, the popular gelding forced the pace for a half-mile then was eased back through the field, distanced well behind winner Pilsudski (Ire).
Ricks Natural Star made one more start a couple months later in New Mexico for a $7,500 tag (sixth, with the chart caller's comment “showed nothing”), but was claimed out of that race by new connections solely for the purpose of retiring him.
Conversely, the unbeaten 2-year-old Iowa-bred Tyler's Tribe, who has never been headed while winning five dirt races by an aggregate 59 3/4 lengths, is on target for the GI Juvenile Turf Sprint.
Tyler's Tribe will bring a little more “undefeated appeal” into his Breeders' Cup appearance (his connections are opting for first-time turf rather than stretching out to two turns against what looms as a deep GI Juvenile field on dirt). But his Iowa roots don't come with any oddball back story like his New Mexico counterpart. The only previous Iowa-bred in the Breeders' Cup was Topper T (Bellamy Road), who ran eighth in the 2018 GI Juvenile.
End Zone Athletics Hits 200 Wins
With a pair of victories at Remington on Saturday night, End Zone Athletics, the stable name for horses owned by trainer Karl Broberg, quietly hit the 200-victory mark for the year–again.
End Zone, which operates at numerous tracks throughout the South and Midwest, is well on its way to leading the continent for wins as an owner, as it has every year since 2016.
Save for the pandemic-altered 2020, when Broberg's outfit won “only” 165 races, End Zone has now cracked the 200-win mark every season since 2017.
Even more impressively, consider for perspective that during that entire time frame, only one other owner has reached 200 victories in a single season (Loooch Racing Stables in 2018).
In the North American trainer standings, Broberg is currently second on the year for victories. He was the continent's winningest trainer by that metric between 2014-19, and was second in wins in 2013, 2020 and 2021.
No Walk in the Park for 'Beverly'
Beverly Park (Munnings) came a neck shy of winning his 12th race of the year on Saturday at Keeneland. But the third-place effort might have been gutsier than any of the 11 victories racked up so far this year by North America's winningest horse for 2022.
Facing $20,000 starter-allowance company for the second straight time after feasting primarily on $5,000 starter-allowance foes during the earlier part of the season, the 5-year-old forced the issue under jockey Rafael Bejarano while widest in a four-way speed duel, put away those three rivals by the quarter pole, led until the eighth pole, then couldn't withstand a pick-up-the-pieces late rally from a fresh closer.
Beverly Park, who races for owner/trainer Norman Lynn Cash (Built Wright Stables), still has a three-victory cushion over his next closest competitor, Exit Right (Effinex), who ran sixth and last in a $5,000 starter/optional claimer at Delaware Park on Friday.
No North American Thoroughbred has won more than 12 races in an entire calendar year since 2011.
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