By Bill Finley
He was tempted to, but in the end trainer Rick Violette Jr. didn't drink the Kool-Aid.
The Violette-trained 'TDN Rising Star'Diversify (Bellamy Road) won the $1.2-millio GI Whitney S. at Saratoga Saturday, putting himself into the conversation for the older male championship. It was a strong effort from a very good horse who was in good form and was made the 8-5 favorite to win one of the most prestigious races on the calendar for his division.
And Violette almost didn't run in the race. He's been training for 42 years, but even he, the proverbial old school trainer, had a very hard time bucking the modern system of doing things. You know the one, the one that says after a horse runs a big race you better send him into the witness protection program until he has had the time, which can drag into seven or eight weeks, to recover from such a demanding effort.
Diversify ran perhaps the best race of his life when winning the July 7 GII Suburban H. at Belmont by 6 1/2 lengths. His Beyer figure of 110 was the best of his career. There was a time when running a horse like that back in the Whitney would have been a no-brainer, but for much of the week leading up to the race Violette was saying he was going to sit this one out.
“He ran so fast in the Suburban,” Violette said. “It was a sub two-minute (1:59 4/5) mile-and-a-quarter and there's only been a handful of those that have happened in the last decade at Belmont. He ran so fast and he won by many lengths over what I thought was a pretty nice field. There were serious horses in there and he ran away from them. So the reflex, especially in these days when everyone is thinking about the 'bounce' was to not come back in four weeks off a performance like that. Even in the performance in the race before the Suburban, the Commentator, he ran a 'three.' You're supposed to be tuned in and not wait until they crash and say afterwards. 'I shouldn't have run him there.' My first reflex was 'discretion is the better part of valor' and skip the Whitney and go to the [Sept. 1 GI] Woodward.”
Trainers will tell you you need to listen to your horse and Diversify kept telling Violette that he needed to take a step back, rethink the situation and pay attention to how well he was doing.
“He shipped up here well, he trained well, he ate well, his breeze was phenomenal and he came out of it well,” Violette said. “His blood, which sometimes can be a little volatile, was very good for him. It was kind of like he was saying, 'Ok, chicken, enter me.' So we went in. I acted a little bit old school, paying attention to the horse and letting him tell me what to do.”
He may not have been completely comfortable with the decision, but once it was made, Violette prepared himself for what he knew could have been viewed as a major blunder.
“I feel very, very justified,” he said. “[Owner] Mr. [Ralph] Evans said to me, 'Good for you, you stuck your neck out.” He thought if we lost there we would have been open to second guessing. I've never let myself worry about second guessing. Maybe there's a little bit of arrogance there. You do what you think is right and you live with the result.”
The Woodward, which is worth $750,000, is next and it will be run on Sept. 1. Violette took a chance once. He's not going to take it again. He is still a believer that a horse had only so many big races in them.
“This is a valid theory,” he said. “Maybe it is too arbitrary, but I still believe in it. There was a time when people didn't pay attention to this and ran horses back in three weeks or four weeks and the guys in the race that were coming back in six or eight weeks just kicked butt. It doesn't have to be absolute, but it's not fiction. You can only run so many superior efforts and you have to pay attention to that. We will not run back in the Woodward. I don't care if he's kicking the stall doors down.”
Instead, Diversify will likely go next in the Sept. 29 GI Jockey Club Gold Cup, which he won last year. That will give him eight weeks between races, the type of spacing Violette–not to mention virtually every trainer on the planet–is most comfortable with.
A footnote to the Whitney was that it represented a huge day for the New York-bred program. Both Diversify and runner-up Mind Your Biscuits (Posse) are New York breds.
The Hambletonian: Horse Racing's Purest Race
In the Hambletonian, the most prestigious trotting race in America, the use of Lasix is not permitted. The same goes for its sister race, the Hambletonian Oaks. While the use of Lasix is not nearly as predominant in Standardbred racing as it is in Thoroughbred racing, Standardbreds do use it and three horses in the Hambletonian had to come off the medication. Remember, the Hambletorian is a race with heats, meaning the horses have to race twice in the same day.
The Hambletonian has been contested for 93 years and for the 93rd time, no one reportedly bled, there were no major form reversals and the race was as competitive and as exciting as ever.
A filly, Atlanta, beat the boys, the 14th time a filly has won the race and the first time since 1996. The story was made even sweeter by the fact that the horse was trained by Rick Zeron and driven by his son, Scott.
Yes, they are different breeds, but if harness racing's number-one race can be held without Lasix, why can't it happen in Thoroughbred racing, too? Just saying.
Female Jockeys: Where Have They All Gone?
When Julie Krone knocked down the doors that she did, it appeared the future was bright for female jockeys. Krone proved that a quality female rider can more than hold her own against the best male jockeys around. Then came Rosie Napravnik, who, like Krone, won some of the biggest races in the sport and showed everyone she was not just a good “girl” jockey, she was a good jockey, period.
But since Napravnik retired in 2014, not only has no one filled the void she left, it's harder than ever to find a female rider having any success. When Ferrin Peterson finished fourth in Friday's second race at Del Mar aboard Chocolate Goddess (Square Eddie), she became the first female to have a mount at the Southern California track this year. To date, not one female has ridden in a race at Saratoga in 2018. Among the top 100 riders in the country based on wins, all are male.
Peterson is an interesting story as not only is she a jockey she is a veterinarian student at U.C. Davis. She has seven career wins.
Stanley Gold's Five-Pronged Attack
Trainer Stanley Gold did not win Saturday's 13th race at Gulfstream, the $100,000 Florida Sire Desert Vixen S., but he surely made racing history along the way. In the race for 2-year-old Florida-bred fillies, Gold had five starters. Even more remarkable, all five were by the same sire (Brethren) and owned and bred by the same operation (Arindel Farm). Gold could do no better than third as Capriati came from far back to grab the show position.
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