LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Drosselmeyer won the $5 million Breeders’ Cup last night — and who gives a fig?
Who cares, that is beyond those who own him, train him and ride him and, most of all, bet him. In the week leading up to this race, I told my racing colleague Ed Fountaine that the worst nightmare a writer could have in this race would have a horse like Drossselmeyer win it all, to beat a fine colt like Uncle Mo, a brilliant filly like Havre de Grace, an international superstar like So You Think.
I was wrong. This terrific winner of last year’s Belmont Stakes, Drosselmeyer came like a rocket through the Churchill Downs stretch, under the lights and beneath a moonlit sky, to whip one of the gamest runs ever in the race by Game on Dude by a length and a half.
But who could ever guess that in the greatest race since the Kentucky Derby, the winner would be ridden by Mike Smith, whipping his old girlfriend Chantal Sutherland aboard Game on Dude, the lovers who broke up after a screen romance in the TV soap opera “Jockeys.” You just can’t make this stuff up.
It gets even better. Smith last year was the bitter, crushing loser in the Classic when he failed by a lip on the wonder mare Zenyatta to beat Blame at the wire. But the story line goes on . . .
Drosselmeyer’s trainer, Bill Mott, perhaps best known for his work with the fabulous Cigar, also won the Ladies Classic on Friday with Royal Delta, a helluva daily double. All in all, who could believe it all?
After Drosselmeyer shocked the Belmont at 13-1, the late writer Vic Ziegel observed: “No one really knows how to pronounce Drossselmeyer’s name. But then, they have not had much reason to.”
No more. The four-year-old son of Distorted Humor is firmly, brilliantly engraved in the history books now with two great classic races against his name. He now has earned more than $4 million, which is more than a lot of lotteries pay.
That said, the Classic result was a towering anti-climax to a Breeder’s Cup that rocked the old racetrack all day, driving horseplayers to the brink with one long shot bomb after another. Only one favorite, Regally Ready, scored all day.
The performance of all the supposed main players in the Classic was downright disgraceful. Uncle Mo, one of the most talked about horses in the land, bet down to 5-1, chased Game On Dude all the way till they reached the stretch when the real galloping began. Then he folded quicker than a concertina to finish third last, a nose ahead of his disgraced stablemate Stay Thirsty who didn’t lift a leg.
Flat Out, the 7-2 favorite, was never a factor. He sat eighth nearly all the way, made a little ground in the stretch, to finish a dismal fifth.
So You Think was beautifully placed on the rail, running fourth all the way, loomed a possible winner at the eighth pole, then retreated to finish sixth. Havre de Grace was way back, buried in sixth for most of the trip. She eventually got fourth money.
Ruler On Ice, the upset winner of this year’s Belmont, surprised again with a fine effort, coming from tenth to get third at 17-1.
Ice Box, the longest shot on the board at 30-1, at least finished in front of Uncle Mo and Stay Thirsty after lagging in the rear most of the way.
“What did he get beat? Five lengths,” asked his trainer, Nick Zito”
Horseplayers will not easily forget this Classic day with winners pummeling them left and right at 41-1, 11-1, 7-1. 6-1, 6-1, 7-1 64-1, then to cap it off, old Drosselmeyer at 14-1.
Uncle Mo’s failure to run the Classic’s mile and a quarter was no surprise to the railbirds. All week, his breeding raised a multitude of skeptics and, in the running, they were proven right. Owner Mike Repole and trainer Todd Pletcher blew it.
“Uncle Mo didn’t settle really well,” Pletcher said. “He looked like he was struggling with the surface,” Pletcher said.
“You’re always disappointed when they don’t run as expected,” Velazquez said. “When he went up the back, the track started breaking underneath him and he lost it.”
The ground also broke beneath a lot of horseplayers — and they lost it, too.
After these results, everyone needs to go back to the drawing board.