At the Haskell, Nothing Left to Chance

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IF, AS EXPECTED, American Pharoah tops all comers in August 2’s Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park, it won’t be a surprise. And, for sure, it won’t be an accident.
With Trainer Todd Pletcher adding Competitive Edge, a Grade 1 winner, the field now at four horses just got stronger, but American Pharoah remains the odds on and popular favorite and is the attraction for what is expected to be a record crowd of 60,000, with reserved and parterre seating skyrocketing on ticket sales venues like StubHub.
“Championship horses don’t win big races by accident,” says Holly Crest Farm trainer John Mazza. “Their owners, trainers and handlers make sure that every detail needed to keep a champion in top form is covered.”
Today, horses coming a long distance to a stakes race are flown to the track’s location and do not have to endure long road trips in horse vans. Currently American Pharoah has two flights booked, one to Atlantic City airport and the other Newark airport. Either way he will receive a state police escort to Monmouth Park.

Thoroughbreds get bathed daily after workouts and races. Photo: Art Petrosemolo
Thoroughbreds get bathed daily after workouts and races. Photo: Art Petrosemolo

A trainer also may fly in a special blacksmith for new racing shoes, or bring in a particular feed or hay while adhering to a training schedule at an unfamiliar track that is suited to the horse as it preps for a race against top competition. No detail is too small not to be important.
Just keeping a super horse like Pharoah, who may come along once in 20-30 years, healthy, isn’t the only detail under the watchful eye of an elite trainer like Bob Baffert. Horses and riders need to be comfortable on a new track. “Trainers know how their horses adapt to a new surface,” says Mazza. “The horse may need only one morning gallop on the track to be ready or he may need more.”
And, according to Monmouth Park Starter John Daniels, who will send the Haskell field out of the gate, “schooling at the star ting gate isn’t unusual either.” Daniels explains that although these experienced horses may not have a problem being loaded into a gate and standing quietly for the start, the top trainers, when they have the time, will bring championship horses to be schooled at the track’s gate especially if they haven’t run there before.
So champion horses are well fed, bedded, shoed and exercised getting used to a new track and starting gate.
But what about the jockeys? Many riders spend the majority of their careers at just a few locations and may ride infrequently – possibly just for big stakes races – at tracks like Saratoga, Belmont, Churchill Downs or Monmouth Park. “Riders need to get a feel for the track too,” says jockey’s agent and former elite rider Jorge Valasquez. Valasquez rode Alydar in 1978 to second place finishes in Triple Crown races against Affirmed in an exciting spring for racing fans.
“A rider needs to feel the surface near the rail and the middle of the track,” Valasquez says, “and also get a sense of the turns. You can’t do that by watching races on TV.” Local jockeys also may help newcomers with track information during morning conversations in the jockeys’ room.

Morning workouts are essential to keep thoroughbreds fit. Photo: Art Petrosemolo
Morning workouts are essential to keep thoroughbreds fit. Photo: Art Petrosemolo

Top jockeys like Pharoah’s Victor Espinoza, who won the Haskell in 2002 aboard War Emblem, isn’t as familiar with the Monmouth track as Paco Lopez, Joe Bravo, and other track regulars. In all likelihood, Espinoza will arrive a day or so before the Haskell and gallop Pharoah or another of Trainer Baffert’s horses to re-familiarize himself with the track surface. And he might even ride one or two races on Haskell Day before the featured race.
The Triple Crown winner may even be paraded for the crowds during the Pharoah Phan Phestival, which promises numerous special events throughout the weekend.
Monmouth Park’s track surface was re-done completely in 1978 according to Bob Juliano, former director of facilities, and revitalized in 2006 before the Breeders’ Cup. The track has a deep impervious base to keep the area’s high water table from reaching the surface during heavy rain. The track is horse and rider friendly with a clay cushion as well as a 4-inch dirt top surface. It is regarded as a fast track.
The track is now maintained by superintendent Bill Anderson and according to owner-trainer Ed Barney, who has been at fixture at Monmouth since 1947, “He does an excellent job.” Barney points to the fact that Anderson flattens (seals) the dirt surface at the end of each day to keep rain from soaking deep into the base and then grooms it ever y morning prior to workouts or racing.
So knowing that owners and trainers go out of their way to be sure everything is done to keep a champion thoroughbred, successful and knowing American Pharoah is a super horse and none of his Haskell competition has come close to pushing him in his undefeated 3-year-old, Triple Crown season and finally knowing a one-sided win in the Haskell both adds to Pharoah’s fame and stud fees when he retires later this year, if you are a bettor, maybe you should be just handicapping second place.
And then again, as they say, “that’s why they call it a horse race.”