Changing hemispheres

By Jeff Lowe

For as long as racehorses have been moved from one hemisphere to the other, the effect of crossing the equator has been an age-old mystery. How much recovery time a horse generally needs, and why, is still a complex issue for American trainers who regularly find success with horses from the Southern Hemisphere.

Hall of Fame trainers Richard Mandella and Ron McAnally follow a similar timetable before they generally feel comfortable sending a horse from the Southern Hemisphere to the races. Mandella, who has a long list of South American stars like Bal a Bali, Redattore, Gentlemen, Sandpit and Siphon accentuating his career highlights, suggested that four months is an ideal amount of time once a horse arrives to the United States before his or her first race. McAnally, with a roll call from Argentina that includes Candy Ride, Different, Paseana, Festin and Bayakoa, operates with a ballpark estimate of four to six months.

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Richard Mandella at Santa Anita Park

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Ron McAnally

"I could not tell you why they need that long," McAnally said. "It would take God almighty upstairs to answer that.

“I just know that with a horse like Candy Ride, he had about six months once he got here and he was ready to go; he won an allowance on the dirt at Hollywood Park, then he won a nine-furlong Gr2 on the turf at Hollywood Park, and he won the Pacific Classic [a $1-million Gr1] going a mile and a quarter at Del Mar.”  

Mandella's and McAnally's calendar does fly in the face of the schedule of a giant gelding who helped blaze the trail from the Southern Hemisphere to the U.S. Australian legend Phar Lap traveled 10,000 miles by ship to San Francisco in the winter bridging 1931 and '32, arriving January 15. He promptly ran away with the Aqua Caliente Handicap in Mexico just two months later, setting a track record before mysteriously dying that April.

Likewise, with the shoe on the other foot, horses from Europe regularly trek to Australia for prestigious races. Godolphin Racing's Cross Counter arrived "Down Under" last September 8 from England and came away with a victory in the Gp1 Melbourne Cup two months later. European shippers have won the Melbourne Cup five times in the last nine editions.

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Black Caviar wins the Gp1 Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Ascot

Heading the other way, horses from Australia have been successful right off the bat in Europe, with the prolific sprinter Black Caviar as perhaps the most notable example. She won the Gp1 Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot just six weeks after prevailing in the Gp1 Goodwood in Adelaide, Australia. Aidan O’Brien’s spectacular success from his Ballydoyle base in Ireland has featured a few imports from Australian and New Zealand, among them a top-caliber sprinter in Starspangledbanner and a 10-furlong specialist in So You Think.

Starspangledbanner, like Black Caviar, scored in the 2006 edition of the Gp1 Golden Jubilee at Royal Ascot, just a couple months after arriving from Australia. Conversely, So You Think had six months in between his final start “Down Under” and his European debut in Ireland.

“It all depends on the individual horse and how they adapt,” O’Brien said. “No doubt, when they don’t have to stop training and can continue exercise in quarantine, [it] is a big help.”

Mandella suggested that a break is often necessary for a Southern Hemisphere horse to adjust to its new environment and build back up after a long season back home. The differences in the U.S. include the makeup of the racetracks, as some dirt tracks in South America are much harder than the sandy loam in place at Santa Anita and elsewhere in the states. South American imports also have to adjust to wearing a saddle in their training each day, whereas back home they usually would only be ridden with a saddle in workouts and races.

"I let them down and bring them back easy and by the time I get them ready it's about four months, and I think that works real well," Mandella said. "Generally they have done quite a bit to earn the chance to come here, so they are due [for some time off], but the difference in the environment and the training is probably the biggest change, and you have to kind of re-train them to our style of training with saddles every day, traffic they have to face—those kind of things that we have at our American racetracks."

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Standing in the wings - Assistant Trainers

By Ed Golden

The term “second banana” originated in the burlesque era, which enjoyed its heyday from the 1840s to the 1940s.

There was an extremely popular comedy skit where the main comic was given a banana after delivering the punch line to a particularly funny joke. The skit and joke were so widely known that the term “top banana” was coined to refer to anyone in the top position of an organization.

The term “second banana,” referring to someone at a pejorative plateau, had a similar origin from the same skit. There would have been no Martin without Lewis, no Abbott without Costello, and no Laurel without Hardy.

Racing has its own version of second bananas, only they’re not in it for the yuks. They’re called assistants, and it’s a serious business.

Most of the laughs come in the winner’s circle, and if not outright guffaws, there at least have been miles of smiles for Hall of Fame trainer Jerry Hollendorfer and assistant Dan Ward, who spent 22 years with the late Bobby Frankel before joining Hollendorfer in 2007.

While clandestinely harboring caring emotions in their souls, on the surface, Frankel did not suffer fools well, nor does Hollendorfer. A cynic has said Ward should have been eligible for combat pay during those tours.

But he endures, currently with one of the largest and most successful barns in the nation, with 50 head at Santa Anita alone. Hollendorfer hasn’t won more than 7,400 races being lucky. It is a labor of love through dedication and scrutinization to the nth degree, leaving little or nothing to chance.

A typical day for the 71-year-old Hollendorfer and the 59-year-old Ward would challenge the workload of executives at any major corporate level. Two-hour lunches and coffee breaks are not on their priority list.

“I get to the track before three in the morning,” Ward said, “because we starting jogging horses at 3:30. It takes about a half-hour until we get every horse outside, check their legs, jog them up and down the road, and if we see something that will change our routine--the horse doesn’t look like it’s jogging right or if it’s got a hot foot--we’ll adjust the schedule.

“We won’t send a horse to the track without seeing it jog. We’ll watch all the horses breeze, and if something unexpected happens that we have to deal with, we diagnose it and take care of it. Meanwhile, we’re also going over entries and the condition book, making travel arrangements and staying current on out-of-town stakes and nominations.

“Each time a new condition book comes out, I go over it with Jerry, we agree on which races to run in, and then go out and try and find riders.

“I’ll ask him what claiming price we should run a horse for, but with big stakes horses, the owners have the final say. Jerry and I usually agree on the overnight races, but in some big stakes, it might take more time deciding which horses run in what races. All this consumes most of the day, plus doing the time sheets and the payroll.”

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Neil Drysdale & John O'Donoghue

It’s a full plate even with a shared workload, but Ward is considering flying solo should a favorable chance come his way.

“I’m hoping to go on my own,” he said. “Right now, I’m in a very good position, but if the right opportunity comes along, or if Jerry one day decides not to train anymore, I would be qualified to take over. In the future, however, I definitely hope to train on my own.”

Despite his workaholic demeanor, Ward has found time recently to enjoy a slice of life in the domestic domain.

“I was married for a year on March 6 and it’s been the best time,” he said. “My wife (Carol) already had two kids, and now they’re our kids, and it’s really great.”

Ward is a worldly man with diversity of thought, traits Hollendorfer sought when he brought him on board.

“In my barn, I often give the reins to my assistants,” Hollendorfer said. “I like them to make decisions, so when I hired Dan Ward I told him that I wasn’t looking for a ‘yes man’ but for somebody who would state his opinion, and if he felt strongly about it, to stand his ground.

“I make the final decisions, but I want a person who is not afraid to make decisions and lets me know what’s going on when I’m not there. There’s not a successful trainer I know of who doesn’t fully have good support back at his barn, and that’s where I’m coming from.

“It’s not only Dan who makes important contributions, it’s (assistants) John Chatlos at Los Alamitos and Juan Arriaga and (wife) Janet Hollendorfer in Northern California.

“Your supporting cast of assistant trainers has to be solid, too,” said Hollendorfer, who had a trio of three-year-olds hoping to prove they were Triple Crown worthy at press time: Choo Choo, a son of English Channel owned and bred by Calumet Farm; Lecomte winner Instilled Regard; and San Vicente winner Kanthaka.

“If horses are good enough to go (on the Triple Crown trail), you go,” Ward said. “If you miss it, you concentrate on a late-season campaign. It worked well for Shared Belief and Battle of Midway.”  Shared Belief, champion two-year-old male of 2013, won 10 of 12 career starts but missed the 2014 Kentucky Derby due to an abscess in his right front foot. Given the necessary time off, he recovered and won the Pacific Classic later that year, and in 2015, the Santa Anita Handicap.

Battle of Midway outran his odds of 40-1 finishing third in the 2017 Kentucky Derby and won the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile last November.

Ron McAnally, in the homestretch of a Hall of Fame career that has reaped a treasure trove of icons led by two-time Horse of the Year John Henry, is down to a dozen runners at age 85, none poised to join Bayakoa, Paseana, Northern Spur, and Tight Spot on the trainer’s list of champions. As McAnally says, “I have outlived all my owners,” save for his wife, Deborah, and a handful of others.

Still, maiden or lowly claimer, Thoroughbreds deserve the best of care, which any dedicated trainer readily provides, cost be damned. His glorious past well behind him, trouper that he is, McAnally remains a regular at Santa Anita, although leaving all the heavy lifting to longtime assistant Dan Landers.

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Dan Landers

Landers was born in a racing trunk, to paraphrase an old show business lexicon. His late father, Dale, rode at Santa Anita the first day it opened, on Christmas Day 1934, and won the second race on a horse named Let Her Play. Landers still has a chart of the race.

“Even if I weren’t here for a few weeks, Dan would know what to do because he’s been with us a long time,” McAnally said. “Dan really works hard, and although he’s got three or four grooms, if they don’t perform their duties as they should, he finds someone else.

“That’s the type of guy he is. He wants things done perfectly--the barn is always clean--and that’s what you look for in an assistant, someone who can take your place when you’re not there, and he’s there.

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The sunshine boys - Ron McAnally and Murray Friedlander

First published in North American Trainer issue 43 - February to April '17