Friday, December 13, 2002
Toccet's owner bucks the trend
By Bill Finley
Special to ESPN.com
What a breath of fresh air this Dan Borislow guy is.
He has a very good horse named Toccet and what does he do? He enjoys him, he tries to make money with him and he races him. How revolutionary!
In the Dec. 21 Hollywood Futurity, Toccet is scheduled to make his eighth start of the year, his fourth in eight weeks and his third since the Breeders' Cup. It wasn't that long ago when such a campaign wouldn't have been the least bit unusual. Secretariat ran nine times as a 2-year-old, as did Affirmed and Spectacular Bid. But between back then and now someone decided that the right thing to do with a horse is to pamper him to death, racing them as few times as they can and giving them as much time between races as is possible. Far more typical is the campaign that likely 2-year-old champion Vindication had. He started just four times this year and his owner apparently never gave any serious thought to running him again this season after his win in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile.
While no one has a right to tell anyone else what to do with their horses, the new conventional wisdom in racing is far from a good thing for the sport. Over the years, too many stakes races have turned into four or five-horse affairs, perhaps dominated by a single heavy favorite. We never get to see the rivalries anymore that were so special, like Affirmed versus Alydar. And it became much harder for any horse, no matter how good, to catch on with the general public. A four or five-race campaign is just not enough to build up any kind of following.
The reasoning seemed to be that horses aren't as sturdy and as durable as they used to and that's why it made sense to take it so easy on them. But maybe it was the other way around: any horse that is raced so few times will never be able to build up a proper foundation or enough toughness to withstand the rigors of racing. At the very least, no one can make a case that the new methodology has been working. No horse has won the Triple Crown since 1978 and fewer horses than ever seem to last beyond their 4-year-old, or even 3-year-old, campaigns.
Borislow could have succumbed to the same supposed logic after Toccet finished ninth in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, a race in which he was greatly compromised by a terrible post position (13). There didn't seem to be much to gain the rest of the year and they could always freshen him up to prepare for next year's Kentucky Derby. But Borislow and trainer John Scanlan noticed that their son of Awesome Again seemed to thrive on work.
"We have to walk him four times a day and he gains weight after his races instead of losing it," Borislow said. "We decided that the safest course was to keep him active and running."
So Toccet returned just three weeks after his Breeders' Cup debacle and won the Laurel Futurity. Two weeks later, he won the Remsen at Aqueduct for his third stakes win this year. (He won the Grade I Champagne prior to the Breeders' Cup). Though the Remsen is the last major race of the year in the East for 2-year-olds, Borislow still wouldn't back off. At 41, he's old enough to remember the great horses like Spectacular Bid and Affirmed and how they were handled. It started to dawn on him that maybe he was on to something. So, he intends to haul Toccet across country just a couple days before the Hollywood Futurity to take on the best active colts in Southern California. After that, he'll look for another race, maybe one on the turf. An extended rest is not part of the plan.
"That's one of the great things about horse racing, nobody knows what the right thing to do with a horse is," he said. "You're constantly learning in this business. Owning Toccet gave me an opportunity to go back and see how other people have done it over the years. Maybe some of these trainers have been doing it wrong. If you want a horse to be a champion, to perform well in the Triple Crown races, in the Breeders' Cup and stick around for a while, I'm beginning to believe that the only course of action to take is the one we're taking with Toccet. How else are you going to get the base and the strength to keep going? I think we're going to have a huge advantage over some of the others around Triple Crown time next year."
Borislow, already retired after making his fortune in the telecommunications industry, has grown so emboldened by Toccet's recent success that he has issued a challenge both to Vindication's owner, Satish Sanan, and to Eclipse voters.
In a full-page advertisement in last Sunday's Daily Racing Form, he proposed a six-figure horse-for-horse wager between Toccet and Vindication should they both run in the Hollywood Futurity, and Borislow would put up $200,000 versus Sanan's $100,000. It was really nothing more than a bit of grandstanding. Vindication is not in serious training right now and hasn't had a workout since before the Breeders' Cup. They couldn't run him even if they wanted to.
More interesting was his challenge to Eclipse voters to vote for Toccet, and not Vindication, for the 2-year-old championship should Vindication win the Hollywood Futurity.
"At the end of the day, I know that it will be difficult for people to not vote for Vindication," he said. "The only knock I have on him is that he should have run more than four times this year. Should he win the Futurity, no one will have had the kind of 2-year-old campaign that Toccet will have had since Spectacular Bid. Nobody else will have the kind of record he'll have and he's just a May foal. He's an amazing horse."
Unfortunately, Toccet doesn't stand a prayer of winning an Eclipse Award, not against an undefeated horse who beat him in the Breeders' Cup. Voters will not go that far against the grain. I will, however. Toccet has my vote if he wins next week. Call it a protest vote against the wimpifying of this sport.
Everyone who likes this game ought to root for Toccet. We don't need overly cautious owners who never take the kid gloves off or horses who are overprotected and babied to the detriment of the sport. We need some horses with some fortitude and some owners who aren't afraid to take a shot.
Got get 'em, Dan.
