Calvin Borel loses Mine That Bird ride in Woodward Stakes
This will probably be a week that Calvin Borel will prefer to forget.
First Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver was a dismal 10th of 11, beaten 24 lengths, in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga on Saturday. Twenty-four hours later Borel rode the same 10 furlongs in the Personal Ensign Stakes and for eight of them looked as though he might win on crowd favourite Rachel Alexandra.
Then the final furlong became a 13-second torture as Rachel Alexandra’s stride began to crumble and Persistently nailed her in the final strides. If Borel thought that he had hit rock bottom with defeats on two of his Triple Crown winners then he was sadly mistaken. The light he could see at the end of the tunnel was simply the headlights of a juggernaut of disappointment that was heading his way.
Twelve months ago Borel rode Rachel Alexandra to a victory in the Woodward Stakes that went a long way to securing the Horse of the Year award but this year he will be on the sidelines, having lost the ride on Mine That Bird.
Jockeys are often the ones who receive the biggest portion of the blame when a horse is beaten and when Mine That Bird was beaten 12½ lengths into fifth behind Blame, in the Whitney Handicap at the Spa at the beginning of last month, he appears to have been the one to be held accountable.
While there may be valid reasons, Mine That Bird has failed to win any of his seven runs since he won last year’s Kentucky Derby by seven lengths and the gelding’s owners, Leonard Blach and Mark Allen, have already made changes to the personnel. In May they moved the horse from Chip Woolley’s barn to D Wayne Lukas.
Lukas decided on a change of strategy by running Mine That Bird over a mile on turf in the Grade Two Firecracker Handicap at Churchill, but the horse failed to ignite. However, it is Borel who has taken the rocket in the belief that, according to Lukas, the jockey should have been closer on the pace.
“I hate to lose him,” Borel said. “I wish he had been there for me a little more in that race. I’d like to get one more chance. Let them do what they want, they’ll come back around.”
Lukas, who said that owners had been a party to the decision to change jockeys, told the Daily Racing Form: “They were a little disappointed being so far back in those fractions early, knowing it was a speed-favouring race and knowing those horses weren’t going to come back. We were even way behind Blame, so we feel like we had to make a change. That’s not to say this is a permanent deal.”
Rajiv Maragh takes the ride but Lukas is throwing everything into this one by also running Mine That Bird in blinkers as well. “Blinkers on, different rider, yeah we're going to try,” Lukas said. “We’re not getting where we want to be the other way, so with all respect to Calvin, and nobody rides him probably any better, but having said that we're going to try to do something different. See if we can get him more into the race, more focused. The blinkers will probably help us more than anything.”
Lukas will need all the help he can get as he will have 12 lengths to make up on Quality Road from the Whitney on 8lbs worse terms. Quality Road, who is likely to be the hot favourite, did not appear to quite see out the nine furlongs in the Whitney but his trainer, Todd Pletcher, is not concerned. “The nature of the game is you win, you lose, you got to regroup and try again no matter what,” Pletcher said.
Borel is probably trying to do just that.
Tags: