Backstretch with Gordon--Wednesday

Of course my first morning Wednesday on The Red Mile backstretch I had to head directly to the stall of the best trotter in the land, so I headed right to where I knew Donato Hanover was—and then I just kind of glanced over as I knew the next barn over was Waterstone, the 2-year-old trotter trained by Jimmy Takter.

For those who don’t know—and for a lot of you that really probably don’t care—Jimmy  was kind enough to name a horse for me this year, a Yankee Glide colt he paid $70,000 for at the yearling sale. He also bought a Kadabra filly for $50,000 that he named for my boss, Kathy Parker, but she got hurt early and hasn’t started. As one person kidded Kathy, the only thing that Kathy Parker—the horse—might be good for is a broodmare.

But back to Waterstone—the horse. Jimmy told me early on he had high hopes for him, and when he won his first start in 1:59.4 at Mohawk in early August—paying $24.40 without me having a dime on him since I didn’t even know he was in to go—I thought maybe Jimmy was right. But Waterstone broke his next two starts and I began to fear "we" might become a gelding.

Jimmy entered him in a Simpson early last week here at The Red Mile, and that meant I would have a chance to see my namesake up close and personal for the first time. But Waterstone never made it to the gate as he went offstride again. So what does Jimmy do? He enters him in a Bluegrass division tomorrow at The Red Mile and I get David Miller driving. And who are we up against? A tough field, including world-champion Muscle Mass.

Speaking of Muscle Mass, I had dinner with his driver, Dave Palone, last night, who kidded me he’d like nothing more than to beat Waterstone (the horse). Actually, our dinner went to the dogs as the start of the social events intertwined with Grand Circuit Racing got underway. One of the local restaurants had a special “Canine Night” where you could bring your dog, so Dave and his wife, Bethann, brought along their young baby and their dog, Josie. Also along was Nick Salvi and his dog, Diesel, and Brendan “Stumpy” Johnson and his massive, 130-pound Great Dane, Jake.

Let me digress no more and get back to The Red Mile, where I also stopped by this morning to see Dan Shetler, who was involved in that first-race, post-parade collision yesterday afternoon with Tim Tetrick that left both race bikes unusable. Dan told me that Tetrick had been delayed coming onto the track with his horse and was caught going the wrong way as the field was coming back. Dan said it was lucky he saw Tim in time or a head-on collision would have occurred, which obviously would have been much more disastrous. But as Dan said, “We got the Grand Circuit meet off to a bang.”

One other person I saw was Bob Anderson, who shares ownership of the 3-year-old filly trotter Pampered Princess, who will race against her own division Friday in a Bluegrass split after four straight starts against the boys in the Hambletonian and Canadian Trotting Classic. Bob said he might be game enough to start Pampered Princess against the colts—and Donato Hanover—in the Kentucky Futurity the closing Saturday of the meet, but David is against the idea.

Bob said in a perfect world Pampered Princess would beat Donato Hanover in the first elimination or heat, and then not come back for the second heat. The Andersons are not too fond of heat racing, so it will be interesting to see what happens if by some small chance they pass on the Filly Futurity and go against the colts. He said any final decision will come after she races this Friday against a field that includes her arch-rival Possess The Magic.

Finally, the record-breaking heat has finally broken this morning as it has cooled off a bit and the high temperature today is expected to be “just” 84. But rain is in the forecast, and even more so tomorrow. And for those veterans of Backstretch, it’s $2.69, $2.74 and $2.76.

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