Page 11 - The Game July 2006
P. 11

Your Thoroughbred Racing Community Newspaper The Game, July 2006 11
A special win for Slade
Representatives from Barbados flank jockeys (left to right) Jim McAleney, Todd Kabel, Slade Callaghan and Patrick Husbands. Slade Callaghan was the winning jockey in the Incitatus Cup during Barbados Day at Woodbine on June 10.
Michael Burns Photo - courtesy of WEG
By Chris Lomon
Slade Callaghan was thrilled to win one for an old friend.
Callaghan, closing in on 600 wins in his riding career, didn't need to be reminded about the significance of winning the race dubbed the Incitatus Cup aboard Archeress, in an event that honours the late Barbadian thoroughbred hero each year on Barbados Day at Woodbine Racetrack.
"It's sad how things turned out for him, he was a great horse," said the 35-year-old native of Barbados, in reference to the multiple stakes-winning star, the only Barbadian-bred horse to ever win the prestigious Grade 1 Gold Cup, who died tragically after a race at Hastings Park in 2004. "He had the coolest personality you'll ever find in a racehorse."
The pair teamed to win three stakes races at Woodbine in 1999 and 2000, including the Grade 3 Connaught Cup seven years ago, a three-length score at odds of 13-1.
And while it was his penchant for turfing the competition on the Toronto oval grass that brought him the most attention from the public, both in Canada and in Barbados, Callaghan's fondest memory of Incitatus has nothing to do with winning races.
"After he'd finish his training, he'd go grazing in the ditches on the backstretch," said Callaghan, who just missed winning the Grade 2 Hong Kong Jockey Club Trophy Stakes with Incitatus in 1999, just a head back of Crown Attorney. "That was his favourite spot. It was slanted, so he didn't have to bend all the way down. He could almost eat the grass head high. He would stand out there for an hour or more and not want to come into his stall during the summertime."
Although he found ways to conserve his energy off the racetrack, it was quite the opposite whenever the gate opened.
"On the track, he was all business," praised Callaghan, who was aboard the son of Nosferatu for a resounding 2 1/2-length triumph in the Grade 2 King Edward Breeders' Cup in 2000. "You couldn't get a more gutsy horse than him. He'd try every time. You can't ask for more than that."
While his performances were typically big, Incitatus, who finished fourth in the Grade 2 Bowling Green Handicap in 2000,
was anything but imposing from a physical standpoint.
"He was a tiny guy," noted Callaghan, of the lifetime winner of 19 races from 63 starts. "He was by no means a big horse, but he
always ran huge. He was just all heart."
Something Callaghan, who notched his 500th Woodbine
victory in 2005, found himself recalling the day after his victory in the Incitatus Cup.
"I was thinking about him as soon as I woke up the morning after the race," remarked the man who recorded his first Canadian win at Fort Erie with a three-year-old named Roccoski on May 8, 1994. "He was a great horse."
As for what race stands out as the most memorable with Incitatus, Callaghan can't narrow it down to one in particular.
"Every time I rode him was special," he said. "He gave you everything he had."
Did You Know....
That trainer Robert Tiller recorded four wins at Woodbine on Sunday, June 4. Fantom Executive and Pretty Prissy won
the first and second races of the day for a ‘Tiller double.’ Dave The Knave, a son of Whiskey Wisdom Tiller
co-owns, took the fourth race while Disorderinthecourt was the winner of the ninth.
The three-time Sovereign Award winning trainer currently sits fourth in the trainer’s standings at Woodbine with a record of 21-19-17 and $1,031,900 in 107 starts. He is only one win
behind last year’s leading trainer, Sid Attard and trainer Mark Casse who are currently tied at 22 wins a piece; Tiller is
7 wins behind current leader and 2005 Sovereign Award winning trainer, Reade Baker who has 28 wins so far this season. (stats as of June 26, 2006)
KIMCHI - CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10
......so with both fillies carrying the prescribed 121, the shift favoured Kimchi by 8 pounds.
Kimchi is the second straight Manitoba-bred filly to win the Oaks (Gold Strike last year) and owner Sal Simeone bought the horse as a yearling for his Seasoft Stable because trainer Mark Casse made a persuasive prediction.
“I said ‘Sal we’re going to buy this one’” recalls Casse, “‘Because this one is going to win the Oaks for us.’”
Like several others in the race, Kimchi’s three-year-old season was compromised by health issues. She was, literally, itching to run.
“She’s had hives for two months,” Casse told reporters after the race, “We took a culture test on her and she came back allergic to about 30 things, oats, hay, barn dust.”
Apparently the filly’s immune system has kicked in, the hives have abated and she’s certainly not allergic to racing.
Now about that name, Kimchi?
“We have a real good friend who’s Korean and we eat in his restaurant all the time,” explained Simeone, “Kimchi is actually Korean food. It’s a spicy cabbage but everybody thinks it’s a martial art or something.”
Simeone is from New York, but with the dollar worth 90 cents U.S. on Oaks day, his $300,000 share of the purse won’t discourage him from racing more of his horses at Woodbine, which he says is a wonderful track. He also did extremely well at the windows, admitting that he bet $1000 across the board on Kimchi. That meant an untaxed bonus of $15,350 for Sal and his wife Colleen.
Trainer Casse is confident that Kimchi will light up the board a few more times this summer.
“I think she’s the best looking horse that I’ve got in my barn,” he says, “She travels better on the grass than she does on the dirt. We’ll go to Fort Erie for the Bison City Stakes, then come back here. You know what - she’s going to love the polytrack.”
Sounds as if one way or another, there’s a lot of cabbage in Kimchi’s future.
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