BackTrack: Wise Dan Defends Turf in Breeders' Cup Mile

He was going to win all day, every day, and twice on Sundays. You could tell it in the mornings before the race, when Wise Dan kicked up his heels around the Santa Anita Park stable area and dragged exercise rider Damian Rock through a morning gallop on the turf that turned into a two-minute lick, the Horse of the Year just so darn fast. You could feel it on the afternoon of Nov. 2 when he sauntered into the paddock, preparing to defend his title in the $1,840,000 Breeders' Cup Mile (G1T) like a prizefighter entering the ring. You could see it when he had the pacesetters in his sights with that old Dan feeling, swinging out to make his move off the final turn with the surge of a barreling freight train.

But solid knowledge of what they had didn't keep Wise Dan's connections from joining the grandstand in getting him home, and out there on that wide green oval through the rush of nostrils and hoofbeats and wind, perhaps the brilliant chestnut runner could hear them hollering—"Come on, Dan! Come on, Dan! Come on, Dan!"

Say what you like about Wise Dan's 2013 campaign; when others faltered, he came through. You have to win in the end, and Wise Dan delivered, wrapping up the most consistent season of any other horse in the handicap and turf divisions.

"I don't see any other horse," trainer Charlie LoPresti said the following morning of the debate for year-end honors. "I try not to be biased, but he ran at five tracks this year and on all kinds of bad track conditions. He never dodged anybody.

"If Game On Dude had won the Classic (G1), he would have been unbeaten this year, and I could not have questioned that if he were Horse of the Year."

In fact, Morton Fink's 6-year-old Wiseman's Ferry gelding put himself in perfect position to repeat a sweep of the Eclipse Awards he took home last season, when he won not only Horse of the Year, but took home outstanding older male and turf male honors as well. He rebounded from his only loss of the past 12 months—a runner-up finish in an off-the-turf edition of the Oct. 5 Shadwell Turf Mile Stakes (G1) run on soggy Polytrack at Keeneland—to win this year's Breeders' Cup Mile in 1:32.47, less than a second slower than the course record he set last year in the same race. It was his fourth grade 1 victory of 2013 and the eighth of his career, which includes the Clark Handicap (G1) on dirt in 2011.

"I never lost any faith in the horse," LoPresti remarked, breathing a sigh of relief after breaking a personal 27-race losing streak. "He is an exceptional animal…he's sound, and he loves to run. He came through. He's just a good horse; he's a really good horse."

A stumble from the gate at the start of the Mile left pinch hitter Jose Lezcano going to "plan B" when he found himself farther back than usual on the 4-5 favorite from post 8 in a 10-horse field. Lezcano, picking up the mount for injured Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez, jumped in as an 11th-hour substitution with ice water in his veins, rating Wise Dan well in eighth behind horses off a suicidal opening pace of :21.94 and :44.47 set by grade 1 winner Obviously, who opened up by two lengths with Silver Max  closest behind.

"I have the utmost faith in him because he knows the horse; he knows what kind of horse he's sitting on," LoPresti said of Lezcano. "He went to 'plan B,' he didn't panic, and it all worked out. (Wise Dan) was farther back than I've ever seen him, but that's not a bad thing because of the pace up front. I wasn't sure he was going to get there, but I knew he was rolling around the turn. I was a little worried that he was that far back, but I saw those fractions up front, and I knew he was going to come with a run."

With Obviously showing the way through three-quarters in 1:08.55, others began to make their moves. Three-time grade 3 winner Za Approval ranged up with a powerful outside run to take the lead off the final turn under Joel Rosario, one with a good shot after finishing second to Wise Dan in his record Ricoh Woodbine Mile Stakes (G1T) earlier this year. But Wise Dan loomed.

Straightened out after closing four wide, the defending champion switched leads and found another gear, closing ground with powerful strides to strike the front in deep stretch. He finished three-quarters of a length ahead of Christophe Clement trainee Za Approval at 18-1, with 31-1 shot Silentio another three-quarters behind. Silver Max, Obviously, No Jet Lag, Cristoforo Colombo, He Be Fire N Ice , Olympic Glory, and Bright Thought completed the order of finish.

In defeat, the vanquished had only plaudits for the victor. What else could you say?

"When (Za Approval) made the lead, I thought I was going to get there," Rosario remarked. "I knew somebody was coming, and when I heard Wise Dan, I said, 'Oh, no!' My horse ran his best. Wise Dan is just too good."

Wise Dan returned $3.60 to win while earning $1.1 million, which increased his career total to $6,293,610 earned with 19 wins and two seconds from 27 starts. He was bred in Kentucky by Fink out of the Wolf Power mare Lisa Danielle, a $29,000 yearling purchase from the Keeneland September sale in 1995, and has been trained his entire career by LoPresti and wife Amy, with support from a team that includes Rock and Wise Dan's main man, Reeve McGaughey.

"I'm really proud of what he did today," LoPresti said. "It was just incredible what he did. A good horse will always overcome things, and he's a very good horse. I don't even know what to say. He's the best horse in the world."

Jumping aboard Wise Dan was a cinch for Lezcano, who has been a substitute for regular rider Velazquez four times, all in grade 1 races. All they do is win. The duo took Keeneland's April 12 Maker's 46 Mile Stakes (G1T) by a length in the gelding's first start of the year, won the May 4 Woodford Reserve Turf Classic Stakes (G1T) at Churchill Downs by 4 3/4, and last year took the Oct. 6 Shadwell Turf Mile Stakes (G1T) at Keeneland by 2 1/4 lengths. The jockey likens riding Wise Dan to driving a Mercedes, or a Ferrari—"all good machines," he said. Velazquez, who underwent emergency surgery to remove his spleen after his mount Secret Compass broke down in the Juvenile Fillies (G1), had been in the irons last year for Wise Dan's Mile win. He also piloted for the gelding's other 2013 victories: the Woodbine Mile repeat in a track-record 1:31.75, a second consecutive edition of the Fourstardave Handicap (G2T) at Saratoga Race Course, and the Firecracker Handicap (G2T).

"Everybody pray for Johnny and his family," was Lezcano's post-race request. "You don't want to see that happen to a good guy like him… (and) we're sorry. This is not the way you want to pick up good horses. Johnny is one of the best guys in the business, and you feel bad when something happens to a guy like that."

Updates on Velazquez were positive the morning of Nov. 3 as the jockey recovered from surgery, although he was expected to remain hospitalized at Huntington Memorial for several days.

The last-minute loss of Velazquez mirrored Wise Dan's season overall—when of all outside factors to abound, only one got the best of him. It has been a harried season for LoPresti, who admittedly puts pressure on himself to make the right decisions for the star runner. If ever a horse had an excuse to throw in the towel, it was in the Woodford Turf Classic, run on yielding ground that even caused the scratch of Breeders' Cup Turf (G1T) contender Point of Entry , or in the Firecracker, also on yielding ground. In the latter some old-school race-riding caused Wise Dan to hit the hedge, and he still was able to rebound. In the former, sheets of rain slicked the lawn. Only the off-the-turf Shadwell proved too much, a 1 1/4-length finish behind Silver Max, raising doubts as to whether the gelding had lost a step.

"The scuttlebutt was that they lost some faith in him, but I never lost any faith in the horse," LoPresti said. "I don't think the weather conditions and the track conditions helped us. I blame myself a little bit for it because he ran such a great race at Woodbine, and I didn't breeze the horse in between.

"I thought that he got so much out of that race and he was so great that maybe that was the wrong thing to do, to breeze him, and I don't know if that got him beat. I still think that maybe I should have breezed him one time in between. I didn't make the same mistake between that race and this race. I breezed him once, and he had some strong gallops. I knew he was ready. But I know one thing about him—even in defeat, he'll give you his all."

Morton Fink, who attends every race with his wife, Elaine, and other family members to watch Wise Dan, will celebrate his 84th birthday next month. Sitting in the interview room—"same place as last year," he said—he promised Wise Dan will run again.

"As long as the horse is sound and close to being just like he is now, he runs," Fink said. "If he's over the hill, he's done more than enough for us, and he won't.

"I don't think you can come up with the right words on how proud I am of him, but I can tell you that I got my birthday party a little early this year. He keeps me going; I've said this before, and I've meant it. You ask my family; they don't even want to think of how it would be without Wise Dan."

Wise Dan left Santa Anita in the early hours of Nov. 3, and arrived safely in Kentucky later that afternoon. The Mile concludes what LoPresti called "a hard year," and while the gelding's connections are committed to running him as long as he's happy and healthy, they won't rush his 2014 return.

"We may even send him to Dr. Bramlage this year at the clinic, just to go over him," LoPresti said. "I was really worried going into this race because he's had a hard year. You've got to be really careful with a horse because the best races are at the end of the year, and maybe we won't have him ready at Keeneland to run in the spring; maybe it will be May or maybe it will be Saratoga. And I'm dadgum sure going to keep him away from those handicaps. I'm not going to run him where everybody thinks I should run him, I'm going to run him where it makes the most sense."

Last year LoPresti turned Wise Dan out at his Forest Lane Farm until late January, rest for a job well done. It has been his standard operating procedure to shut the gelding down in November and bring him back in the spring.

"One thing about this horse that's really good is, it's really easy to turn the switch off on him; he's a very smart horse," the trainer remarked. "All I've got to do is bring him to my farm and put him in the round pen for a couple of days and turn him in his paddock and it's like he just says, 'OK,' and he knows it's time to take a break. And then some time in January he'll start running up and down the fence racing horses; then it's time to go back to work.

"Last year, he and that horse Villandry were turned out side-by-side. One day both of them got racing up and down the fence line against each other. They were stopping in the corners, slide-stopping, going the other way…and I said 'OK.' I told Amy, 'Let's get him out of here and take him back to Keeneland,' and that's what we did."