Crimson Giant Chasing Unlikely Big 'Cap Glory

Call them kindred spirits—the old horse who keeps on running and the old trainer who keeps on training, loss after loss.



You'd think Crimson Giant's 1-for-66 record would make any pundit cynical. The 6-year-old by Formal Gold is on a staggering 57-race losing streak since breaking his maiden at Santa Anita Park in November of 2011.



But trainer Charlie Stutts doesn't have a cynical bone in his body. If anything, he's eternally optimistic. You'd have to be to do what Stutts and owner Bryan Carney are planning with Crimson Giant—sending the homebred gelding out March 7 to face Shared Belief in the $1 million Santa Anita Handicap (gr. I).



Point to any race on Crimson Giant's seemingly endless past-performance sheet and the 73-year-old veteran who puts on his tack will put a positive spin on it.



Last time out, in the race of his life, 33-1 Crimson Giant ran second by a nose Feb. 20 in a mile third-condition allowance optional claiming event at Santa Anita. He would have won, of course, Stutts will tell you, if first-time-aboard apprentice jockey Brandon Boulanger didn't get his whip tangled in the reins in the stretch.



Two starts before, in another allowance optional claiming race at six furlongs, the gelding ran second to grade I-placed Seeking the Sherif at odds of 70-1. He has never started at the 1 1/4-mile distance of the Big 'Cap; in fact, he has never raced longer than a mile. 



If there's a reason for optimism, Stutts and Carney will find it, but it's the mass of misfires for the California-bred out of Exclusive Era mare Mia Lena—almost a full page of past performances—that really stands out.



Stutts and Carney are defiantly "old-school." The modern practice of working horses out for weeks in preparation for races doesn't sit well with them.



"Everybody thinks we're crazy," Stutts said of their chances in the Big 'Cap. "You know what? The modern-day (horsemen) have no run and train all year. Who the hell pays bills 12 months out of the year and never sees a horse run? That is the craziest thing in the world."



So, instead of working Crimson Giant, they have him gallop every day at the Southern California oval, and run him in races constantly. The gelding has already competed in six races since Santa Anita opened its meet the day after Christmas, the same afternoon he ran fourth in a six-furlong starter allowance. Stutts said, "He's at his optimum between 10 and 15 days (of rest between races)."



Naysayers might counter that a horse with one win in 66 starts probably isn't ever at optimum, but that doesn't even factor into the equation for the trainer. Born in Hot Springs, Ark., Stutts is the son of a trainer and the grandson of a calvaryman, and made stops in Florida and Chicago before settling in on the West Coast.



Until recently—when Carney purchased a 6-year-old mare named Bitter Tears after she won a maiden claiming race Feb. 12 at Tampa Bay Downs in her 16th try—Stutts was operating a one-horse barn, getting all he could out of Crimson Giant, who has netted his connections $172,642 in his 66 starts.



Crimson Giant has finished second five times and third on 15 occasions, but that November 2011 day when he did cross the wire first in a $40,000 maiden claiming race, presented a sad twist of fate: Stutts couldn't see it.

He wasn't at the track or even able to watch on television. The trainer who hadn't won a race since 2006 was in the hospital for Crimson Giant's only victory, an impressive closing 2 3/4-length score at odds of 28-1. Stutts was suffering from osteomyelitis—essentially a dangerous staph infection in his spine—and only heard about the win when Carney called him on the phone with the good news. Then came the procession of friends who made the trip to the hospital to congratulate him later in the day.



After recovering from the infection, Stutts had to re-learn how to walk in his late 60s. Lingering back issues still prevent him from wearing his trademarked flag-adorned suspenders at Clocker's Corner. He shrugs it off with the same humility that makes everyone within eyesight at Santa Anita smile and say hello when they see him. Missing Crimson Giant's only win was no big deal, he remarked, because he'd seen 158 before that, including three graded stakes wins—with New Colony in 1988 and 1989, and two more with The Name's Jimmy in 1992.

"It's OK," Stutts said. "I'm the small guy who has been lucky. I've had some good horses and most small guys never get a good horse. This is all I've ever done. The only days I've ever missed was when I was in the hospital."



If Stutts is an optimist, Carney is a dreamer. Others haven't been so flattering; the "delusional" moniker gets thrown around a lot.



"I call Bryan a flamboyant person," Stutts said. "Bryan is always up. If his horse runs last, he'll see something good about it. He never complains about anything. Everybody sees what they want to see and Bryan sees everything half full."



The distinction fits. Only an owner with that attitude would go up against the superstar Shared Belief in arguably the most storied race for older horses in the country—with a 1-for-66 horse and an apprentice jockey aboard.



Even Boulanger's selection has a happenstance backstory that seems straight off the pages of a movie script. When regular rider Modesto Linares—who has ridden Crimson Giant 60 times—could not make the gelding's last start because he was working out 2-year-olds for the last Barretts sale at Fairplex Park, Stutts told the Boulanger, who turned 21 March 1, that he would guarantee him three races if he picked up the ride on Crimson Giant. Little did the apprentice know his first grade I mount would fall into that timeframe.



The optimism seems to even have rubbed off on Boulanger.



"You're not going to hear me say we're going to win this race," Boulanger said. "I'm intimidated. Shared Belief intimidates me. But maybe he doesn't eat all his breakfast that morning. He may not eat that well that week. You never know."



A former hot-walker at Monmouth Park, Carney will not accept the idea his horse doesn't have an opportunity to claim glory in the Big 'Cap.



He and Stutts have even come up with a best-case scenario, hoping for more rain in the Southern California forecast for the $1 million race, because Crimson Giant's only win came over a muddy track. They also point to the gelding's sire, two-time grade I winner Formal Gold, who they say loved the mud.



"If everything is equal, (Shared Belief) is supposed to win," Stutts said. "What can I tell you? We get a little bit of rain and this horse is a superior slop horse. If we get some slop, we're going to put him on his bicycle."



But it's not about the slop, just like it's not about how much weight the horses will carry—they were hoping for 109 pounds, but got 114 (Shared Belief will top the field with 125). It's about chasing a place in history, and if they've got a shot, no matter how small, they're going to take it.



Crimson Giant won't ever be confused with the monstrous Big 'Cap legends—he's no Seabiscuit, Affirmed, Spectacular Bid, John Henry, Alysheba, Lava Man, or Game On Dude—but if he springs the unlikeliest of upsets, the story will be just as good for Stutts, Carney, and Boulanger.



"Sometimes, you get one chance in your life to do something nobody else can do," Carney said. "I do believe, 30 minutes after the race, if he doesn't run good, they'll all say. 'Oh, that horse never belonged in there.' But if he wins, they'll talk about him for 100 years. If he wins, it will never be forgotten—when those crazy guys ran their horse in the Big 'Cap."