Cairo Memories Soars Past Expectations to Breeders' Cup

Cathy and Paul Schroeder may be Breeders' Cup rookies. But at least they have cloaked themselves in the embrace of people who have been there and done that, along with a filly who has earned a right to strut on racing's biggest stage.

Cairo Memories  is her name, a gun-metal gray daughter of Cairo Prince   who in her only appearances has shown her heels to a couple of flabbergasted California fields, including the 10 who chased her in the Oct. 3 Surfer Girl Stakes at Santa Anita Park. That race put Cairo Memories on the fast track to the $1 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1T) Nov. 5 at Del Mar, when the racing world will find out if California form can hold a candle to an invading horde from Europe and the eastern U.S.

To describe Cathy Schroeder as excited at the prospect short-changes the term. She was born in Kansas and raised in the L.A. suburb of Whittier, while her husband is a California native from the town of Alhambra, just up the road. Commercial real estate companies owned and operated by Paul Schroeder have put them in a place to spend the $50,000 Cairo Memories cost as a yearling.

"After the Surfer Girl I was about three feet off the ground," Cathy Schroeder said. "We went to the Runhappy Lounge with friends and watched the race several more times. It was almost too much to believe. She won it again, every time, and not only was it a stakes race, but a race that meant she might go to the Breeders' Cup. The feeling was indescribable."

There will be a brief pause here to appreciate the fact that, even after 37 years of watching powerhouse stables and legacy ownerships win most of the money, the prospect of competing for a Breeders' Cup prize for a modest stable still makes the heart flutter and the palms sweat. The Schroeders, both in their late 70s, have been racing and breeding Thoroughbreds for about 15 years and to date have had exactly one graded stakes winner (the Surfer Girl is a listed race worth $200,000). Bob Hess Jr. has been their trainer from the start.

"Bob is not the kind of trainer to exaggerate or encourage false hopes," Schroeder said. "When he called one day as told us that Cairo Memories is the best horse we ever owned, we could hardly believe it. But she's certainly proved him right."

The filly ran for the first time—only 80% ready, according to her trainer—in a one-mile turf maiden race Sept. 5. With Kent Desormeaux aboard, Cairo Memories lingered with the pack and then burst away at the end to win by 4 1/2 lengths. The time was modest, but the price was right, at 16-1, and that ruckus people might have heard in a Newport Beach neighborhood was coming from inside the Schroeder house.

"There we were, screaming out heads off at the bigscreen TV," Cathy said. "We could hardly believe it. I'm sure she could have won by just as much in the Surfer Girl, but Kent was thinking ahead to the next race, so why ask her for more than the couple of lengths she won by? And now look at what that 'next race' has turned out to be."

Cairo Memories is by the Pinoeerof the Nile stallion Cairo Prince  , but if you blinked, you probably missed his racing career. At 2, he ran Honor Code   to a nose in the 2013 Remsen Stakes (G2), with Wicked Strong   lapped on in third. The following winter, Cairo Prince won the Holy Bull Stakes (G2) so easily that he was being fitted for a blanket of roses before he cooled out. His subsequent fourth as the favorite in the Besilu Florida Derby (G1) was too bad to be true, so it made sense when an injury was blamed, and he never raced again. Cairo Memories is from his fourth crop, foaled and raised at Aidrie Stud in Kentucky, where the stallion stands for $15,000.

Cathy Schroeder named their filly with an obvious nod to both the sire and the dam, Incarnate Memories, who is by the In Excess stallion Indian Charlie, the 1998 Kentucky Derby (G1) third who succumbed to cancer in 2011, at age 16. Noodling around in the female family of Cairo Memories eventually leads to Your Hostess, her sixth dam, and her full brother Your Host, winner of the Santa Anita Derby, favorite in the 1950 Kentucky Derby, and sire of Kelso.

"The people at Airdrie loved Incarnate Memories and thought she was going to be something special as a racehorse," Schroeder said. "Sadly, she only ran once and fractured her pelvis, so her racing was nipped in the bud."

A foal of 2008, Incarnate Memories was healed enough to begin her broodmare career by giving birth to a filly in 2014. Her second filly, Cariba, won a small stakes in 2020 at Saratoga Race Course. One month later, on the recommendation of Hess and agent Davant Latham, the Schroeders bought Cariba's full sister at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale.

"I liked her the first time I saw her as a yearling," Hess said of Cairo Memories. "Although I've got to admit I didn't think she'd be this good. That's the beauty of this game."

In the wake of the filly's maiden win, the Schroeders sold a half interest in Cairo Memories to David Bernsen, a veteran horse owner whose business interests include the Las Vegas-based Global Wagering Group. Bernsen was part owner of Roy H  when he clinched an Eclipse Award with a victory in the 2017 Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1) at Del Mar. Bernsen celebrated again at Churchill Downs in 2018 when Roy H repeated in the Sprint and Stormy Liberal  took the Turf Sprint (G1T) for the second straight year, this time with Bernsen along for a minor share. 

Desormeaux also brings good karma to the mix. The Hall of Famer, now 51, will be trying to win a Breeders' Cup race in a fourth consecutive decade after his first of six BC wins in 1993 aboard Kotashaan in the Turf (G1T) and his most recent with Roy H in the 2017 Sprint. The rider also has a deep and abiding connection with Hess, who has stuck with Desormeaux through troubled times in the past.

"He's like a brother," Hess said. "I rely on his judgement. Kent worked the filly before she ever ran and said she was a good one. He persuaded me to run her long."

Then there is the trainer, who has had seven Breeders' Cup starters. Six were not quite good enough on the day, although River Special was a game third in the 1992 Juvenile (G1) and two others banked decent money for fourth. There also was the one that got away.

"I got beat a nose by Wayne Lukas," Hess said, referring to the near miss of Merit Man to Hightail at Santa Anita in the 2012 running of the short-lived Breeders' Cup Juvenile Sprint. "I supposed if you've got to get beat like that in a Breeders' Cup race, you shouldn't feel too bad if it's by the all-time leading Breeders' Cup trainer."

At 56, Hess has been training a public stable since 1987, when he left the nest of his father, the respected Northern California horseman Robert Hess Sr. The elder Hess died in December of 2020 from the effects of COVID-19. His son was asked what advice his father might have offered going into a Breeders' Cup race with a live chance.

"He'd never volunteer anything, but he didn't need to because I would ask him things all the time," Hess said. "He helped me keep things in perspective."

History provides plenty of perspective, especially at Breeders' Cup time, and it is a lot to ask of a relatively inexperienced Thoroughbred like Cairo Memories to carry the torch for an entire racing region. But unless Surfer Girl runner-up Helens Well  or maiden race winner Baby Steps  can slip into the field from the also-eligibles, the Hess filly will be the only California-trained runner among the 14 in the Juvenile Fillies Turf.

The race never has been kind to Californians, even though eight of its 13 runnings have been offered at either Santa Anita or Del Mar. The best the locals have done was the third-place finish of Colonel Joan for Eoin Harty in 2013 behind Chriselliam .

"There just hasn't been much of a program for 2-year-old fillies on the grass in California until recently," Hess noted. "When I won the Miesque in 2001, I think it was the only stakes for out here for that division. And there's still not a lot."

The Miesque Stakes at Hollywood Park was a grade 3 November event that is now run at Del Mar and called the Jimmy Durante Stakes (G3T). Otherwise, the black-type turf opportunities for young fillies out West remain scarce, while back East those so inclined can choose from races in Kentucky, New York, Maryland, Florida, New Jersey, and Ontario, in Canada, all of them just a short hop away.

It also should be noted that Hess is not opposed to pulling the occasional upset. He won that version of the Miesque with the 20-1 shot Forty On Line, who beat a field that included the major stakes winner Riskaverse and subsequent 3-year-old filly champion Farda Amiga.

Cairo Memories is likely to be similarly overlooked in the betting, but only because the incoming competition is thick with runners who have proven records. Hess put the finishing touches on her preparation the morning of Oct. 31 at Del Mar with five-eighths on the grass under Desormeaux in 1:04 2/5, accomplished around cones placed well past the center of the course.

"The cool thing about this filly is that she's not what I'd call a Little League super star," Hess said. "She's a super model, and when she grows and fills out she's going to be an even better 3-year-old and 4-year-old.

"But she is incredibly precocious, as well, and loves her job," Hess added. "Nothing seems to faze her. She has earned a shot at this, so whatever's meant to be, will be."