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OUT OF LEFT FIELD |
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THE KENTUCKY DERBY IS...  Friends Lake wins in Florida |
What's not to like about
this horse from New York?
By STAN ISAACS
of TheColumnists.com
I’ve got the horse right here, and with apologies to the lyrics of “Guys and Dolls” creator Frank Loesser, his name isn’t Paul Revere. I’m talking Saturday’s Kentucky Derby and the horse is a frisky animal named Friends Lake.
(Note this is written the Sunday before the Derby and the proprietor is keeping his fingers crossed that the horse right here stays healthy and runs in the 130th Kentucky Derby.)
I like Friends Lake. I like his trainer, John Kimmel. I like his jockey, Richard Migliore. I even like Migliore’s agent, Drew Mollica. In what is regarded as the most wide-open Derby in memory, Friends Lake comes in with a record of three victories in five lifetime starts. Trainer Kimmel and jockey Migliore come into the race with a long record of successes in New York, though without a victory in the races that count the most--the Derby, Preakness, Belmont Stakes and the Breeders Cup.
The trainer and the jockey broke through to win a million-dollar race for the first time when Friends Lake won the Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park, March 13. I see that as a sign of things to come, of them stepping up into the fast company of winning classic races.
Friends Lake, owned by
Mary and Chester Broman, was named after a lake in the Chestertown,
New York area where they have the farm on which Friends Lake
was foaled. One of the big angles here is that last year Funny
Cide, also foaled in upstate New York, was the first ever New
York bred to win the Derby.
Migliore said he became “a big fan” the first time
he saw Friends Lake as a two-year-old working out at Belmont
Park last year. He didn’t get to ride him in his first race;
the mount went to Jerry Bailey because Bailey had had success
with Friends Lake’s mother, Antespend. The horse was bumped
at the start in his debut at Saratoga in July and finished sixth.
After that Migliore got the mount and they won three of his next
four races, starting with a maiden victory at Saratoga in August.
Friends Lake came on at the end to win by a head and Migliore
said, “I thought he was good, but was not overly impressed,
yet.”
Then came the Sleepy Hollow, a stake race for New York-bred horses
at Belmont in October. He again came on late to win, and this
time, Migliore said, “He really impressed me. He was behind
a wall for a time, then broke out. He was like a man against
boys.” Trainer Kimmel knew he had something.
In his three-year-old debut at Gulfstream in January, Friends
Lake acted up at the gate and ran badly in the Holy Bull, finishing
third, 12 lengths behind the winner. “Horses are like strawberries,”
Migliore said, “they can go bad overnight.” On the
other hand, “You don’t make a horse a champion off
one good race and you don’t throw him out after one bad
one.”
They then won the Florida Derby as a 37-1 shot March 13 at Gulfstream, setting up Friends Lake as one to be reckoned with in the Derby.
Migliore is 40, been riding
since 1980 and earned more than $100 million in purses so it
is something of a surprise he didn’t win a million-dollar
race until the Florida Derby. “Part of it,” he said
“is that “I would win a race for less than a million
and its value would later be increased to a million.” He
has also suffered two bad spills that set his career back, causing
him to lose promising mounts who went on to the kind of glory
that I feel is Migliore’s due.
He has ridden in three Derbys, finished second on the 60-1 shot
Magic Weisner in the Preakness and ridden in three Belmont Stakes
and 10 Breeders Cup races without a victory.
He is a sweet man. When I set up a phone conversation appointment
to talk to him about the Derby, he called at the set time and
then said, “One thing, Stan. Can you wait a half-hour? The
family [his wife Carmela, three sons and a two-and-a-half-year-old
daughter] is about to sit down to watch television. We like watching
"Survivor" together. I’ll call you after that.”
He called back as promised. (Most athletes ask you to call them).
We went over his career and he repeated the comment that has
won him the affection of many New York race fans. He said he
grew up in Brooklyn and Bay Shore on Long Island where he “went
to ninth grade in school. After that I went to the University
of Belmont Park.”
A not-to-be-sniffed at reason for liking Friends Lake in the Derby is that he will go off at a respectable price, perhaps 10 or 11 to one, says trainer Kimmel. That’s because he did not run a fast time in winning the Florida Derby and many race trackers worship at the shrine of the stopwatch. Also, many pundits don’t’ like the seven-week layoff from his last race. On the other hand, two of the horses he beat in the Florida Derby went on to win big Derby preps. Tapit, won the Wood Memorial. The Cliff’s Edge won the Blue Grass. Both figure to go off at shorter odds than Friends Lake. So much the better for those of us who would put down a bob or two on Friends Lake.
Favorites have been taking
a beating in all the races leading up to the Derby. At the 10
to 1 odds, I like jockey agent Drew Mollica’s comment that
“as they say in boxing, we have a puncher’s chance.”
©2004 by Stan Isaacs. The Stan Isaacs caricature is ©2001
by Jim Hummel.
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