| TRAINING |
VOODOO SONG WINS MANY RACES
O
nce upon a time, Thoroughbreds raced on little rest: on consecutive days, twice in three days, three times in eight days. Those days are long gone, but every now and then one Thoroughbred reminds us that it can be done; that while such quick-recovering horses may be an endangered species, they are not yet extinct. Of course, it only happens if a horse’s trainer believes that particular Thoroughbred can do so and can live with the result, positive or negative, for thinking outside the box. Last summer at Saratoga, trainer Linda Rice sent out Barry Schwartz’s three-year-old colt Voodoo Song
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TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 48
Bill Heller Lisa Grimm, Eclipse Sportswire
to compete in a mile-and-three-eighth New York-bred grass allowance four days after he won an open mileand-a-sixteenth $40,000 claimer by 5¼ lengths gate-towire. Voodoo Song, who had been with Mike Hushion until the trainer’s retirement in July, opened a 16-length lead in that allowance and held on to win by threequarters of a length. “If you’re afraid to take chances or afraid to be wrong, you’re going to be paralyzed,” Rice said. “Some people are too afraid to make mistakes or be proven wrong. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.” Boy did it work with Voodoo Song. “The more latitude the owner gives you, the better,” she said. “Barry