12 minute read
Mucho Unusual’s Rodeo Drive
MUCHO TALENT
MUCHO UNUSUAL CHARGES TO VICTORY IN RODEO DRIVE STAKES
BY TRACY GANTZ
George Krikorian is having an incredible year as a breeder, both of California-breds and Kentucky-breds. He got his second grade 1 winner when Calbred Mucho Unusual scored in the $300,000 Rodeo Drive Stakes (G1T) at Santa Anita Sept. 26, following Kentucky-bred Honor A. P.’s winning the June 6 Runhappy Santa Anita Derby (G1).
Honor A. P. might have made splashier headlines, being on the Triple Crown trail. He fnished fourth in the Sept. 5 Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1) before heading to stud. But Krikorian sold Honor A. P. as a yearling to Lee and Susan Searing, whereas he races Mucho Unusual.
Te Rodeo Drive marked a major milestone for Mucho Unusual and her family.
“Getting a grade 1 for this mare, Not Unusual, is super satisfying,” said trainer Tim Yakteen. “She’s been a great producer, but we haven’t had a grade 1 on her page yet.”
Krikorian purchased Not Unusual for $67,000 at the 2007 Barretts October yearling sale. California leading breeder Betty Mabee and her son, Larry, bred Not Unusual (Unusual Heat—Fly First Class, by General Meeting) in California, and the flly won three races and earned $70,347 for Krikorian.
As a broodmare, Not Unusual gets runners, even those without black type. Big Score, a Kentucky-bred son of Krikorian’s California sire Mr. Big, won the 2017 Transylvania Stakes Presented by Keeneland Select (G3T) and 2016 Zuma Beach Stakes.
Mucho Unusual, a daughter of
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George Kirkorian’s California homebred Mucho Unusual opens a grade 1 account in the Rodeo Drive Stakes at Santa Anita Mucho Macho Man, is Not Unusual’s ffth foal and frst Cal-bred, having been born at E.A. Ranches. Te mare has two subsequent foals by Mr. Big and a weanling Kitten’s Joy colt.
In the Golden State Stakes program, Mucho Unusual fnished second at 2 in the 2018 Golden State Juvenile Fillies and added the California Cup Oaks early in 2019. She stepped up to graded company by taking the 2019 San Clemente Stakes (G2T).
Since then, it has been all graded attempts, with several placings, until a third in the Aug. 15 Solana Beach Stakes at Del Mar.
“She got a little nervous on us at Del Mar,” said Yakteen.
Tat changed back at Santa Anita, where everything went perfectly for the 1 1 ⁄4-mile Rodeo Drive.
“Te flly went into the paddock and saddled up great for us,” said Yakteen. “Tis time she just did everything textbook, like you’d want.”
Juan Hernandez rode Mucho Unusual against fve others in the Rodeo Drive. Lady Prancealot, a multiple graded winner by California sire Sir Prancealot, went of as the 7-5 favorite, with Mucho Unusual the 3-1 third choice.
“Tey let me go to the lead easily, so I took it,” said Hernandez. “Ten the rest of the race the flly did by herself.”
Mucho Unusual went to the front early in the race and led through every call. Her rivals allowed her to run the frst half-mile in a tepid :49.52, and when they tried to mount a challenge, Mucho Unusual was able to hold of everyone. She defeated Maxim Rate by 1 1 ⁄4 lengths in 2:00.19, with Lady Prancealot third.
“She’s been knocking on the door with grade 1s,” said Yakteen. “So to pull this out is amazing.”
Yakteen also paid tribute to Tony Burton and the staf at Krikorian’s Starwood Farm in Kentucky.
Mucho Unusual isn’t Krikorian’s only Cal-bred stakes winner this year. He also bred Big Fish, winner of the Del Mar Juvenile Turf, and Big Sweep, winner of the Echo Eddie Stakes and Fleet Treat Stakes.
During his 35-year career, Hall of Fame jockey Eddie Delahoussaye found much success with horses bred in the Golden State
The Golden Years
HALL OF FAME JOCKEY EDDIE D REMEMBERS HIS FAVORITE CAL-BREDS
BY EMILY SHIELDS
Eddie Delahoussaye is fondly remembered as one of the greatest California-based riders of all time. He is a Hall of Famer with fve Triple Crown and seven Breeders’ Cup race wins to his name, and he earned more than $195 million in earnings on the track.
Te venerable jockey, who has a race named in his honor each fall at Santa Anita, will be remembered for household names such as A. P. Indy, Risen Star, Gato Del Sol, and Sunny’s Halo. But Delahoussaye, who retired from riding in 2003 and now lives in Louisiana, was also a prolifc rider of top California-bred runners. He took a walk down
Delahoussaye guided Feverish, a Cal-bred daughter of Pirate’s Bounty, to victory in the 1999 Cal Cup Matron Handicap during the Oak Tree meeting at Santa Anita
COADY PHOTOGRAPHY
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memory lane to recall some of his best Golden State mounts throughout his career, which started in 1968.
FEVERISH
“When I frst moved to California in 1979,” Delahoussaye said, “I could not believe how plush everything was. Santa Anita had the background with the mountains, Del Mar still had the old grandstand that was really something to see during the summertime, and Hollywood Park was just plush. It was a great experience for me as a guy from the south in Louisiana.”
Over time, Delahoussaye rode several high-profle stars for California-based Pam and Martin J. Wygod, including the dark bay mare Feverish. Te daughter of Pirate’s Bounty ran 42 times, with Delahoussaye aboard for four victories, including the grade 2 Bayakoa Handicap at Hollywood Park in 2000. With Delahoussaye up, Feverish was the 1999 California Cup Matron Handicap winner and went on to be just a neck away from grade 1 glory in 2001. She earned $908,983 for the Wygods and trainer Dan Hendricks.
GO GO
While the Wygods popped up often in Delahoussaye’s list of top mounts, so too did the late trainer Warren Stute. He put Delahoussaye on the chestnut mare Go Go, a wickedly quick sprinter who won nine of 19 starts and earned $625,565.
“Te frst time I rode her she was running nice and easy, and then she just stopped,” Delahoussaye recalled of Go Go’s sixth-place efort in an allowance race in May 2000. “She just didn’t give me her fnish. I told Warren that, and he scoped her after the race and said she had bled. Te rest was history; she just kept winning for me. I got beat a couple of times, but overall she just started climbing the ladder.”
Go Go won a pair of allowances, then a listed stakes race, before adding grade 3 and ultimately grade 2 company to her resume.
“She was so fast,” Delahoussaye said. “She would run in 1:08 and change. And she was a pretty flly.”
Go Go, by Falstaf, won on turf and dirt, including down the hillside turf course at Santa Anita.
“Santa Anita is neat in that it is the only
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Delahoussaye recalls popular Cal-bred champion Grey Memo as an ‘easy horse to ride’
(track) in the country to have a turf course like that,” Delahoussaye said.
Te $200,000 Eddie D Stakes (G2T) at Santa Anita in September is now run on the main turf oval over 5 1 ⁄2 furlongs, but was originally a down-the-hill event.
“When they came up with that race, I told them, ‘You guys are fnally doing something right,’ ” Delahoussaye joked. “I’ve given the trophy to the winner quite a few times. It was neat that they came up with that.”
GREY MEMO
Another Stute-trained runner was the popular gelding Grey Memo. A millionaire son of Memo and the Snow Chief mare B. Mozelle, Grey Memo won eight of 54 starts with 22 top-three fnishes.
Delahoussaye was not aboard when Grey Memo scored his signature victory in the $1 million Godolphin Mile (G2) in Dubai, but he was up for the San Diego Handicap (G2) in 2002.
“Grey Memo was a horse that had one run, and that ft me perfectly because that was the kind of rider I was,” Delahoussaye said. “He was an easy horse to ride—and a nice horse—a big, solid gray.”
Delahoussaye praised trainer Stute for his work with the horses.
“Warren was a great old horseman,” Delahoussaye said. “He was an old school guy, the kind that gives you a leg up and doesn’t give a lot of instruction because he fgured we knew them and had watched their races. He had a lot of confdence in his riders.”
GOURMET GIRL
Although he rode her just six times in a 33-race career, Delahoussaye guided California champion older female Gourmet Girl to victory in the Milady Breeders’ Cup Handicap (G1) at Hollywood Park in 1999.
“Pico Perdomo trained her,” Delahoussaye recalled of the daughter of Cee’s Tizzy. “She was the kind you could place in any part of the race. She’d lay with the competition and was kind of push button. She would sit and wait while always in contention.”
Gourmet Girl won nine times with seven seconds and 10 thirds for earnings of $1,255,373.
“I remember Pico took her to Hot Springs, where she beat some nice fllies,” Delahoussaye said.
Ridden by Calvin Borel, Gourmet Girl won the 2001 Apple Blossom Handicap (G1) by 4 1 ⁄2 lengths over Lu Ravi and fellow California-bred millionaire Lazy Slusan.
SMOOTH PLAYER
Delahoussaye rode Cal-bred Smooth Player in 14 of her 19 career starts, where she won eight times and earned $760,496. Te daughter of Bertrando was another Wygod/Hendricks competitor, and she proved difcult to ride.
“She was a big, long, leggy flly,” Delahoussaye said. “She had a little quirk about riding her: When you got her started, you better keep going! She was one of those kinds of fllies. We won on the grass and dirt with her, but she was better on the grass than the dirt.”
Delahoussaye was unable to ride when Smooth Player went to the post for the 1999 Del Mar Oaks (G1T). She fnished second, beaten just a length for the win.
“Somebody else rode her while I was in the grandstand and she got beat a zop,” Delahoussaye said. “Danny (Hendricks) said, ‘I wish you’d been on her,’ because he could see that the rider didn’t continue with her. You really had to keep riding her to get her going. If you relaxed on her, then
Benchmark, whom Delahoussaye rode to victory in the Goodwood Breeders’ Cup Handicap, above, became an important sire for the California breeding program
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she relaxed, and that’s what got her beat. Tat’s not the jockey’s fault because you just had to know it.”
Smooth Player went on to produce stakes winners Imagine and Smooth Performer, and she is the second dam of stakes winner Into Trouble and stakes-placed Femme Fatale. BENCHMARK
Although not a California-bred, Benchmark went on to be one of the most important California stallions of recent times. Te Wygod runner by Alydar—Winters’ Love, by Danzig, won seven of 16 starts and earned $636,707. Delahoussaye was up for his last fve starts, including wins in the Del Mar Breeders’ Cup Handicap (G2) at Del Mar and the Goodwood Breeders’ Cup Handicap (G2) at Santa Anita.
“He turned out to be a nice stallion and broodmare sire,” Delahoussaye said. “Ron Ellis trained him (for most of his career), and there were other riders riding him during his career. But I was game to ride anything and always patient with a horse. I started riding him like Grey Memo, giving him a chance to make that one run, when other riders had been trying to put him into contention early and he wouldn’t fnish. I won some nice stakes with him.”
Benchmark went on to sire millionaire Cal-breds Brother Derek and Idiot Proof, as well as other grade 1 winners Silent Sighs and Points Of
thebench. Another son, grad
Eddie D, 1993 Hall of Fame inductee
ANNE M. EBERHARDT ed stakes winner Grazen, is carrying on Benchmark’s legacy as a current leading sire of the likes of stakes winners Just Grazed Me, S Y Sky, Tough Sunday, and Enola Gray.
Delahoussaye was a force on the California circuit for many years before an accident on the track in August 2002 ended his career.
“I was getting ready to turn 51 years old and sure didn’t want to stop that way, but I’m blessed,” he said. “I’m still walking around and have none of the problems compared to other people who have fallen. I hated to go out that way before I wanted to go on my terms, but that’s part of the game.”
One of the most famous horses Delahoussaye partnered with was California-based runner A.P. Indy, a Hall of Famer with four grade 1 wins to his credit. Te son of Seattle Slew became a leading infuence in both the sales ring and breeding industry before his passing earlier this year. Before A.P. Indy, Delahoussaye nearly swept the 1988 Triple Crown when Risen Star took the Preakness Stakes (G1) and Belmont Stakes (G1) after fnishing third in the Kentucky Derby (G1).
He rode Breeders’ Cup winners such as Prized and Hollywood Wildcat, as well as Kentucky Derby winners Gato Del Sol and Sunny’s Halo, but Delahoussaye also recalled piloting horses for Old English Rancho and trainer Donald Warren, among others. He rode multiple graded stakes winner and California Cup star Answer Do, who was frst or second in 30 of 45 starts, and the popular millionaire sprinter Letthebighossroll, trained by an up-and-coming conditioner in Bob Bafert. At times Delahoussaye guided the likes of $2.1 million-earner Nostalgia’s Star as well as Cee’s Tizzy, who went on to sire millionaires Budroyale, Cost of Freedom, and two-time Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Tiznow, also enshrined in the national Hall of Fame.
Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1993, Delahoussaye has had an infuence on the California racing and breeding product that will be felt for generations. As for the Cal-bred program, Delahoussaye said, “It was probably one of the best programs in the United States when I was riding. I know I sure rode a lot of them.”
Tough based in Louisiana, Delahoussaye has never veered too far from the national racing scene.
“I ventured into breeding a couple of Cal-breds myself with some partners,” he said, “and I found it was great on both ends, racing and breeding, even though I never owned any stallions. Te program was great for everyone back then, and it’s still good now.”
Delahoussaye has pared down the operation and owns a single broodmare at the moment, but he ofers a word of encouragement to other retired jockeys who might be looking to do the same.
“I wish more riders would stay involved with the breeding,” he said. “As long as I have the income, I’m going to keep playing the horse game.”
