Chart lines, race recaps and history books usually only tell part of the story. When Blair Burgess and the Glidemaster ownership group
anted up $60,000 to get a shot at becoming only the 8th winner in the history of the Trotting Triple Crown, they faced more than just needing a new driver and racing on a half-mile track for the first time - they also faced New York’s George Washington Bridge. By Perry Lefko
It is a few days after the 2006 Breeders Crown at Woodbine and Glidemaster is schooling at Flamboro Downs because trainer Blair Burgess wants to see if the son of Yankee Glide can handle a half-mile track.
Burgess and the Glidemaster ownership group, which includes Blair’s father, Bob, his wife, Karin, Marsha Cohen and breeder Brittany Farms - which bought an interest in the colt as a two-year-old - are considering the Yonkers Trot. This year’s race is special. It is returning to Yonkers after a two-year hiatus while slot machines were added, and the purse is slated to be bigger than ever. But there’s much more on the line for the Glidemaster group than just purse money. History is looking to be made.
Normally the Yonkers Trot is contested earlier in the season, but now it’s been pushed back and there is expected to be a ton of attention paid to what, this year, will be the third and final jewel of the Trotting Triple Crown..
But the race is more than three weeks away, and Glidemaster has never trained or raced on a half-mile track, so this is a chance to see how the big horse can handle a small oval with tight turns.
It’s been somewhat of an eventful year so far for Blair, who had his patience tested as a trainer when Glidemaster pulled a shoe off and stepped on a nail, four days before his Hambletonian elimination back in late July. He suffered a foot infection and it took a lot of work to get Glidemaster physically ready to race. With a special shoe, he toughed it out and finished second in his elimination. The following week he won the Hambo in a stakes-record time of 1:51.1, with a final quarter in a flashy 26.4.
Glidemaster then won the Kentucky Futurity, showing his ability to race twice on the same day and has now put himself in position to capture the Trotting Triple Crown by winning the Yonkers Trot. It had never been part of the plan to race in the Yonkers event. Even though Brittany Farms had nominated him to it as a yearling, the ownership group had long since discontinued the payments.
Blair is conservative when it comes to staking and hasn’t raced too often at Yonkers. Like the expression, ‘horses for courses’, there are also ‘tracks for trainers’. Yonkers isn’t necessarily the favourite for everyone, some of whom prefer the wide, sweeping turns of the Meadowlands when they race stateside. As of the deadline of March 15, 2005, the sustaining payments for the Yonkers Trot stopped for Glidemaster.
Another issue that has arisen, is that Blair has already had to adjust to the fact the horse’s regular driver, John Campbell, suffered a broken leg and is no longer available to drive. Campbell’s accident happened after Glidemaster had captured his Breeders Crown elimination and Burgess had to find a substitute for the final. George Brennan filled in admirably, but the horse finished second to nemesis Majestic Son, who was allowed to cut it out on the front end, and found an extra gear to pull away and win by three-quarters of a length when it looked like the first-over Glidemaster would get by him in deep stretch.
Throughout the fall, and particularly after winning the Kentucky Futurity, the ownership have been considering the Yonkers Trot, sometimes seriously, sometimes in jest. Entry would require a $60,000 supplemental fee, but the horse has earned about $1.6 million on the season, so the considerable expense is justifiable.
Blair’s father and Blair’s daughter, Linnea, have been pushing him to go into the race. Linnea wants to see her father win the Trotting Triple Crown.
On Hambletonian day, T-shirts are sold with the names of the previous Hambo winners, some of whom have an asterisk to signify they’re Triple Crown winners. Linnea would love to see her father win the Triple Crown, and see the following year’s T-shirt with an asterisk beside Glidemaster.
So Blair is behind the horse leading up to the starting gate at Flamboro, to give Glidemaster a schooling exercise. There are no other horses competing with him. It is a wet and rainy day, hardly the conditions to try something like this, but now is the time to find out if Glidemaster can move nimbly around the oval. Glidemaster clocks the mile in 1:56 and change, which is pretty good on a half-mile track, especially in this awful weather. While the horse hit the bike, Blair figures with a bigger one it shouldn’t be a problem.
With the decision now made to go into the race, Blair travels with Glidemaster on a transport truck with a box stall, to a New Jersey farm where the horse thrived earlier in the year en route to his Hambo victory.
A loss wouldn’t necessarily hurt Glidemaster, who is scheduled to conclude his career after the race to commence stud duties at Walnridge Farm in Pennsylvania, but a win would substantially enhance his value.
The draw for the race has attracted eight entrants, and Blair is hoping not to get the eight hole or the rail. Somewhere in the middle would be just fine. Luckily, he gets the five hole.
Algiers Hall, who won the Matron in his last race, has drawn the two-hole. Blair is really only concerned about this one rival, who will be racing in all three legs of the Triple Crown but was a non-factor in the Futurity and the Hambletonian.
Everything seems to be in place. The purse is a whopping $728,930, almost $250,000 more than the previous highest pot in Yonkers Trot history. This is going to be a big deal in so many ways.
But now it’s time to make the drive from the farm in New Jersey to Yonkers, and it requires travelling across the George Washington Bridge. It’s late afternoon on Saturday and the bridge is packed. It’s the worst traffic jam you can imagine, two miles before the bridge. Once on the bridge, it’s not much better.
Blair is on the phone calling the judges with a play-by-play of the journey and he’s starting to sweat. The New York traffic has been underestimated and this just might become a major screw up. It’s reminiscent to Blair of Jate Lobell almost failing to make it for the Meadowlands Pace in 1987. Blair won that race with Frugal Gourmet in a monumental upset. Jate The Great, the 4-5 favourite, had won 18 in a row coming into the race. He was considered a lock even though the upstart Frugal Gourmet had come within a nose of besting him in the North America Cup weeks earlier at Greenwood . Trainer/driver Mark O’Mara was caught in a traffic jam behind an overturned tractor/trailer en route to the track. O’Mara did a little pre-race driving when he chose a route on the paved shoulder, only to get stopped by a cop and given a ticket. Jate didn’t make it to the track until the second dash of the evening and was a non-factor in the race. That was part of racing history, and Blair isn’t intent on adding his own story for the annals.
Fortunately, the van makes it to the track and Blair is able to get the horse hitched up to warm up. Disaster averted.
Blair isn’t saying much to Brennan about pre-race strategy. Brennan has learned a lot from the first time he drove Glidemaster and he’s a veteran at Yonkers.
Glidemaster is the 4-5 favourite, while Algiers Hall, is second choice at 3-1. Naughty Nunu, who drew the rail, is scratched because of lameness, so Algiers Hall now assumes the rail, while Glidemaster moves inside to the four hole.
Here Comes Herbie breaks stride going around the first turn on the outside of Algiers Hall, who takes the lead. Glidemaster is third. The initial quarter is a rather easy 29.2. After about three-eighths, Brennan decides to make his move. The half has gone in 58.3.
The battle is on – Algiers Hall on the inside, Glidemaster on the outside, trying, but unable to pass the unyielding pace setter. Neck-and-neck, they trot to the three-quarters in 1:26.2. Glidemaster has trotted his third-quarter, while first-over, in :27.2. Inside of the final quarter mile, Glidemaster has poked his neck in front, but Algiers Hall is fighting back. This is a heck of a horse race, befitting all that is at stake.
Going around the last turn, Glidemaster is running-out, towards the paddock, which is situated close to the track. Brennan corrects the horse to keep him on course, and in deep stretch he takes over the lead and wins by 1¾ lengths in a time of 1:55.4, the fastest edition of the race ever held at Yonkers (Windsongs Legacy recorded a time of 1:53.1 the year before at Hawthorne, while the New York oval was being renovated).
Bob (Hollywood) Heyden, whose namesake finished a distant sixth in the race, is rattling off one salient statistic after another. History has been made. Glidemaster is the eighth Trotting Triple Crown winner. His earnings of $364,465 raise his season earnings to $1,979,834, the most of any horse in 2006.
Blair is breathing a huge sigh of relief. It has finished with a perfect ending. Despite the stress of the trip from New Jersey, the unfamiliarity of racing on a half-mile track, the one-month layoff, the new driver, and everything else, Glidemaster performed like a seasoned veteran.
And then something happens.
In the winners’ circle with all the hubbub, Blair is busy doing an interview and unable to jog the colt around the track. It is something he does with his horses to wind them down. So Brennan jogs the horse instead. With the Yonkers Trot cooler on his back, Glidemaster is flying by the winners’ circle the wrong way. Blair catches a glimpse of it and is taken aback. By Blair’s calculations, Glidemaster is going at a 2:10 clip, almost race speed. Brennan doesn’t seem to be worried, but Blair is plenty anxious.
It is only later on when Blair sees the race replay that he notices Glidemaster’s attempt to go wide right to the paddock in the turn for the wire. He appreciates the job Brennan did.
A lot of things happened during the year. Glidemaster has been a bit of a drama queen, but now it’s over. He battled through adversity to prove his greatness. Next year’s Hambo T-shirts will have Glidemaster’s name on them and the asterisk to signify the Triple Crown triumph. Linnea is happy.
And Blair knows if he ever races in the Yonkers Trot again, he will not cut it so close on the drive to the track.
