Horse Racing / Bill Christine : It’s Better Late Than Never for Ole Bob Bowers

It’s $133,000 late for Sam Rubin, but Ole Bob Bowers is now one of the nominated stallions for the Breeders’ Cup races.

Ole Bob Bowers is the sire of John Henry, the 10-year-old gelding who has earned a record $6.5 million in purses, most of it for Rubin since the New York bicycle importer bought the horse for $25,000 in 1978.

Because Ole Bob Bowers’ owners, Charles and Theora Crommer of Osseo, Mich., had not nominated their stallion, however, John Henry wasn’t eligible for the $10-million Breeders’ Cup races last November at Hollywood Park.

Rubin was allowed to supplement John Henry into a $2-million grass race for $400,000 and, after much grumbling, he made the first payment of $133,000 the week before the race. A couple of days later, John Henry suffered a ligament injury that prevented him from running, and Rubin forfeited the $133,000.

John Henry is recuperating now, and his trainer, Ron McAnally, hopes to bring him back for a summer campaign that would lead to the second edition of the Breeders’ Cup Nov. 2 at Aqueduct in New York.

But even though the Crommers recently nominated Ole Bob Bowers for his stud fee of $3,500, Rubin still would have to supplement John Henry at a cost of $400,000--20% of the purse--in order to run him in this year’s $2-million race. The nomination of Ole Bob Bowers this year means that only his foals of 1986 are eligible for future Breeders’ Cup races.

Rubin blamed the Crommers for not originally nominating Ole Bob Bowers. Theora Crommer said that she and her husband couldn’t afford the fee at the time.

This year, though, the Crommers paid the money. “We should have done it before,” Charles Crommer said. “By not doing it with John Henry, it probably cost us $50,000 to $60,000.”

Nominators of stallions share in Breeders’ Cup money if the progeny win purses. Besides the $10 million offered on Breeders’ Cup day last November, another $10 million was available in other races throughout the year.

Other than John Henry, most of Ole Bob Bowers’ offspring have been ordinary.

Crommer was asked why he had nominated Ole Bob Bowers at age 22, which is the end of the line for most stallions.

“We’re breeding him to better mares now,” Crommer said. “He’ll have a book of about 35 this season, and he still looks like a 2-year-old.”

Pah Check, a son of Ole Bob Bowers, won the Michigan Futurity at Detroit Race Course last year. Badwagon Harry, a full brother to Pah Check, won three straight stakes in the Midwest last year, and in December broke Aqueduct’s track record, running 1 1/16 miles in 1:42.

“We’ve got Mah Check, the dam of those two, right here at the farm,” Crommer said. “We’re going to breed her back to Ole Bob this season.”

In other years, trainer Ted West might have had a stable of 15 or 20 horses at Santa Anita. Now he has 32, which is the maximum the track allows a trainer.

West’s popularity as a trainer has mushroomed since his success with Interco, who won the Santa Anita Handicap and three other major races last year.

“It’s a sad thing,” West said of his expanded stable. “There are many other good trainers around here with as much ability as I have. But nobody promised us that this life had to be fair, did they?”

West, 48, was the leading trainer during the Oak Tree meeting at Santa Anita last fall and has reason for optimism this year. Interco, who didn’t run after last June because of sore feet, is training well and may run in the San Antonio Handicap Feb. 17. Teddy Naturally, another of West’s trainees, won the San Miguel Stakes last week for his fifth victory in eight starts.

The name for Teddy Naturally comes from West’s 10-year-old son and the horse’s sire, L’Natural. West has no Triple Crown delusions about Hubert Webb’s 3-year-old gelding, whose speed stamps him as a sprinter.

“I think his longest distance might be a mile, maybe a mile and a sixteenth,” West said. “If he carries that speed any farther, that would make him the greatest horse who’s ever lived.”

The Eclipse Award eluded Chris McCarron, but he won the Seagram Sports Award as jockey of the year, and the rider’s agent appreciates that honor just as much, if not more.

“We wanted the Eclipse Award, sure,” Scott McClellan said. “But that’s decided by a vote and this other award is strictly based on performance. It says that statistically, you had the best year.”

Pat Day, who won the Eclipse Award after leading the country with 400 wins, finished fourth in the Seagram computer rankings, behind McCarron, Laffit Pincay and Angel Cordero. McCarron broke records by winning 54 stakes and riding horses that earned $12 million in purses.