Fran’s Valentine to Make Run for It on Manzi’s Turf

Trainer Joe Manzi has returned to the scene of his boyhood. But since this year’s Breeders’ Cup races are being run at Aqueduct, instead of Hollywood Park, Manzi’s 3-year-old filly, Fran’s Valentine, isn’t returning to the scene of her crime.

Fran’s Valentine assured herself of instant notoriety last November, winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Stakes at Hollywood and then being dropped to 10th place by the stewards for interference in the stretch. It was the first time a horse had ever been disqualified in a $1 million race, and the decision cost Earl Scheib, the automobile painter who bred and owns Fran’s Valentine, a winner’s purse of $450,000.

Scheib and Manzi are back to try again in the second running of the Breeders’ Cup series Saturday, not only with Fran’s Valentine in the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Distaff but also with Earl’s Valentine, the other filly’s sister, in the $1 million Juvenile Fillies Stakes.

The other five Breeders’ Cup races here Saturday are the Juvenile for colts, the Sprint and the Mile on the grass, for purses of $1 million apiece; the $2 million Turf Stakes and the $3 million Classic. With an international cast, more than 100 horses will be entered today for the seven races and several titles, including the horse-of-the-year title, are on the line.

Even an upset win Saturday probably wouldn’t earn the 3-year-old filly title for Fran’s Valentine, who, despite winning six stakes this year, is running behind both Lady’s Secret and the retired Mom’s Command in the division.

Even so, it would be a sweet victory for Manzi, the former kid from Brooklyn who still can’t believe last year’s disqualification. The Kentucky Derby has been considered sacrosanct by stewards for more than a century, and Manzi thought that racing’s referees would apply a subconscious double standard to a $1 million race, too.

The sisters Valentine will have more rooters than just Scheib, Manzi and the trainer’s wife, Sandra, on Saturday. Also in attendance will be two of Manzi’s sisters and a brother. And watching on television in the Gravesend section of Brooklyn will be Joe’s mother, Mary, who was not thrilled that her son took a job in racing.

That first job was 36 years ago when Manzi, then only 14, went to a farm in Virginia to learn about horses. Two years later, he was in California to stay, first as a jockey who once won six races in one day at Caliente, then later, after the Army and a weight problem, as a helper for Charlie Whittingham, who was in his salad days as a trainer.

Manzi had been climbing over the fence at Belmont Park since he was 9 or 10. The other day at Aqueduct, about 20 minutes from his mother’s home, he was asked how his parents could have permitted him to leave home at 14 to become a racetracker.

“My father had to let me go,” Manzi said. “When he was growing up, all he ever wanted to be was a jockey, and he had the build that looked like he could have been one, but his father wouldn’t let him get involved. So, remembering that I was asking for what he couldn’t have, he was more than willing to let me go.”

Dominic Manzi, who had settled for a career on the docks as a longshoreman, died a year ago at 76. For years, though, he walked the streets of Brooklyn, waving the Daily Racing Form in friends’ faces when his boy Joe grabbed a headline or got his mug shot on the front page.

There were plenty of headlines in 1982, the year Joe Manzi had Roving Boy, who won the Eclipse Award as the nation’s best 2-year-old colt.

Roving Boy died at the race track, breaking down after winning a stakes race at Santa Anita in his 3-year-old season, and now, in the footsteps of Fran’s Valentine, Manzi has another potentially brilliant 2-year-old in Earl’s Valentine. It would seem, though, that it is over-reaching to be running Earl’s Valentine in the Breeders’ Cup, matching the filly with only one race in her life against established stakes stars.

That one race of Earl’s Valentine’s was an easy win despite a sluggish start at Santa Anita two weeks ago. But the opposition was California-bred maidens, and at least one Las Vegas oddsmaker lists Earl’s Valentine at 20-1 for the Breeders’ Cup. Still, Manzi figures she belongs in this rich race.

“They’ve got the same parents (Saros is the sire and Iza Valentine the dam), but these two fillies don’t look alike,” Manzi said. “Earl’s Valentine is a bay, and Fran’s Valentine is dark brown. Already, Earl’s Valentine is bigger and stronger than her sister. She’s always been big. She was big when I first got her.”

Earl’s Valentine had sore shins earlier this year and went back to Scheib’s Green Thumb Farm in Chino. The 2-year-old is named after the owner, the 3-year-old after Scheib’s late wife, whose success raising violets inspired the name of the farm.

In California, Earl’s Valentine had been seen dawdling at the start of workouts even before her first race, but Manzi minimizes the gate problem. “She ducked in once but I’m not worried,” Manzi said. “The slow start in her race was due more to greenness than anything else. I’ve been standing her in the gate in the mornings since she came to Aqueduct, and she’s been perfect.”

The entry of Family Style, Arewehavingfunyet and Twilight Ridge, three of trainer Wayne Lukas’ 10 starters in the seven Breeders’ Cup races, will be favored in the mile Juvenile Fillies. Another three-horse Lukas entry--Lady’s Secret, Life’s Magic and Alabama Nana--will be favored in the 1-mile Distaff.

Lukas has the numbers going for him, all right. But in the sisters Valentine, Joe Manzi thinks he has the horses.