Little Ol’ Texas Horse Gets Left Behind on Track’s Opening Day

Zeb Sumpter, his blue eyes peering from his weather-beaten face, couldn’t find his way down to the track.

His horse, Sandbar, had finished last in the first division of the Oceanside Stakes Wednesday on opening day at Del Mar, which began its 50th year.

Amid a track-record crowd of 29,856, many of whom were resplendent in silk, linen and gold jewelry, the gray-haired Texan, in a red-plaid shirt and jeans, looked decidedly lost.

The owner/trainer wasn’t reunited with his 3-year-old brown gelding until they met at the barn. Sumpter looked Sandbar in the eye and muttered the name of a dog food.

Sumpter’s and Sandbar’s relationship is a tumultuous one. Other thoroughbreds are wooed and pampered, but not Sandbar.

Consider the contrast between Sandbar and Kindly Court, the winning horse in the Oceanside Stakes’ first division.

--Kindly Court was claimed by Roy Cohen in a $50,000 race.

Sandbar was given free of charge to Sumpter, who didn’t even ask for him, by an old friend, Payne Roye. Sumpter promptly entered Sandbar in claiming races of $2,500, $5,000 and $7,500, but no one took the horse off Sumpter’s hands.

--Both Kindly Court and Sandbar arrived at Del Mar less than a week ago. Kindly Court traveled by jet, coast to coast from Florida, in about 10 hours.

Sandbar bumped along in a trailer from Santa Fe, N.M., for more than 20 hours.

The most significant difference between the horses is how much money they have earned for their owners. Before Wednesday, Kindly Court had entered 17 races and had won $119,759.

After 12 races, Sandbar has won $7,085.

Most of the entries in this meeting have been earning money this year at Hollywood Park and Santa Anita or--like Kindly Court--at such Eastern tracks as Belmont.

But Sumpter, who is from Graham, Tex.--”right in the middle of the state”--has been racing Sandbar at San Juan Downs in New Mexico. Not exactly big money.

“It’s a pretty well-depressed area,” Sumpter said.

So why was Sandbar racing in an opening-day stakes race?

“You gotta take that shot for the money,” Sumpter said. “If you got these things, you gotta buy oats.”

Plus, Sandbar, like his owner, is tough. The horse is also fast. He set track records in both mile races and 6 1/2 furlongs at San Juan Downs.

“So we thought we’d run him with the best,” Sumpter said. “This horse could even run on pavement.”

Maybe, but what Sandbar hadn’t run on before Wednesday was grass. In his first turf race, he held his own until the second turn, where he faded.

“We got it all out of him,” Sumpter said. “He just didn’t match.”

Sumpter, who is keeping Sandbar at San Luis Rey Downs, said he hopes to race the horse again at Del Mar.

“We probably will,” said Sumpter, who estimated he spent about $10,000 on the trip to California. “We got to make some of it back.”