Manila Magnificent in the Million : Cordero Finds an Opening and Guides Him to Win

Eating lunch at a hotel next door to Arlington Park after a red-eye flight from California, Chris McCarron was told that Dance of Life had been scratched from Sunday’s Budweiser-Arlington Million, which would be run a few hours later. The 4-year-old colt, who probably would have been the third choice in the betting, was suffering from a swelling in his left front ankle.

McCarron, who would be riding Rivlia, said: “Now if only they could scratch Manila, things would be even better.”

But Manila showed up for the seventh running of the Million, looking like the magnificent specimen who won the Breeders’ Cup Turf Stakes at Santa Anita last year, clinching the national grass championship. Allen Paulson, one of the owners of Theatrical, another Million starter, said that if the race had been a beauty contest, the finalists would be his horse and Manila.

For a while, it looked as though that might be the result based on speed, as well. Theatrical, who lost by a neck to Manila in the Breeders’ Cup, stayed close to a slow pace and took the lead away from a distressed Forlitano with a quarter-mile to run.

But at the top of the stretch, Manila exploded. Deftly guided through a small hole just before the eight-horse field moved into the far turn, Manila blew past Theatrical and romped to a 1 1/2-length victory with only moderate urging by Angel Cordero, who had picked up the mount on Wednesday, after trainer LeRoy Jolley sacked Jacinto Vasquez in a disagreement over exercising horses.

Sharrood, a stakes winner at both Arlington and Del Mar in his last two starts, had the bad racing luck that Manila avoided and finished second under Laffit Pincay. It was another 3 lengths back to Theatrical, who appeared to labor in the slightly soft going after running first or second in all five starts this year.

Completing the field, in order, were Explosive Darling, Glaros, Rivlia, Spellbound and Forlitano, who stopped badly at the quarter pole and was bleeding freely from the nostrils after the race despite being treated with an anti-bleeding medication.

Sent off the even-money favorite in threatening weather by a crowd of 32,135, Manila paid $4, $3 and $2.20, running the 1 miles in 2:02 2/5, which was more than a second slower than it took Paulson’s mare, Estrapade, to win the race last year. Sharrood, third in the wagering, paid $4.40 and $2.60, and Theatrical, the second choice, returned $2.20.

What the Million proved is that Manila is back, although people such as Jolley and Mike Shannon, the 4-year-old Lyphard colt’s principal owner, might say that they never thought he was away.

Still, there were opposing trainers in the Million who felt Manila was vulnerable. He had shown a reluctance to run in his last race, when a half-length loss to Talakeno at Saratoga shattered a nine-race winning streak. Dehydrated by the oppressive Saratoga heat, Manila was five days recovering, his handlers giving him 18 liters of fluids to get him back on his feet.

“He hasn’t had a tough campaign this year,” one trainer said before the Million. “He didn’t have to carry much weight (113 pounds) when he won in Kentucky, and he’s been spotted so that he’s never faced the top horses.”

On Sunday, however, Manila had 126 pounds, including Cordero, on his back, the same as all the other starters. And after it looked as if he might be trapped on the far turn, he won convincingly. The performance was so thorough that Cordero, who has been aboard more than 6,000 winners in his career, put Manila in a narrow category with Triple Crown champion Seattle Slew in terms of best horses ridden.

Cordero hadn’t ridden Manila since the colt was a 2-year-old, and a winless horse who hadn’t been converted from a dirt to a grass runner. Until midweek, the mount belonged to Vasquez, who had won three out of four horses with Manila this year.

But on Wednesday, in a Belmont Park parking lot, the peevish Jolley said to Vasquez: “Don’t bother coming to the Million. I don’t need you.”

Vasquez said he balked at exercising a number of Jolley horses that he wouldn’t be riding in races.

“Sometimes you have to make decisions in this game that don’t make everybody happy,” Jolley said after the Million. “It wasn’t one single incident that led to the rider change. Losing the race at Saratoga wasn’t a factor. It was a broad spectrum of things that brought it on.”

The win was worth $60,000 to Cordero, who earned 10% of Manila’s $600,000 purse. Manila has now earned $2.6 million. Shannon bought him from Eduardo Cojuangco, the Filipino brewer who bred the horse but was forced to dispose of his racing stock when his friend, Ferdinand Marcos, was ousted as president of the country in 1985.

Cojuangco was at Arlington Park Sunday, and Shannon, who got a gold watch besides the purse, said he would be giving the timepiece to Manila’s former owner.

Manila and Cordero had timing on their side in the winning move just before the far turn. Forlitano was on the lead, Theatrical was just behind him on his right flank and Manila was caught behind them in a squeeze of horses--Sharrood was inside him, and Spellbound and Rivlia were to the outside.

“All of us were waiting for the same hole to open,” Cordero said. “But it was getting smaller and smaller. It was lucky that one of the horses ahead of us (Forlitano) was dying. I saw some daylight and my horse exploded through there.”

Said McCarron: “It’s a good thing Forlitano stopped. Angel shifted Manila to the inside and got him through.”

Sharrood wasn’t so fortunate. “I had to steady him for a while,” Pincay said. “I still thought my horse ran a powerful race, but if Manila gets through at that point, he’s the horse to beat.

“If Manila had to come around instead of getting through, it might be a different race. You just don’t know. I just wish I had a cleaner trip so I could say he beat me good.”

Pat Day, who rode four earlier winners, including the three races before the Million, was Theatrical’s jockey.

“I wanted to be sitting behind Forlitano and Spellbound,” Day said, “but my horse broke sharper than I wanted, started fighting me early and then I was forced into a cat-and-mouse game with Forlitano going down the backstretch.

“Then Spellbound came up alongside us, and that made my horse even more nervous. We made the lead in hand (under restraint), and even though my horse responded in the stretch, he was spinning his wheels. The last eighth of a mile, he floundered.”

Shannon and Jolley have a decision to make in the next week: Whether to try Manila on dirt again, running him in the $1-million Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park on Oct. 10, or to go to Paris for next month’s Arc de Triomphe, a race an American horse has never won. The year-end goal is the Breeders’ Cup at Hollywood Park on Nov. 21, when Jolley might have a choice between the $2-million Turf Stakes and the $3-million Classic.

Cordero hopes he’s along, no matter what the itinerary. “I can’t see anybody beating him,” the jockey said. “If my life depended on two horses, I’d pick this one and Seattle Slew to ride.”