COMMENTARY / HORSE RACING : Hooliganisim Is the End Result of Some Sappy Sentimentalism

It is an axiom of the racing business that owners shouldn’t get too attached to their horses, especially cheap horses. Anybody who wants to survive in the game must be willing to sell horses, to drop them in class so that they’re claimed, to treat them more as commodities than as family pets.

Penelope Ann Keating, who operates a farm on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, admits that she never has learned this lesson. “I get attached to all my horses,” Keating said. “I deliver them; I ride them; I like to think I know their characters. I love them all.”

A few years ago, Keating owned a filly named Manhattan Meadow, who won a $14,000 claiming race--and was claimed away from her. “I was standing in the winner’s circle, crying,” she remembered. “I was sort of naive and I didn’t understand the claiming end of the game.” Keating always felt a fondness for Manhattan Meadow and kept track of her as she continued to race and to descend to the $2,000 claiming level, and decided that she wanted to claim the filly back.

She went to the bank, withdrew the necessary funds in cash and recalled, “I had to store the money somewhere, so I put it in some baking flour. It turned out there was a mouse in the flour and he ate the money.” Happily, enough shreds of the gnawed bills were left that the bank replaced them and Keating wound up getting back her Manhattan Meadow. She bred the cheap filly to a cheap stallion.

This is the sort of sappy sentimentalism that is ordinarily the antithesis of successful practice in the horse business; you won’t see King T. Leatherbury, for example, weeping when a cheap horse is claimed from him.

But Keating was rewarded for her devotion. Manhattan Meadow’s foal was a colt she named (and misspelled) Hooliganisim. After starting his career at the rock-bottom level of Maryland racing, he has developed into a speedster capable of beating any sprinter in the state and has earned nearly $250,000 for Keating and co-owner Lawrence Hoyle Jr. On Saturday he will try to demonstrate that he belongs with the best sprinters in the country when he runs in the rich Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash at Laurel.

Only an owner as upbeat as Keating would have seen virtues in Hooliganisim during the early stages of his career. Many might have given up on the colt. When Keating was breaking him, the colt tossed her and broke her ribs. (“When I was flying through the air,” she said, “I was thinking, ‘What power!’ ”) When Hooliganisim began his career running in maiden $8,500 claiming races, he lost his first six starts by a combined total of 116 lengths. Keating wasn’t discouraged; she thought her baby just needed to mature.

Trainer Jerry Robb had concluded that Hooliganisim didn’t have much of a future in Maryland, so Keating turned him over to Robb’s foreman, Fred Groves, who was just going out on his own to try to launch a career as a trainer. She also entrusted him with a 2-year-old named Kelly’s Class.

Eager to prove himself, Groves lavished attention on both animals--with impressive results. Kelly’s Class, with nine victories already this year, is vying to become America’s top race-winning thoroughbred of 1992. But Groves’ transformation of the hapless Hooliganisim was even more remarkable.

Hooliganisim had always been headstrong, and even after he was gelded he was hard for riders to handle. Groves studied films of his races, changed equipment, changed exercise riders, subjected him to a hard training regimen. Hooliganisim gradually began to change into a professional racehorse. “Mostly,” Groves said, “he was just immature. Even by his 4-year-old season he was still growing and still developing. He really didn’t finish putting on weight till this year, and now he’s become even more massive.”

As a 5 year old this season Hooliganisim has periodically delivered overpowering, sensationally fast performances. In February he won the Northern Wolf Handicap by running six furlongs in 1:09. An injury sidelined him during the spring, but last week he bounced back and won an allowance race by eight lengths with consummate ease.

On his best days Hooliganisim has earned speed figures as good as anybody in the 12-horse field for the De Francis Dash. But he has not yet proved that he can beat high-quality stakes horses such as Sunny Sunrise and King Corrie. And he will have trouble getting the early lead against speedballs like the California invader Southern Justice. Groves understands this, but he has learned not to underestimate Hooliganisim.