THOROUGHBRED RACING : After Owners Signed Check, Star Of Cozzene Has Paid Off

The owners of Star Of Cozzene, possibly the best horse in the country, acquired the 5-year-old in 1991 after a couple of speculators had bought him with a worthless check.

The big-money game of racing is full of stories about shadowy deals, but the Star Of Cozzene caper appears to be one that has had a happy ending for all concerned: Cash-strapped Jean-Laurent Andreani sold the horse for a nice profit; the two speculators didn’t have to apologize for writing a bad check and even wound up with a $50,000 finders’ fee, and Team Valor Stable, for a total outlay of less than $200,000, is now racing a potential national champion.

When Star Of Cozzene broke his maiden at Santa Anita during the winter of 1991, Andreani’s Lonimar Stable was overextended and on the verge of going out of business. Star Of Cozzene, a son of Cozzene, the 1985 Breeders’ Cup Mile winner and male grass champion, had cost Lonimar $35,000 at an auction of unraced 2-year-olds in 1990.

A jockey’s agent and a trainer, knowing that Lonimar was trying to unload its horses, made a deal for Star Of Cozzene before the sun had set that day at Santa Anita and wrote a check for $125,000. Then they called Barry Irwin of Clover Racing, the forerunner of Team Valor, and asked him if he would make good on the payment and take the horse.

“The whole deal was completed in a matter of hours,” Irwin said. “This isn’t a story that makes me and my partner, Jeff Siegel, seem very smart. Both of us were sick in bed, with the flu, the day the horse won and we hadn’t even seen his race. But the check those two guys wrote would have bounced if we hadn’t been interested.”

After that, Star Of Cozzene was syndicated for $200,000, with Irwin and Siegel keeping 5% apiece and 16 partners buying shares of 5% to 10%.

“Our concept is to buy horses wholesale and sell retail,” said Irwin, 50, a former Daily Racing Form reporter who has had his own tough times in racing, having declared bankruptcy in 1988.

In June, at Belmont Park and Atlantic City, Star Of Cozzene scored two victories over Lure, last year’s Breeders’ Cup Mile winner. Since November, Star Of Cozzene has run nine times, with six victories and three seconds--two of the defeats at the hands of Lure--and his victory Sunday in the $500,000 Caesars International Handicap sent his earnings over the $1-million mark.

Last year, for the second time, Irwin and Siegel did not seem too smart when they sent Star Of Cozzene to France.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Irwin said. “The horse prefers soft turf, which you get a lot of over there, and he wasn’t handling the sharp turns that many grass courses have here. But it was a disaster. He never acclimated over there.”

In the care of Francois Boutin, France’s premier trainer, Star Of Cozzene won only two minor races in eight European starts. In a rare concession for a Frenchman, Boutin told Irwin that Star Of Cozzene didn’t like the food.

When Star Of Cozzene was sent back to California, he was turned over to Mark Hennig, Wayne Lukas’ former assistant who had been hired as Team Valor’s stable trainer. Lukas had saddled Star Of Cozzene for his third-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Churchill Downs in 1991.

“Two weeks after he was back, he started picking up weight,” Irwin said. “In six weeks, he was almost back to being the same horse we sent over there. He gained at least a couple of hundred pounds.”

Star Of Cozzene will not be able to sneak up on any opponents the way a couple of other Irwin-Siegel runners did in 1989. Martial Law, at 50-1, won the Santa Anita Handicap, and in the fall, Prized, who had never run on grass, was almost 9-1 in taking the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Gulfstream Park for Clover and partner Barbara LaCroix.

This year, Team Valor is brimming with stakes winners, Star Of Cozzene being part of a cast that also includes Lady Blessington, Sambacarioca, Icy Warning and Santa Catalina. All but Sambacarioca, who is in Florida with Marty Wolfson, are trained by Hennig, who is headed for Saratoga instead of Del Mar this summer, mainly to prepare Star Of Cozzene for the Arlington Million on Aug. 29.

In his first race back from France, Star Of Cozzene ran ninth in last year’s Million. Whether there will be a return to the Breeders’ Cup, at Santa Anita on Nov. 6, is something the Star Of Cozzene partnership must thrash out.

“The Japan Cup is also a possibility,” Irwin said. “We’ll have to determine what our goal is: Just to keep piling up the purses, or to win an Eclipse Award. If you want to win an Eclipse, you almost have to run in the Breeders’ Cup.”

Star Of Cozzene is ineligible for the Breeders’ Cup, not having been nominated when he was a yearling. When he ran in the $1-million Mile in 1991, the owners paid a $120,000 supplemental penalty, and he earned $126,000.

“Pat Day rode him, and he got beat by less than two lengths,” Irwin said. “Jose Santos could have ridden him, but he chose (eighth-place-finishing) Scan instead. Since then, Santos has been undefeated on Star Of Cozzene. Who knows, we might have won the Mile, too, if Santos had stuck with us.”

Horse Racing Notes

Cliff Goodrich, president of Santa Anita, said Thursday that the track will appeal the $150,000 jury award that was given in Los Angeles Superior Court last month to the owner of a horse that died minutes after a race in 1988. “Our veterinarian (Roy Dillon) was experienced and highly qualified,” Goodrich said. “The action he took with a horse in distress is similar to what would have been done at many tracks under the same circumstances.” Secuencia, a 6-year-old mare owned by Ron Warranch, died on the track after she was splashed with a bucket of water by a security guard acting on Dillon’s instructions.

Rough Habit, a New Zealand-bred who has never raced here, is 8-1 to win Saturday’s $500,000 Hollywood Gold Cup. Here is the post-position lineup for the 1 1/4-mile race, with jockeys, weights and morning-line odds: Lottery Winner, Chris McCarron, 114 pounds, 20-1; Bertrando, Alex Solis, 118, 2-1; Campo Marzio, Julio Garcia, 109, 20-1; Rough Habit, Mick Dittman, 117, 8-1; Best Pal, Corey Black, 121, 9-5; Marquetry, Kent Desormeaux, 118, 2-1; Missionary Ridge, Corey Nakatani, 115, 2-1; Major Impact, Gary Stevens, 113, 12-1; Potrillion, Laffit Pincay, 115, 15-1; and Latin American, Eddie Delahoussaye, 117, 3-1. Bertrando, Marquetry and Missionary Ridge will run as an entry.

There are two other stakes on the Saturday card, the $150,000 Affirmed Handicap for 3-year-olds at 1 1/8 miles, and the $100,000 Triple Bend Handicap at seven furlongs. Devoted Brass, at 119 pounds, is the Affirmed high weight. He drew the rail and his opponents, in order, are Rio de la Plato, Codified, Roman Image, Pleasant Tango, Gavel Gate and Future Storm. . . . In the Triple Bend, Star Of The Crop, high-weighted at 120 pounds, has also drawn the No. 1 post. His rivals are Wild Harmony, Finder’s Fortune, Three Peat, Now Listen, Cardmania, Excavate, Slew Of Damascus, Individualist and Exemplary Leader.