THOROUGHBRED RACING / BILL CHRISTINE : After 100 Races, This 10-Year-Old Is Still Kicking

Before the 100th race of Greager’s career, last Friday at Golden Gate Fields, jockey Russell Baze’s wary valet asked trainer Jack Arterburn if the 10-year-old gelding might kick when he was saddled.

“I don’t see why he wouldn’t,” Arterburn said. “He’s done it the other 99 times.”

Arterburn, 60, should know. Except for one race, he and Greager have gone the distance together. They have won 24 races--No. 24 a week ago--and finished second 23 times and third 17 times.

Once a stakes horse, later an allowance campaigner, Greager is now in the nickel-dime stage of a horse’s career, still winning but relegated to bottom-of-the-barrel claiming races at Golden Gate and Bay Meadows in Northern California. But as long as Arterburn spots him properly--distances of a mile to 1 1/8 miles, in claiming company not higher than $6,500--Greager can be effective. And if Greager catches an off track, all the better. The old-timer has seven wins, three seconds and three thirds in 22 starts in the mud.

“He came out of that last race wide-eyed and bushy-tailed,” Arterburn said. “I might run him one more time this year. I plan to keep him in training for at least a couple of starts next year. When a horse is this old, you play it by ear. When we retire him, we won’t be losing him. We’ll keep him around as a stable pony.”

Greager’s 24th victory was worth $4,950, lifting his earnings to $268,064. Hundreds of horses have run as 10-year-olds or older, but Greager has done 99% of his running for the same barn. Arterburn and his wife, Sue, who is co-owner, were shocked and hurt when trainer Gary Greiner claimed Greager for $5,000 after a race the horse had won at Golden Gate on Feb. 3, 1994.

“We’ve been able to run him for a [claiming] tag so often and still keep him because everybody around the track knows how much he means to us,” Jack Arterburn said. “Not many [other trainers] may like me, but they all like my wife.”

Greager was in a strange barn for exactly 17 days. The first time Greiner ran the horse, Arterburn claimed him back for $6,250.

“That race was in the mud, but he still got beat by 24 lengths,” Arterburn said. “He only beat one horse. That’s the worst he’s ever done on an off track. I think he was happy to come back home.”

Since then, Greager has earned paychecks in 15 of 17 starts. He has won four of nine starts this year, and Baze, Northern California’s premier jockey and the Arterburns’ son-in-law, has been aboard for three of the victories.

Greager is a California-bred son of Poleax and Candy Canyon, who went from a can’t-win filly to a seven-race winner when she raced for Jack Arterburn as a 4-year-old in 1981. A tendon injury prematurely ended her career.

“I bought her for $5,000, from a foxy Colorado lawyer who was always trying to get the edge on you in horse deals,” Arterburn said. “His name was Greager, so that’s how the horse got his name.”

As a 2-year-old, Greager won two of four races, and Arterburn was high on him in 1988. But in the El Camino Real Derby, Bay Meadows’ showcase race for 3-year-olds, Greager ran sixth, far behind the victorious Ruhlmann. Greager scored his only stakes victory in the $44,150 Determine Handicap, also in 1988.

In the nine years he has been running, Greager has won at least one race every year, and has started at least 11 times in six of those years.

“If he’s ever had any problems, they’re probably old and set by now,” said Sheila Gaudreau, one of the stewards at Golden Gate. “When horses get that old, they get smart. They’re able to take care of themselves. As long as he’s competitive, we’ll let Greager run. In today’s world [of short fields], how can you turn a horse away?”

Gaudreau recalled another ancient gelding, Maxwell G., who raced in Chicago. Maxwell G. was still on the track as a 16-year-old before he was retired in 1977. He had run 234 times, winning 47 races.

Arterburn will vouch for Greager’s intelligence.

“We play a game with him,” the trainer said. “We go up and ask him, ‘Who’s the best horse?’ When you say that, he nods his head. He seems to know.”

There was a small crowd at Golden Gate for Greager’s victory last week, but Arterburn said his horse got a standing ovation when he reached the winner’s circle.

“The horse has a lot of personality, and people respond to him,” Arterburn said. “He’s got a fan club. He’ll get Christmas cards, and some people will put $2 or $5 in. They tell us to buy him carrots with the money.”

In 1988, the gelding’s 3-year-old year, Arterburn bought a new Cadillac and got a license plate that reads GREAGER.

“I’ve still got the Caddy,” Arterburn said Thursday. “It’s got 60,000 miles on it. Both the horse and the car are in good shape.”

Horse Racing Notes

Her whole career was a struggle because of illness and injury, but Lakeway had still won seven of 14 starts and earned $965,330 when she was retired this week. Last year, the daughter of Seattle Slew won four major races, including the Santa Anita Oaks, the Mother Goose at Belmont Park and the Hollywood Oaks, but she was beaten by Heavenly Prize in the balloting for the 3-year-old filly champion. Lakeway, bred and owned by Mike Rutherford and trained by Gary Jones, will be bred to Storm Cat next year.

Owners Gary and Betty Biszantz will ship Cobra King to Gulfstream Park, where trainer Mike Puype will prepare the colt for his 3-year-old debut, in the Hutcheson Stakes on Feb. 4. Hennessy, beaten by half a length by Cobra King at Hollywood Park on Nov. 19, will run in the Hollywood Futurity on Dec. 17.

Kingdom Found, probable favorite in Saturday’s $100,000 On Trust Handicap at Hollywood, drew the inside post position in a field of nine. Others entered, in post-position order, are Argolid, Awesome Daze, Flying Standby, Geenger Man, Goldigger’s Dream, Desert Pirate, Flying Sensation and Uncaged Fury, who was third in the stake a year ago. Chris McCarron, who has won the race the last two years with Echo Of Yesterday, rides Goldigger’s Dream.