McCarron Lets Emotions Ride

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — Jockey Chris McCarron had an invisible partner with him in the saddle at Saratoga Saturday.

Deputy Commander and McCarron won the $750,000 Travers Stakes by the narrowest of margins--with the jockey’s recently deceased mother spiritually along for the ride.

A red-eyed Chris McCarron cried in the winner’s circle, cried with commentator Charlsie Cantey during an ESPN interview and cried again in the interview tent before asking to be excused. With his eight brothers and sisters, McCarron buried his 75-year-old mother, Helen, on Friday in a Boston suburb, then came here Saturday morning for the 128th Travers, a race he had won twice before.

The California-based McCarron heard about his mother’s death Tuesday night.

“I got a little selfish,” McCarron said after the Travers. “I called home and put a burden on my family that they didn’t deserve. But they gave me their blessing [to ride]. If there’s anything my mother would have done, it would have been to give me a boost in the race, and sure enough, she did. I could feel her presence out there.”

The McCarron family had known since Mother’s Day that their mother had been diagnosed with brain cancer.

“But still, you’re never prepared when they go,” said Judy McCarron, who has been married to the jockey for 21 years. “Chris made up his mind on Tuesday that he was going to try to ride. I knew he was riding for his mother. The rest of the family was home [in Massachusetts] watching on television and hoping he’d win. Family means a lot to Chris. He’s had a lot of big wins, but he’ll always remember this one. I haven’t seen him break up like this since we were here the year [1989] he went into the Hall of Fame.”

There also had to be fate for Deputy Commander and McCarron to arrive at Saratoga together. Corey Nakatani, who had ridden the colt in six of his seven races, winning the Affirmed Handicap and finishing second to Free House in the Swaps at Hollywood Park this summer, was recently suspended by the Del Mar stewards. Nakatani had shoved another jockey off his horse following a race.

Then Touch Gold, ridden by McCarron when they won the Belmont Stakes--thwarting a Triple Crown sweep by Silver Charm--was withdrawn from the Travers because of a nagging hoof crack. That decision was made last weekend, and it galvanized Wally Dollase, Deputy Commander’s trainer: He re-routed his horse, from the $400,000 Secretariat Stakes at Arlington International today to the Travers, and hired McCarron to ride.

“I know how good of a horse Touch Gold is,” said Dollase, a Californian who had never run a horse at Saratoga. “At this stage, my horse couldn’t have beaten him. Chris would have told me if he couldn’t ride. I knew he would say his mom wanted him to be here.”

The horse Deputy Commander defeated by a nose was Behrens, who was trying to give his trainer, Jim Bond, a second consecutive victory in the Travers. Awesome Again, winner of the Jim Dandy at Saratoga three weeks ago and Saturday’s 7-5 favorite, made a late move from the outside before 46,532 fans, but flattened out in the stretch and finished third, seven lengths behind Behrens. The rest of the order of finish was Blazing Sword, Cryptocloser, Twin Spires, Affirmed Success and Affairwithpeaches.

Deputy Commander, the third choice, paid $10 to win. He ran 1 1/4 miles in 2:04, the race’s slowest winning time in 23 years. Saratoga was hard hit by rain late in the week--1 1/2 inches fell Friday--but the sun was out Saturday and there was a quick-drying track for the Travers. Earlier races produced freakishly fast times, including a near-record 1:14 4/5 for 6 1/2 furlongs by older allowance horses.

Winning for the third time in eight starts--all this year--Deputy Commander earned $450,000 for his owners, the Mike Jarvis-led Horizon Stable syndicate and Richard Eamer of Mandysland Farm. Deputy Commander, by Deputy Minister out of Irish-bred mare Anka Germania was bred in Kentucky by Crystal Springs Farm, which includes racetrack executives R.D. Hubbard of Hollywood Park, Ed Allred of Los Alamitos and Robert Moore. As an unraced 2-year-old, the colt was sold at auction for $205,000.

McCarron had Deputy Commander in third place early, behind Affirmed Success and Twin Spires, and effectively kept Awesome Again and Mike Smith on the outside, where the going was sticky and tiring. Smith said later that he would have been better off dropping Awesome Again to the inside.

At the top of the stretch, Deputy Commander had taken the lead, but held just a head’s advantage over Behrens on the outside. “I really didn’t think we lost,” said Jerry Bailey, who rode Behrens.

Deputy Commander was running without blinkers for the first time.

“That made him more controllable,” McCarron said. “When we turned for home, his left ear went up. That was a fuel gauge. It told me that he had more energy left in the tank.”