Those Who Wanted Winner Put Browser on Dixie Dot Com

Horse racing, for the most part, is a matter of coming close but not winning. It’s a constant battle against the odds.

Just ask Bill Morey Jr.

“I had my first horse at Caliente in 1960 and I went broke,” Morey said Thursday afternoon at Fairplex Park in Pomona. “I continued to struggle, then I went in the service. I was in Vietnam. When I came out, I put my heart into training horses.”

Last year Morey, from San Francisco, thought he had a colt that could get him to the Kentucky Derby.

Its name was Dixie Dot Com.

“I thought Event Of The Year was possibly the best 2-year-old coming 3-year-old and I thought we weren’t too far behind,” Morey said. “But it shows you how things develop. All of a sudden we’re on the sideline, Event Of The Year is on the sideline and Real Quiet [the eventual Derby winner] gets real good. It’s just that kind of a game.”

Dixie Dot Com had been training well at Hollywood Park but, susceptible to tender shins, the bay colt was injured in a race in the mud in Northern California.

“If we were going to stay in the Derby picture, we had to get that race in him,” Morey said. “Unfortunately, he had just the slightest hairline fracture of the cannon bone. If it was major, they put screws in him. We didn’t have to put screws in him. This horse never left my barn.

“We just did what we thought was right, consulting with our veterinarians. We gave the horse a lot of jogging, a lot of time, a lot of patience. We dropped out of the Derby picture, but we tried to do the best for the horse.”

And on Thursday Dixie Dot Com repaid that patience, winning the $50,000 Foothill Stakes by three lengths at Fairplex Park as the 18-day Los Angeles County Fair meeting opened.

Ridden by David Flores, Dixie Dot Com covered the 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:16 on a fast track. Search Me, with J.C. Gonzalez aboard, finished second, 2 1/2 lengths in front of Lucky Sandman, ridden by Emile Ramsammy.

“Right away, when he came out of the gate, he showed me lot of talent right there,” Flores said. “So I just waited until the first turn to see what these guys [the rest of the field of 10] were going to do. He made the first turn beautiful and then he was home free.”

Morey said he had been waiting for the right race for Dixie Dot Com, who paid $6.00.

“You can only train them so long, I don’t care who you are,” he said. “You’ve got to get a race under them.

“Hopefully, now we can keep on cookin’ because this colt can run. I think he showed you guys down south today that he’s not just a Northern California slug. He is legitimate.”

As is Hollyhoney, who went wire-to-wire while winning the first of the meeting’s 19 stakes races, the $50,000 Bustles and Bows.

Jockey Scott Stevens had merely to steer the 2-year-old bay filly around the tight turns of the track known as the “bullring” to win the stake for the second year in a row. Last year, Stevens won aboard Code Love.

L’Autre Monde, with Ramsammy riding, made a race of it, chasing Hollyhoney all the way around the track but failing to catch the winner, who was timed in 1:17 for the 6 1/2 furlongs. L’Autre Monde finished a length behind, with Lake Veronica and jockey Garrett Gomez another four lengths back in third.

The winner paid $4.80.

“I had a perfect trip,” Stevens said. “She’s a prefect horse for this track. She has so much natural speed.”