A Ransom’s Script Quite Moving
Many film critics gave “Ransom,” the 1996 Mel Gibson-Rene Russo thriller, three stars. A Ransom did even better. The 4-year-old gelding, whose name was inspired by the movie, won the quarter horse equivalent of an Oscar when he was voted world champion a week ago.
John and Kathie Bobenrieth, who live in Costa Mesa, race A Ransom, and Kathie came up with the name.
“I liked the movie a lot, and thought it would be a good name for a horse,” she said.
Trouble was, the American Quarter Horse Assn. already had a horse named Ransom on its rolls.
“So I just stuck an A in front of it, and that name was approved,” Kathie said.
The next major decision the Bobenrieths made wasn’t that easy. A Ransom’s first season, as a 2-year-old in 1998, was hardly promising. He won only one of six starts, and his owners huddled with their trainer, Connie Hall, to decide whether they should geld the horse.
“We’re in the game primarily just to race,” said John Bobenrieth, who owns an equipment-rental business, “so we were in favor of gelding him. But Connie tried to talk us out of it.”
Usually it’s the other way around, a trainer not objecting to gelding but the owners looking long-range. A gelded horse, if he’s good, can race with a trainer for years, since there’s no chance he’ll be hustled off to the breeding shed.
Hall, who has been training since 1972 and has won more than 500 races at Los Alamitos, is glad the Bobenrieths were so persistent.
“There’s no question,” Hall said. “After he was gelded, his mind was a lot more on racing.”
A Ransom won five of 10 starts in 1999, a modest prelude to 2000, when he went undefeated in five starts, capped the year with a victory in the Champion of Champions at Los Alamitos and earned $380,393. By also winning the Grade I Vessels Maturity and the Los Alamitos Championship, A Ransom became the first undefeated horse to sweep those three races since Dash For Cash, a two-time world champion, in 1977.
Hall became only the second female trainer to win the Champion of Champions, following the lead of Donna McArthur with Dashing Folly in 1996.
Hall orchestrated A Ransom’s championship campaign perfectly. The plan was to bring him to the races late in the year, then home in on the major events. But there were big gaps in A Ransom’s schedule, and even Hall sometimes wondered if she was doing the right thing.
“A lot of people questioned what we were doing,” John Bobenrieth said. “But we felt all along that the horse would do better if we spaced his races that way.”
A Ransom made his first start in late June. He was on a win-a-month schedule then, but there was a two-month hiatus between his third win--the Vessels race--and the Los Alamitos Championship, then there were 70 days before the Champion of Champions. In the 440-yard finale, Carlos Bautista broke A Ransom on top and they beat Deelish--a McArthur trainee--by half a length.
“You always worry, off a layoff like that,” Hall said. “You wonder if a horse has put on too much weight. You wonder if, deep down inside, they’re really fit. All you can do is do everything you think is right, and then let the horse do the rest. It worked for us all year, and it worked again in the Champion of Champions.”
Hall, 56, also won the All-American Futurity at Ruidoso Downs with A Classic Dash in 1993, and now she’s become the second female trainer--along with McArthur again--to saddle winners in that race and the Champion of Champions.
“The Champions of Champions was a terrific thrill,” Kathie Bobenrieth said. “But the big race of the year for me was the Vessels Maturity.”
A Ransom wasn’t even favored that night, but he roared to the wire to beat Corona Cash by 1 1/4 lengths.
“I said to myself, ‘Oh, my God,’ ” Kathie said. “The way he won that race, we knew we really had something.”
Notes
Jockey Macario Rodriguez was hospitalized with cracked ribs after his mount, Roz Roz, reared and pinned him against the rail as they were leaving the saddling area before Wednesday’s eighth race at Santa Anita. . . . Keemoon, putting together wins for the first time since her arrival from France a year and a half ago, beat Juvenia by a neck in Thursday’s Reloy Handicap. Keemoon, trained by Neil Drysdale and ridden by Gary Stevens, went into the race off another turf win at 1 1/2 miles in the Waya Handicap at Hollywood Park on Dec. 16. . . . Los Alamitos, which ran in the daytime last weekend because of the statewide electricity shortage, returns to a night schedule tonight and Saturday. Because of the Super Bowl, there will be no live racing Sunday. . . . Hollywood Park, boosting prices for the first time in 10 years, will charge $10 for the clubhouse and $7 for general admission, which includes parking and a program. That’s an increase of $1, effective next Thursday. Admission for the turf club on intertrack-betting days is $15.