Cardoza Feels Hawkish on Return to Training

Prohibitive workers’ compensation costs drove trainer Danny Cardoza from the racetrack; a huge 2-year-old colt has brought him back with a fanfare.

Even though the 54-year-old Cardoza won almost 2,900 races as a quarter-horse jockey and won a pair of $1-million races early in his training career, he has never been a horseman who has lapped up the spotlight. But with Hawkish, the low-key Cardoza has no choice. It’s difficult to blend into the background when you’re saddling the 2-1 favorite in a race that will net Hawkish’s owner a seven-figure bonus if he wins it.

The $1.3-million Los Alamitos Million Futurity will be run late tonight at the Orange County track, and if Cardoza had his way they’d be running this stake a lot earlier. “Being a trainer going into a race like this is a lot worse on the nerves than being a jockey,” Cardoza said. “When you train a horse for a race like this, you give the jockey a leg up [in the paddock], and then it’s completely out of your hands.”

The Futurity Trials, run on Nov. 28, indicated that Hawkish can be beaten. His qualifying time was the fourth-fastest, and he finished third in his heat. But Hawkish won five consecutive races before that and, according to Cardoza, he wasn’t 100% the night of the trials.

“He spiked a temperature about 10 days before,” Cardoza said, “and I wasn’t able to work him as hard as I would have liked.”

Jockey Alex Bautista is confident Hawkish will run better tonight. The horses who finished ahead of Hawkish -- Dash Of Perry and Cash For Kas dead-heated for the win -- will be running in the Futurity, as well as Corona For Me, whose time of 19.55 for 400 yards made him the race’s fastest qualifier. Corona For Me, who lost his left eye in an accident last year, is 7-2 on the Futurity’s morning line. Dash Of Perry is 4-1 and Cash For Kas is 5-1 in the 10-horse field.

“As far as I’m concerned, they’re all tough,” Cardoza said. “I’ve looked at these horses, and I don’t see one of them that isn’t capable of winning. This is the toughest field the Futurity’s ever had.”

Winning the Million Futurity is worth $545,860, but Hawkish is running for a $1-million bonus that goes with sweeping the Kindergarten Futurity, the Ed Burke Futurity and tonight’s race. When Hawkish was trained by Concepcion Balderrama, he won the Kindergarten in May and the Ed Burke in July.

Enrique Gonzalez, who bought the Ed Allred-bred Hawkish for $90,000 at an auction last year, fired Balderrama last month, telling Cardoza that he had trouble communicating with his former trainer. Attempts to reach Balderrama were unsuccessful.

Cardoza said that when he began working for Gonzalez, in early November, he had no idea that Balderrama was going to be sacked. Cardoza, who had left his racetrack training job in July, joined Gonzalez at his 40-acre High Desert Farm in Temecula. A couple of weeks later, Balderrama was out and Cardoza was back at Los Alamitos, where he had trained since 1995, three years after he rode his last horse there.

“I got out of the business earlier this year because of the workers’ comp expenses,” said Cardoza, echoing a complaint that has been made by dozens of trainers in California. “I just couldn’t handle it anymore. My insurance premiums were up to about $11,000 a month. Now I’m training horses again, and [Gonzalez] takes care of the workers’ comp.”

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The New York Racing Assn., which runs Belmont Park, Saratoga and Aqueduct, has been indicted for fraud and conspiracy, but in an agreement with prosecutors will avoid a federal trial by paying a $3-million fine and allowing an independent monitor to review its operations for 18 months. Seven former NYRA employees -- two mutuel department heads, four mutuel clerks and a track official who is charged with illegal payments to a union officer -- have been indicted. Prosecutors said that at least two dozen mutuel clerks at the three tracks failed to report income totaling $19 million between 1980 and 1999. NYRA also agreed to reimburse the government for expenses incurred during the investigation.

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The U.S. Court of Appeals has turned down an appeal of a multi-million-dollar judgment against the former business managers of Hall of Fame jockeys Laffit Pincay and Chris McCarron. Pincay and McCarron, who are now retired, sued Vincent and Robert Andrews in 1989. According to Neil Papiano, who represents the jockeys, the only remaining legal option for the Andrews brothers is the U.S. Supreme Court. Papiano said that the Andrewses owe Pincay almost $4.5 million, including interest, and their responsibility to McCarron is about $2.65 million. Andrew Hayes, an attorney for the defendants, declined to comment.

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Sarafan, one of two U.S. horses scheduled to run in Sunday’s $1.8-million Hong Kong Mile, was scratched after testing positive for a prohibited steroid. Mister Acpen, the other U.S. representative, will be ridden by David Flores. Sarafan, fourth in the Hong Kong Cup last year, ran 17th, beating only one horse, in the Japan Cup last month.