Jory Still Working on Second Million

Four years after Ian Jory broke in as a full-time trainer in Southern California, he saddled Best Pal to win the Hollywood Futurity, which was then a $1-million race.

That was in 1990, and Jory, now 45, is still looking for a second $1-million win. The next opportunity comes Saturday at Santa Anita, where Jory will send out Continental Red -- like Best Pal, a California-bred gelding -- in the Sunshine Millions Classic. That’s the richest race on an eight-race program -- four at Santa Anita, four at Gulfstream Park -- that will offer $3.6 million in purses to horses bred in California or Florida.

There are only two holdovers from the inaugural Classic, which was run last year at Gulfstream, and they are the oldest and the most experienced in Saturday’s 12-horse field. Continental Red is an 8-year-old, a year older than Grey Memo, who has run 50 times to Continental Red’s 56 starts. Grey Memo, third in the first Classic, was winless last year and while he trains regularly at Santa Anita, hasn’t won there in 15 tries.

Continental Red, who races for Sharon Fitzpatrick of Nuevo, Calif., finished eighth at Gulfstream. Jory cringes when he recalls the veteran horse’s rare trip outside California.

“He didn’t care for the track at all,” Jory said. “He took a lot of sand in his face, and just couldn’t run. There’s sand on California tracks, but it’s not the kind of fine sand you have at Gulfstream. I looked at the tape of the race, and my horse ran a good part of it with his eyes closed.”

Jory considered leaving Continental Red at home last year, to run in the $500,000 Sunshine Millions Turf at Santa Anita. In earning a little more than $1 million, Continental Red has four wins and 23 in-the-money grass finishes in 37 starts. On dirt, the surface for the Classic, the durable gelding has three wins and seven in-the-money finishes in 19 races.

“I probably blew that one last year,” said Jory, who toyed with the idea of running his horse in this year’s Turf, which under the Sunshine Millions’ alternating format will be run Saturday at Gulfstream.

“Grass is probably this horse’s best surface,” Jory conceded, “but the truth is, this is a hard-knocking campaigner who would run over broken glass if you asked him. The grass race in Florida seems to be coming up strong, and if it rained there Saturday my horse wouldn’t appreciate running over a soft course. So we would have shipped him all the way there, and for the second year in a row he might not come up with the surface he’s comfortable with.”

Jory and trainers of the other horses in the Classic are hoping that Peace Rules, the 9-5 morning-line favorite, won’t be sharp in his first start since a last-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Mile on grass three months ago. Continental Red, who is listed at odds of 6-1, is coming off a second-place finish behind Redattore in the San Gabriel Handicap, a grass race, at Santa Anita on Dec. 28.

“That was a huge race for my horse,” Jory said. “Continental Red’s never gotten a lot of respect. He’s lost a lot of races, one of them the 2002 [California Cup Classic], by small margins. If some of those noses had gone the other way, he could have been a $2-million [earner] instead of $1 million.”

Continental Red hasn’t run on dirt since last year’s Sunshine Millions. Besides the San Gabriel, his other second-place finishes in 2003 came in the California Cup Mile and the Del Mar Handicap. At Del Mar, he lost by a head to Irish Warrior. His last win came seven months ago in the Quicken Tree Stakes at Hollywood Park. Pat Valenzuela, who rode him that day, will be aboard on Saturday.

“I guess you could say we’re trying to get revenge for what happened last year at Gulfstream,” Jory said. “I like our chances. We’ve got the No. 1 post, but that’s all right. There’s a ton of speed in the race [including Peace Rules], so we’ll just sit behind them and try to make a late move.”

The English-born Jory, who was an assistant in California to fellow Brit John Gosden before striking out on his own, has trained Continental Red for all but one of his 55 starts. The horse started out with Leigh Ann Howard.

“I don’t know what happened,” Jory said. “I just got a call one day from [co-breeder] Wes Fitzpatrick, asking if I’d take the horse.”

In 1990, Best Pal looked to be Jory’s break-out horse as he tried to build a full-fledged stable from what started as a five-horse band. Before Best Pal’s December win in the Hollywood Futurity, he won stakes at Del Mar and Santa Anita, but was sixth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Belmont Park. Going into 1991, Best Pal was a leading Kentucky Derby contender. He finished second, a half-length behind Dinard, in the Santa Anita Derby, and was second again as Strike The Gold won at Churchill Downs.

After a fifth-place finish in the Preakness and a second back at Hollywood Park in the Silver Screen Handicap in June, John and Betty Mabee of Golden Eagle Farm switched trainers and sent Best Pal to Gary Jones. Best Pal, who ran his final 14 races for trainer Richard Mandella, was retired in 1996 with purses of $5.6 million, then a record for a California-bred.

Jory is disappointed that Golden Eagle never offered him another horse. He says that as he casts his eyes toward another $1-million race. He expects his horse to have both eyes open this time.