Ghostzapper to Take Different Route

The last time Frank Stronach won the Breeders’ Cup Classic, with Awesome Again at Churchill Downs in 1998, his horse never ran again and was hustled off to stud. This time, Stronach has reversed himself with another of his 4-year-olds. Ghostzapper, a son of Awesome Again and winner of Saturday’s Classic at Lone Star Park, will race one more season.

Stronach, whose many racetrack holdings include Lone Star and Santa Anita, indicated as much late Saturday at Lone Star, then confirmed his 2005 plans on Sunday. “This is an exciting horse,” he said, “and I owe it to the public to keep him around.”

Stronach’s commitment to next year will keep Ghostzapper from joining a list of recent horse-of-the-year winners who didn’t race beyond their title years. They include Mineshaft, Point Given, Charismatic and Skip Away. One of racing’s nagging problems is keeping its stars on the track. Smarty Jones, probably the only other horse who’ll get any horse-of-the-year support this year, was retired in July after winning the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. Only two of the last six Derby winners will have returned for their 4-year-old seasons.

Ghostzapper hasn’t been crowned, but he appears to be a shoo-in for the 2004 title. He was undefeated this year, winning two Grade I stakes, a Grade II and a Grade III, and won at distances from seven to 10 furlongs. His time of 1:59.02 set a record for the Classic. Stronach said that he would trust the voters’ judgment, while Frankel feels that there’s no other vote besides his horse.

“He can win at six furlongs, he can win coming from 20 lengths out of it,” trainer Bobby Frankel said. “You can go head to head with him, and he’ll beat you. He loves running in the mud. He’s a dream horse. He’s probably a super horse.”

Although Ghostzapper will run as a 5-year-old, with the idea of trying to win next year’s Classic at Belmont Park, he is not likely to return to California, where his career began late in 2002 with a maiden win at Hollywood Park and a fourth-place finish at Santa Anita. Since then, the horse has lost only once -- when he finished third in the King’s Bishop at Saratoga last year.

“He got a [cracked hoof] out there, so I don’t want to chance that again,” Frankel said. “Besides, he loves running at Belmont Park.”

Frankel keeps divisions of horses at Belmont and in Southern California, and this winter, for the first time, he will stable a draft of horses at Palm Meadows, a Stronach-owned training facility in South Florida. Ghostzapper will go to Palm Meadows for a rest. His first start might be in the Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont in May. Ghostzapper, who didn’t make his 2003 debut until July, missed the Met Mile this year because of the problem hoof. A cough knocked him out of another race, the Whitney Handicap at Saratoga. In September, Ghostzapper won the Woodward at Belmont, which was his prep for the Breeders’ Cup.

As he broke Skip Away’s record for the Classic, Ghostzapper ran the final half-mile in just under 48 seconds.

“No horse going a mile and a quarter runs his last half-mile that fast,” Frankel said. “That’s just extraordinary. Roses In May is a great horse, he just showed up on the wrong day.”

Roses In May took second, three lengths back. Pleasantly Perfect, who finished third as he tried to win the Classic for the second consecutive year, suffered what trainer Richard Mandella said is a minor injury to a hind ankle.

“He came out of it a little jarred up behind,” Mandella said. “It doesn’t look like anything serious, but we’ll run him through a scan” back in California.

At a news conference Sunday, someone from Japan suggested to Stronach and Frankel that they should consider running in the Japan Cup, which is a $4.3-million race on Nov. 28. The owner-breeder and the trainer quickly scotched the idea. “We don’t need the money,” Frankel said.

Stronach added, “There’s no way we’ll race this horse outside the country. It’s not best to ship a horse that far and still keep him racing.”

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The wins by Ouija Board in the Filly & Mare Turf and Wilko in the Juvenile gave the English two Breeders’ Cup wins in the same year for the first time.... Azeri, fifth in the Classic, will be bred early next year, but might run in stakes at Churchill Downs and Santa Anita before then.... There’s a chance that Singletary, winner of the Mile, might run in the Citation Handicap at Hollywood Park on Nov. 27.... Jockey John Velazquez, who won the Distaff with Ashado and the Sprint with Speightstown, was voted the winner of the Bill Shoemaker Award.