Saint Liam Could Make Big ‘Cap One Part of Big Year

When Mark Reid, the new racing manager for William and Suzanne Warren Jr., transferred Saint Liam to trainer Richard Dutrow Jr. in the fall of 2003, he said: “I’m sending you the best horse you’ve ever had.”

Seven races later, the 45-year-old Dutrow cannot say that Reid was exaggerating. Saint Liam, previously trained by Tony Reinstedler, came within a neck of beating the future horse of the year, Ghostzapper, late last year. Then he won a Grade II stake at Churchill Downs, and he started this year on Feb. 5 with a convincing win in a Grade I, the Donn Handicap, at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla.

Dutrow and the Warrens considered running Saint Liam in the $6-million Dubai World Cup on March 26, but instead of shipping their horse about 6,500 miles, they’ll send him on a 2,700-mile trip to run in the $1-million Santa Anita Handicap a week from today.

“We decided to stay in the U.S.,” Dutrow said Friday from Palm Meadows, a training center not far from Gulfstream. “We could win the race in Dubai, but that race has a reputation of knocking out horses for the rest of the year. We’re hoping for a full, good year from this horse, and someplace along the way we’d like to hook up with [Bobby] Frankel’s horse again.”

Frankel-trained Ghostzapper, who’s also in training at Palm Meadows, went undefeated last year, his only close call coming against Saint Liam in the Woodward at Belmont Park on Sept. 11. A horse with foot problems from time to time, Saint Liam won two of eight starts before Dutrow got him. Since then, he has had four wins, two seconds and a third in seven tries.

Dutrow says that Saint Liam is scheduled to be flown to California on Thursday. Post positions will be drawn Wednesday, but Dutrow said he might scratch his horse if he finds out there’s a chance of a muddy track. The 5-year-old son of Saint Ballado, a stallion who died in 2002, has run only once on an off-track.

With nine probables and a few more horses possible, the Big ‘Cap is expected to have its largest field since 2002, when 14 ran. Besides Strub champion Rock Hard Ten, the likely favorite, others who will probably run are Imperialism, Musique Toujours, Supah Blitz, Truly A Judge, Grand Reward, Island Fashion and Congrats. Island Fashion, a 5-year-old mare, ran second to Southern Image last year. A distaffer has never won the race.

Saint Liam will try to become the first out-of-state shipper to win the Big ‘Cap since Broad Brush came from Maryland in 1987.

“Saint Liam ran a huge race in the Donn,” Dutrow said. “I was glad that I didn’t overtrain him. I’m a little concerned about bringing him back this quickly, but a few of the horses we have to beat also ran the same day [in the Strub].”

Edgar Prado, who has ridden Saint Liam in his last six races, will be aboard again. The only time the Eastern-based Prado rode in the Big ‘Cap, he won with Milwaukee Brew in 2003.

Dutrow is the son of the late Richard Dutrow Sr., who won 3,665 races, eighth on the career list, before his death in 2000. The elder Dutrow led the country in wins in 1972 with 352, which was a record at the time.

Dutrow’s son twice was the leader in wins at the New York tracks. This year, with several stakes horses, his barn has earned $1.2 million, which ranks third on the national purse list.

Dutrow sent a draft of horses to California in 2001 and was stabled at Hollywood Park. “We won some races, and might have done better if we’d stayed,” he said. “But it got too expensive. The workers’ comp costs were sky-high. The way you had to watch the costs, it took all the fun out of the game.”

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All Along, the only foreign-based horse to win horse of the year in North America, was euthanized Wednesday at Three Chimneys Farm in Midway, Ky., after suffering from old-age infirmities. The French-bred mare was 26. In her title year for trainer Patrick Biancone in 1983, All Along beat males in her last four starts -- the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and three stakes in Canada and the U.S. In the last race of her career, All Along ran second to Lashkari in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Hollywood Park in 1984.... Estrapade, who in 1986 became the only female to win the Arlington Million, died Friday of an apparent heart attack at Hill ‘n’ Dale Farm in Lexington, Ky. The late Allen Paulson bought Estrapade for $4.5 million after she won the Yellow Ribbon at Santa Anita in 1985. She was 25.