Barn Notes
Breeders' Cup Classic Winner Curlin Back at FG
Headlines for Friday, November 30, 2007
· Breeders’ Cup Classic Winner Curlin at Back at Fair Grounds
· Owner Misses Race; Watches Winning Replay on FOX NFL Sunday
· Jamie Theriot Drives All Night, Arrives With Dawn, Wins Daily Double
· Jockey Jesse Campbell, FG Group Sales’ Allyson Morrissey Engaged
Breeders’ Cup Classic Hero Curlin Back at Fair Grounds
NEW ORLEANS, La. — Curlin, the leading candidate for 2007 Horse of the Year honors after winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic by 4 1/2 lengths in his last start Oct. 27, arrived at Fair Grounds Tuesday following a van ride from Churchill Downs.
Curlin is not scheduled for active training until his racing future has been decided, and will walk the shed under tack for now.
Trainer Steve Asmussen has guided Curlin’s racing career since just after the Smart Strike colt’s maiden victory at Gulfstream under conditioner Helen Pitts.
Asmussen brought Curlin to Fair Grounds early last season, eventually shipped him to Oaklawn to win the Grade III Rebel and Grade II Arkansas Derby, and then saddled Curlin to capture the Preakness and Jockey Club Gold Cup prior to the Classic.
Curlin was also third in the Kentucky Derby and second in the Belmont Stakes.
Owner Misses Race; Watches Winning Replay on FOX NFL Sunday
Thoroughbred owner Paul Ross was flying back from Colorado en route to his Tulsa home last Saturday when his promising 2-year-old Honour and Glory colt broke his maiden in handy fashion at Fair Grounds.
How did Ross get to see the race? It was easy. All he had to do was turn on the television set in his home the next day and watch FOX NFL Sunday.
You can do that when your colt is named Terryhowieandjimmy in honor of FOX’s pre-game co-hosts Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long and Jimmy Johnson. As part of their pre-game banter, that trio showed the stretch run of Terryhowieandjimmy’s winning tally – complete with Fair Grounds announcer John G. Dooley’s call of the race.
“Terryhowieandjimmy is running ‘em over,” exclaimed Dooley as the colt made his move.
“I finally finished first,” dead-panned Bradshaw on the air after watching the replay Sunday.
“I haven’t won the Kentucky Derby yet,” said owner Ross later Sunday afternoon, some hours after watching FOX NFL Sunday, “but I did get to see my horse win on national TV.
“I had met Terry Bradshaw some time ago on an airplane going to Hawaii,” explained the owner when asked how he came up with the colt’s interesting moniker. “Then, last year my partner and I were trying to come up with a few names for some of our horses while the FOX show was on the air in the background.
“I had noticed that this colt always seemed to stick his tongue out whenever anyone tried to take his picture,” Ross added, “so I told my partner while gesturing at the TV, ‘You know, this horse is kind of a clown like these guys, so how about this name?’ ”
Ross, 47, a businessman who operates a hedge fund, also qualifies as a serious professional football fan. In addition to naming one of his horses Terryhowieandjimmy, Ross owns the Tulsa Talons of the Arena Football League. Terryhowieandjimmy races under the non-de-course of Par III Farm LLC.
Veteran conditioner Frank “Bobby” Springer serves as the trainer of Terryhowieandjimmy, who broke his maiden in his third career start.
“He’s starting to come around, now,” said Springer. “He’s going to get better.”
Jamie Theriot Drives All Night, Arrives With Dawn, Wins Daily Double
Talk about hitting the ground running. Jockey Jamie Theriot packed his tack at Churchill Downs Friday evening, drove from Louisville to New Orleans throughout the night while accompanied by his wife Dawn, and arrived at Fair Grounds in time to win both halves of the Daily Double Saturday.
“That was pretty cool,” said Theriot after the feat. “Getting into town at four in the morning was sure worth it to be able to kick off the meeting here by getting off to great start like that.”
Theriot took Saturday’s opener aboard Late Night Stables LLC’s Defender’s Word for defending trainer champion Tom Amoss, and came back to the winner’s circle after the second race astride Misty Pace’s Peppermint Penny for conditioner Cody Autrey.
On Sunday, Theriot added to his laurels by scoring a riding triple while teaming up with Autrey – winning the second on Kevin Mullikin’s Hallowed Heat, the third on Heflin & Driver Racing LLC’s Nakayama Kun, and the eighth aboard George Hoskins and Barry Stilz’s Final Refrain.
Jockey Jesse Campbell, FG Group Sales’ Allyson Morrissey Engaged
Jockey Jesse Campbell, who finished seventh in last season’s Fair Grounds standings in his first full session at the New Orleans oval, continued on a hot streak last week when he asked Allyson Morrissey of Fair Grounds’ Group Sales department for her hand in marriage.
“We went for a bike ride along Lake Pontchartrain (a week ago) Sunday just as the sun was going down,” said Campbell of the marriage proposal. “It was kind of quiet, so we stopped to watch the sunset and I pulled the ring out and asked her to marry me.
“She seemed a little surprised at first,” Campbell said, “but then she smiled wide and said, ‘Yes.’
“Then, right after that, she started to cry,” added Campbell. “Maybe it was the thought of having to spend the rest of her life with me that made her do that.”
Morrissey, although in her first year at Fair Grounds, has been an employee at Arlington Park – where Campbell rides in the summer – for the last three years, and was quick to contradict her intended’s theory about her wet-eyed look.
“I’m very happy, and our families are both very happy,” said Morrissey. “We’ll probably get married right after Arlington closes next summer but before Keeneland opens – sometime around the end of September or the beginning of October.”
Both are Illinois residents – Campbell from Lake Zurich and Morrissey from Woodstock – and are presently considering the Barrington area for their impending nuptials.
As icing on the cake, Campbell rode Gerard Ramos’ Lil Pipe to victory for trainer Doug Plaisance in Thursday’s fourth race for a glittering $78.20 win payoff.
