Horse Racing: Drawn to Saratoga

By Chrys Kefalas CPKSports Editor-in-Chief

Someone should have told trainer Dale Capuano that racing at Saratoga wasn't going to be an easy venture. Odds are he knew, but something drew him to upstate New York and to thoroughbred racing's most historic track in North America.

Since arriving at Saratoga, Capuano hasn't finished better than third and his latest disappointment was a fourth place finish by Call Me Carl in Sunday's $200,000 Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap. Call Me Carl stalked Five Star Day up until the stretch, and faded to fourth as he was bypassed by Delaware Township and the favorite Bonapaw. Five Star Day covered six furlongs in 1:08.57 to win, just .57 seconds off the track record set by Spanish Riddle in 1972.

On Saratoga's deep track, Call Me Carl just didn't have enough.

Earlier, on August 3, Smile My Lord with Travis Dunkelberger aboard captured third place in the $137,500 Amsterdam Stakes, making a significant charge behind the winner City Zip and second place finisher Speightstown. Speightstown was purchased for $2,000,000 at auction.

It was a solid performance by one of Capuano's finest thoroughbreds, but again not enough.

On a circuit that features the top trainers, jockeys, and owners, only the best can survive. Capuano fits that standard, standing third in the nation in wins with 152. He isn't D. Wayne Lucas, Joe Orseno, William Mott, Nick Zito, or Steven Asmussen; he just quietly wins without the headlines in Maryland.

Having trained thoroughbreds for nearly twenty-years, including sending one horse to the Kentucky Derby (Wind Splitter), garnering a reputation for training some of Maryland's all-time best racers, and training horses in Maryland for the nation's top owner Richard Englander (in earnings and wins), Capuano decided to take some carefully selected horses to compete for the larger purses provided by Saratoga's summer meet. Maryland tracks have closed in order to allow Virginia's Colonial Downs to operate their summer meet. Thus, leaving only Delaware Park as the only other viable option nearby his headquarters in Bowie, Maryland.

Though, Capuano continues to racehorses at both those tracks, with the help of his assistants, that's minor league to what takes place in Saratoga Springs.

How else can you explain the fact that the Whitneys, Vanderbilts, Phipps and the like, turned up yearly for the racing season at Saratoga Race Track?

Long-time racing announcer Dave Johnson called Saratoga racing a "five star production."

Since 1863, the finest racehorses in the world, combined with a pronounced theatricality, have made Saratoga a powerful magnet for racing. And, with her majestically manicured landscape and perfectly painted wooden grandstand, she's aged wonderfully.

Capuano cringes when thinking back to what awaits him when he returns to Maryland. The dilapidated "Old Hill Top," dire state of Maryland Racing, and the ching-ching-ching of the Casino at Delaware Park.

From racing purgatory to a small piece of heaven, there's no need to explain the draw of Saratoga for Maryland's top trainer -- even if success there is difficult to come by.