BloodHorse Monday | Preakness 151 Recap

All right, welcome into a post Preakness edition.

Our second time doing a post Preakness edition of this show,

it's called Blood Horse. Monday's name is Sean Collins.

I'm Louis Ribow. Thanks for hanging out with us

here in the home studio today. Sean.

A trip to Laurel, almost certainly one of those things

you and I will remember for a very long time in our career.

Are these one offs that we seem to be running into in New York?

A three off with the Belmont and Saratoga, But we will have a one

off for sure, at least in Maryland.

My sense is they'll go back to Pimlico no matter what the

situation looks like next year. But a trip to Laurel.

Huckle Lopez wins aboard Napoleon Solo.

Chad Summers gets a win. Of course we will hear from him

in this episode as well. We'll hear from Napoleon Solo

himself as well. What's going on?

But of course, last couple weeks been hanging out with us and

they are today as well. Our friends at FanDuel and

FanDuel Racing. Make sure you go ahead, download

the app. You can bet anywhere you want

with our friends at FanDuel and FanDuel Racing.

Appreciate them hanging out with the program, Sean.

And this is the kind of win that changes careers for people, and

it changes how people perceive them within the sport.

And a guy like Paco Lopez probably didn't have much to

add. This is his fifth grade. 1

didn't have much to add to that resume.

But a classic race always changes things.

Certainly for Chad Summers puts him in a very, very different

spot on those rankings, but your take away from the weekend in

general, I really don't really want to guide you in any

direction. Here, well, I want to start off

with the location. First of all, I.

Think we need to talk Laurel too.

I thought, you know, obviously would we have loved a bigger

crowd for the Preakness? Yes, But I thought overall the

the event went off fairly well. I think the 4800, obviously

there's a lot of discussion about that.

They could have fit more people in there.

Most of like the I want the grandstand area wasn't really

filled. It was just the boxes that were

filled inside the building. But I thought that the amount of

people that were there was probably the perfect amount for

Laurel to where it felt like a big crowd, like it felt like a

attentive crowd, an exciting crowd, but also was easy to move

through the facility. Yes, one of my big concerns

going into it, you know, I hadn't been to Laurel in nine

years and I remember, you know, there's that walkway that the

ramp walkway down to the paddock area and how thin that thing is.

And I would convince myself all the weeks leading into this, I'm

like, it's going to, it's going to be impossible to get into the

paddock because that's going to be backed up all the time.

I've never had a problem. Yep, just flowed.

Easily. Well and I think part of their

thought process there was and I look, I'm I'm not like you Sean.

When I'm done working, I'm done working and so I find a picnic

table and I watch the Preakness. That's what I do at the

Preakness yeah, but I watched NB CS crew go back and forth in

front of me and I think one of the thought process part of that

was media compound at one end of this track paddock at the other

people are going to be going back and forth.

How many people could we realistically have in this place

and still put out a good TV product?

Exactly. I think that was absolutely in

the thoughts. The other part parking, yes, it

was full and the parking lot was full because you have to have

look 4800 people attending means you probably got 1000 people

working 1200. People working?

Yeah, it's not just 4800 people. Yeah, exactly.

There's more than. That, but no, I thought overall

the feeling was, you know what's interesting?

I thought Saturday actually felt like a usual Black Eyed Susan

day as far as how busy it was, who was there.

I thought like the the the ages and mixed backgrounds and you

know, people for it felt like Black Eyed Susan day felt like

the crowd that we would usually have at publico.

So that part I thought was real positive.

Yeah, I thought you know it. Definitely.

People were in a good mood, they were trying to have fun at.

This and people were people that were there.

I talked to a couple of people. I'm actually going to have my my

monthly at the track feature should be coming out later this

week. And it's going to be kind of

focused on looking back at this Preakness thing.

And I talked to a couple of people that were in attendance

at the races and kind of got their their perspective on

things. But it it didn't have it didn't

have the Triple Crown feel. No, for sure, yeah.

I told you this on Saturday. We were there.

I was like it did not feel like the Preakness in the sense of

like this is one of the absolute major events of the sport.

It didn't have that feel and it couldn't because of the crowd

size, but it did. It did feel like, you know, kind

of one of those more like this is one of the smaller tracks,

more exciting days. So it kind of, it kind of felt

more like an Indiana Derby, a Pennsylvania.

It was much easier to navigate than an.

Indian Well, you know, and I'm not saying that to insult those

two races. If you listen to this podcast,

you know, the Indiana Derby and the Pennsylvania Derby are two

of my top targets to every year. So you know, it was at that

level. It just it wasn't at the Derby

level. It wasn't oh, usual Preakness

level. It was not at the usual

Preakness level. But I thought overall the event

was great. It would have been fantastic if

more people could have attended. But this was a this was a good,

what I felt like was a good middle ground to get us from old

Pimlico to New Pimlico. And we'll see what happens next

year with how much of the buildings ready to go by next

year. But I thought that I thought the

event went pretty well and I thought the people that were

there, it seemed like they were having a good time.

I had a good time while I was there.

So, yeah. So I think we hopefully won't

need to use Laurel again. And also the weird part for me

too, it felt like it was almost kind of a little celebration

slash goodbye to Laurel because we know that the plans at the

moment are to close Laurel and turn it into a training facility

once Pimlico opens and Pimlico will take over year round racing

in Maryland. And so it did kind of feel like

a little bit of like this is a last chance for one big race day

at Laurel Park. And it kind of I kind of had

that feeling throughout the day like it was more rather than it

being the pre Preakness it was. I mean, obviously the Preakness

was important. It's the second most prestigious

race in the country in my opinion.

But it it felt almost like a little bit more of a celebration

slash goodbye to Laurel than it was, you know?

I hate that. Yeah, yeah.

I thought, though there were many of the aspects of the

Preakness that I really enjoy. There's a casual nature of the

Preakness as far as how people present themselves and hang out.

Do people dress up? Absolutely they do, but it's not

as expensive as a Derby. So it's a younger crowd, right?

Because people, I mean, frankly, a Derby ticket at this point, if

you want, if you want to sit anywhere near the media section

where I can actually interact with you, you're probably in

your 60s because you've saved enough money throughout your

life to actually attend to Derby, right?

Something like that. And you know, we'll meet a

younger crowd on thirbies and that kind of stuff at Churchill

Downs. But at Pimlico, the good thing

about one of them is that at the Preakness, it's it's a really a

legitimately mixed crowd of people in their 70s and their

20s. I mean, like, everything in

between it almost this weekend reminded me a little of Pascal

Day. Yeah.

With the crowd there a little more casual, a little more, you

know, just hanging out like this is the one big day here.

We don't have other big days here, that kind of thing.

So I kind of echo your sentiment that I felt like that.

Yeah. Definitely.

Yeah, so good stuff there for sure.

Appreciate by the way, I treated really well by everybody there

as well for having to throw that together the way that they did.

I felt like was actually very organized, no issues with

credentialing anything like that.

So I appreciate all the good. People, that's because you

weren't there on the first day where you had to stand in line

for an hour to get the credential.

High 5 wasn't there first day all right, so.

You're welcome to all my blood force Co workers for being the

sacrificial lamb there. Well, let's get.

Into our racing, our weekend recap if you will, presented of

course by our friend Alex Smallwood with Christie's

Bluegrass. Appreciate him hanging out.

He wanted to give a shout out. Yes, shout out to Macy's

intention winning the Alaire DuPont distaff on Friday.

How about that? I know I love the angle.

Delta, that is delta squad racing.

Yes, and I believe it was the first time she was wearing their

silks in her race and they went ahead and got that victory.

But might be wearing again. Yeah, I love.

I know. She should I just that I love

that angle in a black previous year's Black Eyed Susan Winter

coming back in the Alaire DuPont just have worked for Interstate

Day during a few years. Oh, good call.

That's right. Yeah, Yeah.

Good call. So I like that angle if you win.

So let's go ahead. If there's a futures book open

for my Miss MO and next year's Alaire DuPont, this staff let me

go ahead and put that down. But congratulations to.

My Miss MO. The train there of Margie's

intention. What a weird thing to say.

My Miss MO trying to become the second horse to win the Black

Eyed Susan and the Alaire DuPont at different tracks.

We should be able to. So that is true.

What a double stat. We should.

Sorry. Well, no.

Yeah, sorry Alex. We should.

There should be a bet available at the Preakness or well at the

Black Eyed. Susan Little features.

Bet yeah, a little feature bet on the alert du Pont this staff,

you know make a little extra money if the Black Eyed Susan

winner comes back and wins to. This staff the next year, I

think so. Oh man, good stuff for sure.

But congratulations, Yeah, congratulations to all the

connections there, for sure. But the weekend itself, and we

want to hear from Paco Lopez here.

You caught up with him and and OK, let's just pause and talk

Paco for five seconds here. Paco's is an insane person in

the best way, OK. He's just, he wins the Preakness

folks. And if you turn the TV off after

that, I would understand. The pick 5 ended there.

The pick 6 ended there. The pick 4 ended there.

Maybe your pick 3 double ended there.

Whatever. Paco won the last race on the

Preakness car. He swept the late double and it

was like an optional claimers right or maiden claimers.

He was delayed getting to the press conference because he had

to go ride the next race. Because usually we see all the

time the jockey wins the the big race there and then they take.

If they're scheduled in the next race, they take off because they

go and celebrate and they do the press conference.

Not Paco. Paco rides as many races as he

possibly can. That's why he's usually like top

three, if not the top leading rider by wins at the end of the

year every single year because he's just always riding.

But you're going to see here. So I caught up with him right

after the press conference. We were going to try to have him

on Live Today, but he's riding at parks as we're recording

this. So we got a couple minutes

there. I got a couple minutes with Paco

right after the race. You will see he's in the winning

silks of the 14th race, not in. The gold square.

Silks, but this is. Incredible.

Right after the Preakness, he's interviewing with Blood Horse,

and he's wearing the silks not from the Preakness, but from an

optional claimer of both. Exactly.

Yeah. This is Paco Lopez.

And here's Paco. Yeah.

Here's his thoughts on on the race here with Preakness Stakes

winning jockey Paco Lopez. Just how does that sound hearing

those words together? Well, that would sound like you

feel good when you passing the wire first.

Anybody. I'm pretty sure.

Yeah. Well, First off, congratulations

Paco. I know this win means a lot to

you. Just start off by taking us

through the ride. You were second and going into

the first turn, was that where you were expecting to be?

Charles Summer he told me the turn he said Paco play in the

way he should have a lot of spin the horses, my house, my horse.

He was very comfortable. He very good.

I want to go. I think I want to go like be

honest. I've been thought of her from my

house. He very good.

He put me out right there and she was he was very comfortable.

I let it go. I wait, wait.

I looking around for wait and the other one.

I went away more, but it was time to move when I he moved.

He finished very well today. The pace was pretty quick out

there. Did he, did you feel how fast it

was or was he just moving super comfortable?

He was fast I I see in the one, but my horsie was very

comfortable today in that race. My horse today.

What was what was the key difference maker for him today

because he was coming off of a couple of defeats?

Was it just him getting back into the rhythm, getting another

race under him? But the last time to this today,

I know the last time having the whole 1 and she was little

tired. He not finished very well.

That was the reason I wait today.

But just somebody, Paco, he said I make it ready this time.

The horse doing like confident and he did it today.

Chaza Messi doing very good. Yeah.

And well done to that. You are someone that wins a lot

of races throughout the year. You're one of the most skilled

riders in the country, but being on this stage, winning a Triple

Crown race, what does that mean to you?

Well, it's my first time I write a Pimlico she feel great, you

know be racing like that. You know, for me passing the why

I try any right, like 5000 to 5 million.

You know, I like to win like everybody want to say, Oh, you

want to take off the last race. And you know, for my friend

Kelly Green, I, I tried to my job well done.

And you won the race after the brightness too, right?

Yes. What was it like having to go

right back out there and riding again?

Oh, I know, you know, I like to worry.

You know, I like to ride and I like really like to horse and

the horse is doing very good with me.

That was the reason I'm pretty sure the horse is running for

me. Poker.

I like to work and I feel confident with the horses.

What keeps you motivated every day just to go out there?

Try and work hard every day. Yeah, awesome.

All right, Well, thank you so much, Paco.

Congratulations on winning the Preakness Stakes with Napoleon

Solo and best of luck with him going forward.

Thank you very much. I see you around.

Alright, thanks. Paco Lopez joining you after the

race there, by the way, so people don't know my background.

I'm a trained linguist and I and I speak Spanish and, and what I,

one of the things I love about interviews like that.

Did you notice his conjunctions? We're all in Spanish.

He never said the word BUT, but he said Beto.

OK. And then he also had one later

where he used the word porque instead of because.

Fantastic stuff. Spectacular.

OK, second thing you asked him, you know, toward the end there,

what keeps you going, what motivates you, blah, blah, blah.

We got to interview Perry Utes after he won the Mr. Fitz Award,

right? OK, and all he talked about was

you asked him like, Hey, you're in Ohio.

You could you could ride anywhere.

And he's like, man, I like to win.

I just like winning. Paco Lopez is a great one

winning jockey who sounds like periutes in the best way.

And I'm not putting either guy down.

I'm not overinflating either one.

He's just a, you know, something that stood out after Sheree

Devoe and and Golden Tempo win the Derby is how often work just

came up, the daily grind, the work of these things.

Now we're hearing it with Paco Lopez.

It's almost, it's almost like a, a a work.

I don't even know the word, but like a like a worker's triple

crowd this year. He's in there talking to, you

know. He's a blue collar triple crowd.

I'm not kidding. And he's mentioning how he

enjoys winning $5000 races just as much as $5,000,000 races.

I love it. He's just in it to win it, Yeah.

No, I love it. But you called him one of the

more skilled jockeys in the country.

I think a lot of people agree with you.

It's just you have to watch Monmouth and Tampa and you know,

those sorts of parks to catch him where he is.

But then he gets an opportunity like this and shows that.

And look, it was interesting to hear him talk about it.

They very clearly had a plan that they were going to be part

of the pace, but how it unfolded was going to be race dependent.

Exactly. And then he got to sit right off

and I think in a different world, he gets a loose lead and

maybe tires himself out. We get Iron Honor as a winner of

the Preakness. But this set up in the right

way. Paco did all push all the right

buttons. Congratulations to them.

Yeah, I don't know if it would have been that much different if

I got the loose lead because I mean, the fractions up there,

they weren't slow early, even with him sitting second off of

Taj Mahal. And Chad Summers going into the

race was talking about how he has a high cruising speed, he

gets competitive when he's got a target in front of him.

And so it worked out perfectly for them.

Paco was able to get him to sit back and relax, not get too keen

to go after it early. And I mean, he sat the perfect

trip in there. I'd be interested to hear your

thoughts on how the track was playing throughout the weekend

'cause it seemed like horses up front were doing well.

We had Ocelli and Incredible put in some mild runs down the

stretch to get up for 4th and 5th, but Iron Honor was kind of

the front half of mid pack, so he was a little bit closer.

And then Chip Ancho was right kind of in behind them.

And so they run 123A complete opposite of the Derby where the

top three were coming from the clouds.

And now this time the top three were a little bit more forwardly

placed, but I thought they had they definitely had him ready to

go. We'll talk in a moment about the

year that Napoleon Solo has had what led to this, But I just

your thoughts on on the track and how that may have played

into. So to me what was interesting

was and so I was on the horse racing glitterati flight

yesterday. So such such mainstays in horse

racing, such celebrities in horse racing, including Frank

Angst, of course, Donna Brothers.

There you go. And I ran into someone I get to

talk to fairly often, ATB and Co, Yeah.

And she had ridden great white in a now very popular video, you

know, for just a jog, you know, kind of thing.

And all she said to me was, my God, that track was deep.

And so it's interesting to hear that kind of thing from her

because our, our our mutual friend Barry Spears in his

handicapping talked about how it played a lot like Belmont.

Yeah, where it kind of levels the playing field because it's

kind of a different surface. And the best horse tends to win

those races. So it's obliteration when we saw

in in the Alaire DuPont I'm totally blanking on.

Her Marge's intention. Thank you.

Marge's intention. Those were the best horses in

those races. It wasn't a question.

Yes, Right. Yeah.

And on Saturday, Napoleon Solo was the best horse in that race.

Yes, he was. So to me he.

Was the only Great One winner coming in too, by the way.

As Bobby Holt tried to remind us all week long on different

things that I was working on. And then I didn't bet the horse,

of course, because I don't listen to Bobby Holt all of a

sudden. Gosh, not looking.

That's that's malpractice in my life.

I know. Well, you just look back at it,

You know, I had all this discussion.

I think it's funny because last week we didn't even know.

Bobby Holt, what am I doing? I know, but I think last week

when we did this show, we didn't even know Incredible was in yet,

but we were hyping up the closers and hyping up the Selly

because we're oh, there's going to be so much pace in here and

we didn't even bother to really. So that's what there's just a

single cool Great One winner in here.

Who would have guessed that he would be the one to win, right?

That should have been hitting us right in the face, no doubt

about. It and the champagne, by the

way, recently has been one of those predictors for very high

level success as a three-year old.

So I mean, shame on us for not seeing that for sure.

And you bring up his, you know, his his career coming in

Napoleon Solo. Now that I've hardly given you

an idea of what I thought of the track.

Here's the thing, we have now seen multiple times this year,

for whatever reason, horses not run well at Gulfstream and then

run well at other places. OK, so that is usually very

untrue. If you run well at Gulfstream,

for example, you almost always run well at Churchill Downs, You

almost always run well at other places.

So that's been very unusual. The one memorial just ran first,

second and 4th in this race. Yep.

And talk to me. Jimmy just ran a strong second

in the Peter Pan. I mean, Ocelli third in the

Kentucky. Derby.

I mean, this is so. Elvis got murdered coming out of

the game. Yeah, Elvis, I don't even know

how to. I don't even know how to know.

I totally agree with you on that.

But what I'm getting at is sometimes the indicators show up

later than we then we're we're able to react to them.

In other words, we couldn't have known how good the Remsen was

until Sierra Leone turned into what he was.

Yeah, We couldn't have known how good the next one was until

Dordick. That's exactly right.

They were the same one. You're right.

Sorry. We couldn't have known that

until Dordick went ahead and turned into Dordick, Right.

Maybe Napoleon Solo was turning into Napoleon Solo.

I think so. Well, and there was a Chad and I

in our interview, we ended up not talking about this too much,

but if you want to go back, we talked about it a little bit in

our interview before the race on Wednesday that's on

bloodhorse.com about kind of the year that he had going into

this. You know, they made the decision

we're going to skip going to the Breeders Cup with the champagne

winner in a hopes to make it to the Kentucky Derby, but then

took him a little while to get get the ball rolling.

Chad said he felt like he wasn't 100% going into that fountain of

youth, but he was looking historically and horses don't

win the Kentucky Derby off of 1 prep race.

So we got to get a race into him.

He runs him in the fountain of youth.

He runs fifth in there and then he comes back and Chad said he

was working out lights out coming out of that.

And then what happened two weeks before the Wood Memorial, he

gets a foot bruise. Yep.

And actually at that point he was on path to run the Arkansas

Derby, but he got gets a heel bruise.

They have to take the time with the with the foot.

He ends up not working out for the April 4th or the April 4th

Wood Memorial. His last workout going into it

was March 19th, so he did not get that final work and he did

all the work. He did all the work.

He was breaking from the rail. He has talked to me, Jimmy, on

his. Taco mentioned that, by the way.

He's like, look, you can't look at that wood.

He had to go from the rail. That's not what we necessarily

wanted. To do exactly but, and I think

going into the wood it sounded like Chad knew he's going to be

best third off the layoff. We have points for the Derby

right now. Let's see if we can get a top

three finish out of them and still get the points to go to

the Derby. And it ended up not working out

that way, but it put them in great position to win the

Preakness here. And it's funny because the day

after the Derby, our Chad actually drove up alongside of

me as I was walking and we were talking a little bit and he

mentioned. You know, he ended up would have

been able to draw in in Ocelli's spot had he entered.

He would have been #22 and he would have been able to draw in

if they had decided to enter him.

And he's like, man, once when they run the Derby and you knew

you could have been in there, you feel like you're missing

out. And he did not miss out on the

Preakness. So they they just rerouted.

They got the Preakness victory here.

I think a lot of people are going to look at the fact that

not a lot of Derby horses came out of the Derby, ran the

Preakness. I think a lot of people are

going to discount Napoleon Solo going forward.

I think this is a very legitimate horse that did not

have things going his way the first half of the year.

Now he's at the top of his game. If he can stick with that, if

they don't run into any more issues, he's now pointing for

the Haskell stakes. I love him in the Haskell, that

track. I think Monmouth plays perfectly

to what he wants to do, not that I have seen who any of his

competition will be in the house.

But Nine for Long's all the things.

Yeah, 9 for Long's that track at Monmouth, I think perfect spot

for him. And so I think if discount him

at your own risk going forward, I think that he's going to be a

legitimate horse. And I also just want to point

out, we talked so much going into the Derby about how great

the Florida Rd. was. It's the two Grade 2 races on

the final round of Derby preps that are producing this year.

The top three finishers in the Kentucky Derby, you had the

winner coming out of the Louisiana Derby, you had the 3rd

place finisher coming out of the wood.

And then here in the Preakness, the top 2 finishers out of the

wood and the third place finisher of the Louisiana Derby.

So and then the 4th place finisher of the wood.

So yeah, it seems like those are the two places that are actually

producing here as far as the Triple Crown's concerned so far.

Reminder for emerging market then in the in the in the

Belmont and Golden tempo. No, but like like that list gets

a little a little bit longer now that we've seen these races

afterward. This happens a fair amount of

times. The other thing that happens is

you get a preconcealed out of Derby winner and it's at Laurel.

It's not a Pimlico. It reminds me of whatever I hear

about the NFL draft and it's not a strong quarterback class.

I have to hear about how it's not a good draft.

There are 21 other players on the field with the quarterback.

Yep. OK, You need to fill out a

roster that way. This is already the best earning

year year of Chad Summers career because of this race.

Yeah, year. OK, these are life changing

moments. Yes, OK, these are these are

career changing accomplishments. That was a confident man last

week. He was with his horse.

And I want to hear from Chad Summers.

I'm excited. I am going to watch along with

all of you at home for the first time here.

Well, First off. We need many things to set this

up. Yeah.

Well, First off, I just want to play this one moment.

So this was I mentioned. So I interviewed him on

Wednesday. If you follow along at

bloodhorse.com that in a lot of these big races, I tried to do a

little video interviews where I include footage of the horse

working and stuff like that. And so I did one with Chad on

Wednesday talking about Napoleon Solo.

And at the very end of of the interview, as we were wrapping

up, he made this comment about about about the show.

So let's go ahead and play this. All right.

Well, thank you so much for taking the time with us here,

Chad, and best of luck this weekend.

Thank you all of us here on Monday.

So he he knew what the goal was. The goal was to appear on Blood

Horse Monday after the Preakness.

That's the goal. Saturation saturation.

Everybody listens to Blood Horse Monday.

OK, so you've never texted me faster after an interview in.

My life, I know. I texted you right away.

And then, then as soon as the race is over, Louis texted me

and I said, Oh well, I guess we'll see Chad on Monday.

So of course, look, you caught up with them at the barn on

Sunday. What was his mood?

I mean, this is, this is. But I mean, there's, there's

excitement and there's happiness.

There's also the he had to have just the, yeah, we're supposed

to be doing this interview feel to it.

I'm excited to see which one it's more of because obviously a

real mix of emotions for a guy like Chad Summers, but it is.

Look, man, by the way, he had a winner earlier on the card.

I love giraffes. Yeah.

Did you hear Dave's? Call the same owner and I did

not know. He won the race by a long neck.

Oh, that's Dave nailed and it was great.

But it was I have not, by the way, because I was there.

I hadn't thought about it. I haven't heard call misses call

and I haven't heard Robin's like, you know, like actual

replay call. I'll have to go back and do that

myself. But one of the one of my

favorite things to do every year is to put the call side by side

and and do the ridiculous fan thing of Oh, I like this one

better or I like this one better.

Like it matters and but but no per guy like Chad Summers, I

mean career less than 800 starters.

Yeah, well, and, you know, we'll talk about it a little bit.

He at one point, you know, around COVID, was considering

exiting the game from a training perspective at least.

You know, he does some work on the bloodstock side of things as

well. We'll dive into that with him

picking out Napoleon Solo here for Al Gold as well.

But I mean, he got right off the bat in 2017, he got a Grade 1

winner, put in his barn and Mind Your Biscuits, who had won a

Grade 1 the year before and he goes and wins the his fifth

start from when I was looking at Equibase the other day, the

fifth time, Chad Summers, his name was officially attached to

a horse he saddled Mind Your Biscuits to win the Dubai Golden

Shaheen in Dubai. So that's quite a way to start

your career. And then he does it again the

next year. And then after that, you know,

you're going through, you know, the motions.

You have all that success right there at the beginning.

And then you're going through, you know, the daily grind of the

trainer. And there's a lot of, you know,

especially when you don't have a lot of horses.

Is this exactly what I want to be doing?

Am I spending the right the proper time doing this?

And so I think for him, it was very just rewarding to, you

know, be able to stand there with the Preakness winner.

Luckily, in this interview here, Napoleon Solo joined us for the

interview as well. We did it right in front of his

stall. So if you're listening, if

you're doing audio only first, I suggest watching on YouTube or

Spotify so you can see Napoleon Solo trying to play.

With and leave us a review. Yes, do that.

But so you can see I'm trying to play with us the entire

interview, trying to distract us from the interview.

But if like you hear Chad talking about something serious

and you hear me in the background like giggling,

giggling a little bit, it's if you're listening to the audio

ugly. It's because I'm proud Napoleon

Solo is trying to grab me and I'm like playing him, playing

with him and stuff like that. But but you'll also hear before

we even start the interview, I wanted to keep this part in of

Chad and I trying to get Napoleon Solo to explain the

race to us himself. There you go.

All right, you wanna play that now?

Yeah, all right, play that now. Well, here is Sean with Chad

Summers yesterday on Sunday at the Stakes Barn there at Laurel

Park for Preakness 151 in winter Napoleon Solo.

We're here live with Napoleon Solo.

Yes, here live. At what point did you think you

had the race one? What do you think?

Did you know you had it the whole time you did?

Yeah, well, we're here on Blood Horse Monday with Napoleon Solo,

who is pushing me off the screen here.

Let me go ahead and adjust that also, of course, with trader

Chad Summers. First off, Chad, just

congratulations on winning the Preakness Stakes with this guy

right here. What was it like waking up a

Preakness Stakes winner? Feels pretty damn good.

Well, you said to us in our interview, we just played it

here on the show, you said to us in our interview on Wednesday

that I hope we get, I get to talk to you guys on Monday here

and here we are won the Preakness just as expected,

right? Yeah.

No, I mean, in this industry, a lot of things don't go according

to plan, but that race kind of unfolded how we thought that it

might. And I thought Paco did a great

job and obviously Napoleon did the rest.

You said kind of going into it that you knew that obviously all

the talk was about how much speed was in the race, but you

knew you had a faster horse and it worked out that way.

You ended up getting the perfect stalking trip outside of Taj

Mahal. What gave you the confidence

that he was going to be able to work it out even with all the

pace signed up? We do a lot of studying.

We do a lot of watching replays and going to races live and

watching horses run and watching horses train in the morning

time. And, you know, horses don't

breeze the way that he breezes. And you know, his biggest asset

is kind of his high cruising speed.

So even the other day when he had that 110 work, it was he

went the first race in 34 just kind of in the middle of the

race track with Emily just sitting on him.

So, you know, it kind of just gave us that confidence that he

was, he was ready to go. Well, take us through the race

as you were watching it and you saw those fractions and you saw

Paco kind of kind of looking back, obviously showing a lot of

confidence that he had a lot of horse underneath.

And at what point did you feel like you had the Race 1?

Look, so I mean, when they broke out of the gate, you know, we

were worried about pretty boy Maya, just knowing how fast he

is. He's a good gate horse.

And we didn't want to get ourselves in a jackpot spot.

So, you know, once, once we saw where we were and Taj Mahal was

able to get off to this, the sharp break that he was with

Sheldon Russell and we were able to hit that stocking trip.

You know, the the early fractions are never something

that's going to concern us because it's always within his

wheelhouse. He's obviously looks like he's

feeling good. How did he come out of the race

this morning? No, I came out super.

He ate all his food last night. We came back about midnight and

we gave him another scoop and he ate that right up.

And obviously he's very proud of himself this morning.

What are the signs that you look for on a morning like this after

a big race about, you know, how he's feeling everything like

that? This right here you.

Know, he's just, he's happy. We jogged him up on the road.

He jogged very sound on the road this morning.

So look, obviously the Haskell's a long way away.

Let's see if we may have to run them once before that.

We'll let him tell us. Yeah.

Now Al Gold, the owner, this horse, he's a New Jersey guy

that leads it a lot into the decision of the Haskell here,

probably the the leading factor into the decision for the

Haskell. Do you give any kind of thought

toward the Belmont Stakes or is that just clear?

No, no, it's, it's back in, it's back in three weeks.

And as much as we'd like to dance, to dance with the

Renegades and Golden Temples of the world, we feel like there'll

be other opportunities for that later on in the.

Year, yes, there definitely will and he definitely.

In the Preakness so. You know, yeah, exactly.

Well, he definitely seems like the kind of horse that will run

well at Monmouth Park for sure with his tactical speed.

But take us into you were kind of reflective yesterday on kind

of your career. You said that a few years ago

you felt like you're maybe looking to get out of the

training game. Just take us back to your

thought process then and just how rewarding it is now to be

standing here with a Preakness winner.

Well, it's, it's an everyday thing for me.

You know, there's a lot of things in this industry that

need reform. There's a lot of things that I

feel like we need to talk about as an industry that a lot of

times full on deaf ears. And hopefully this this classic

win gives us the opportunity to have our voice heard a little

bit more because I feel like there's a lot of things that

that need to change in this industry.

Yeah. Well, when you obviously had a

very good horse in Mind Your Biscuits a couple years ago, you

told me the other day that he's kind of the first horse that

you've had since Mind Your Biscuits that really has the

mindset to want to go out there like during the mornings and get

competitive. And we saw that in the Preakness

as well. Just kind of compare the two

horses. It's very tough to compare ones

in front and one comes from dead last.

But the one thing, the one thing about them is both.

Everyone told us that they couldn't go that far and Mind

Your Biscuits was able to win the Lucas class to get a mile

and eight. He was able to win a mile and

three sixteenths. But there's no denying the

brilliance that both of them had.

And, you know, when you watch them train in the morning time,

you have to do things differently.

Minor Biscuits would train at 5:30 in the dark, and hopefully

there weren't a lot of horses on the track.

And Napoleon trains about 10:30 when no horses are on the track.

They just, they want to do too much.

And it's it's a great character to have for the races, but it's

a scary characters in the morning time because you have a

chance that you're going to gallop too fast, you're going to

put too much into your morning workouts.

You know, he worked in 1-10, but it was 110 by himself with the

blinkers off doing it the right way.

You'd rather that than sitting there wanting to chase everybody

like he did the week before, raising a 111 when he had worked

in company and then found two other Jeremiah Engler horses

five months in front of him and then wanted to go get them too.

So, you know, that was just something that we like it better

when he can control it or we can try and control the the morning

time as as well as we can. But what was it when you were

thinking about career paths and everything like that?

What was it that made you want to be a horse trainer?

What's your background in the game?

Well, when you look at me, you can tell I thought I was going

to be a jockey. So I was. 4 foot ten.

I weighed 90 lbs of freshman year in high school.

I loved it. I grew up loving the University

of Kentucky and Rick Pitino and, you know, watching the the

Triple Crown races with my dad and my brother and going to

breakfast at Belmont with Mary Ryan.

And, you know, I was a fan 1st. And I think I read a book called

The Paper Lion. And I felt like I wanted to work

in the industry for one summer. I thought it'd make me a better

writer. I wanted to be a writer.

I wanted to be the next show hers and I worked for one

summer. I had a Philly name say Hey

Willie, that I was taken care of that they said she'd never make

it to the races. And she won first time out at

Saratoga. And that that victory is an

adrenaline boost. I played sports all my life,

competitive sports, that winning a race like that, it was a

feeling I never experienced before.

And I just felt like, like a drug, like I felt like I just

needed, I needed it again and again that that feeling of, of

winning. Take us into your relationship

with Al Gold. I think he said yesterday it's

been about six years that you've been helping him buy horses and

kind of picking out horses for him.

Just how did that relationship come to be and how much has that

really benefited you in your career the last couple years?

There was an opportunity when COVID happened and I wasn't

really sure where I was at. I was down to not too many

horses, always had the love and support of my family, my dad and

my brother. But to me, it was just trying to

figure out, you know, is this where we want to be?

And you know, I I met Al and he told me I can buy one nice horse

and a couple others. He said take a take a swing like

Dave Kingman from the New York Mets.

And that horse was Cyber Knife. I told him I think he'll ever

win a grade one or he'll never make it to the races.

Fortunately, it was the the first one he won two grade ones.

Yeah, he got you. He did better than expectations

there, so. You know, that kind of started

our our relationship together and we've had a lot of successes

since obviously Grade 1 winners like Howard Wolowitz and full

count Felicia. You know, horses on the Derby

trail like instant coffee and slip Mahoney, you know, even

fellow. So obviously being grade one

place last year in the Breeders fraturity.

So, you know, when when we started working together, he had

he had bought horses for for a long time, but he wanted to kind

of get involved a little bit more on the on the higher end.

And when he did it, the expectation is to to run in

these kind of classic races. So, you know, we were able to

make the Derby the first time and we hadn't been back since.

So this was a big deal, even though obviously we've run

another Breeders' Cup races in Saudi Arabia and Canada, winning

Grade 1 Kentucky Downs. But to do this here, you know,

to win the Preakness, the only Preakness at Laurel, it's it's

fantastic. What did you see in him when you

were purchasing him? Oh, he was a lot of fun.

So he was on the top of the hill at Keeneland and he was selling

about 7:00 at night. Fortunately, a lot of people

have gone home and he was a little head and he would when he

was walking with the handler, he would just kind of be playing

and just kind of being a little boy and, and having a good time

with himself. And we went to scope him and he

was a nightmare to scope for the for the vet doctor pug heart.

And he goes, you know, he's tough to scope, but there's

nothing wrong with him. He's just, he's just playing so

much And and we like horses that have personality.

We like horses that have attitude.

You know, you have to have the right staff to take care of

horses like that. But he's been the same way since

he was yearling as he is, as he is now.

He just gets up in the air a little bit higher in the morning

time. Well, you mentioned your staff

there. You also gave them a lot of

praise last night in the press conference as well.

Just talk a little bit about the work that they've done with this

horse. No, look, I mean fantastic and

it's a staff around the country. Obviously we were in New York as

a as a 2 year old and he went down to to Kentucky and Dell

Dell Lowell did a great job taking care of him on the on the

farm for a couple of months and then he came to us in Palm

Meadows. And the staff in Palm Meadows

did a fantastic job with Sandino Hernandez's groom and Shoopy

riding him and Betsy as the assistant and everybody else

that was over there. And then come back home to New

York to Guillermo Eslis, who's been taking care of him since he

he first came in. And, you know, Enrique Garcia on

the pony and Alfonso Camacho, my assistant over there, Victor

Camacho's brother, you know, helping chew him.

Obviously, when he had that heel bruise.

Todd Boston first helped us down in Florida and then Victor kind

of took the reins from there. And, you know, that's kind of

been the the talk of the Triple Crown season this year has been,

you know, feet issues. Yeah, You know, fortunately ours

happened earlier. Sometimes it's when it happens,

right? You saw Silent Tactic not able

to make the Preakness because of it.

You saw a Golden Tempo and Renegade dealing with foot

issues going into the Derby. You know, having a good farrier

is so important and having staff that can take care of those

feet. Obviously, you know Cherie was

able to overcome her issues with it in the Derby and we were able

to overcome ours and when the Preakness.

Is is the foot like the most difficult part to kind of keep?

Doctor Copeland, a long time ago, he was the vet for Oakland,

for Overbrook Farm with Storm Count and everybody else.

And he said, look, no foot, no horse.

That was always a famous line. And from the time that they're

weanlings, you'd have them ferry or look at them every three

weeks. And you know little this a

little that there's so many parts of the horse that are

important, but the foot obvious is where it all starts with.

Well, you also mentioned that obviously you won the Preakness

here at Laurel Park, the hopefully the only one that's

going to be here as we were expected to be back at Pimlico.

Next year, next. Year, I know you got the good

luck right now if it's back here this year, but he's going to be

kind of the assuming it does not come back here, he's going to be

the answer to a very weird trivia question of the last

horse to win a grade one at both Aqueduct and at Laurel Park from

when he won the champagne last year.

Just what was your experience like here at Laurel?

And I know you, you had some thoughts yesterday.

Look, I. Mean obviously it's it's

interesting you know you come here and this was weird too

obviously with with first racing selling Laurel to the state of

Maryland last year but retaining the rights to this Preakness so

it was you know Preakness presented by first racing at

Laurel. I thought they did a good job

kind of working together. I think that's important in this

industry for for different racing entities to work together

as good as they can. But it's sad.

Not just, you know, selfishly, like, yeah, we won the first

Preakness at Laurel, but you know, as as a fan of this sport

saying that Aqua is going to close on the end of June and

Laurel is going to close, you know, here shortly.

It's, it's sad. These are, these are her story

tracks. And obviously we've, we've seen

it happen in California for a little while, didn't affect us

as much on the East Coast. But you know, you saw the last

day at Bay Meadows and Golden Gate and Hollywood Park and, and

now that it's hitting even closer to home, it's, it's not

good. And it's, it's, it's a really

disappointing thing because this is an industry that I, I've seen

grown up loving and watching and now participating in.

And as the game shrinks and we have less and less tracks and

less and less horses, that's not a good position for us.

And I think we have to rally together as an organization from

from the Breeders to the sales companies to the, to the race

tracks, to the trainers and, and, and really kind of knuckle

down and, and figure out what's right and what's wrong and, and

how we can make this sport better.

You see other sports are, are growing at rapid paces, the NFL

every day, the NBA. We can't be on the side of, of,

of dog racing. We need to go out on the side

of, of, of that and, you know, embrace the technology and

social media. We're, we're so good with

certain technology things. We just don't do it.

I think the right way. I mean, Hong Kong and Japan are,

are killing it right now with all the data that's available.

We have that same stuff at our fingertips.

We just choose not to use it. And, and, and I think we're,

we're losing a segment of the market that can kind of gamble

on anything else. Now.

It's not just horse racing. Before, if you wanted to gamble,

you had a gamble on horse racing and.

You know, it's something that we need to, to look at and review

and, you know, I, I think Churchill's doing a good job

now. They're they, they started doing

those head to head wagers or odds and even bets for, for a

novice fan that's getting involved.

You need to kind of introduce you to bring them in.

If we're, if we're going to show off these new facilities like

Belmont Park and, and Pimlico when it opens, you got to try

and bring new fans out there and, and, and, and show them,

you know, how great the sport is.

We do a lot of things sometimes to shoot ourselves in the foot.

I do it when I talk sometimes, but I think going to the races

and seeing the horses and seeing the, the majesty that they have,

it's a, it's an unbelievable feeling.

And I always said, you know, the king of England and, and a

homeless guy can both bet their $2.00 and they're rooting

together for that one moment in time.

They're equals. And, and that's what this horse

racing industry can do. And you feel like you own a

piece of the horse and you're rooting, you're rooting as loud

as, as my son was yesterday. And in that video, that kind of

went viral. Yeah.

And I mean, we could see his personality right here, just

standing here with him. It's this side of the sport that

people need to see more of. For sure, 100%.

Yeah. Well, you know, you're also, you

know, the kind of the example of that is somebody who a couple

years ago thought you were going to get out of the industry and

decided to stick with it. Now you're here, you got your

Preakness winner right here next to you.

Just take a moment of reflection on kind of your mindset back

then and then now what it is today.

Ultimately, it's, it's, it's a moment of, of, of pride of the

ups and downs and trials and tribulations that we've

encountered to, to get here, you know, and, and once you get to

that mountaintop, you know, do you walk away and drop the mic

like maybe I should have after reminder Biscuits won his first

race in Dubai? Or do you, you keep going and

you try and find the next Napoleon Solo.

And, you know, we've been blessed to, to purchase a lot of

nice horses and I've been around a lot of nice horses.

And, you know, we'll just see where what the future holds for

both of us. Cute horse right here for sure.

Yes, we'll give him a peppermint.

See if ever he's in a photo finish, we're just going to put

the wrapping right there. And put the rat just that'll

that'll. A little bit more there.

You go, buddy. Congratulations.

All right, Chad. Well, thank you so much for

taking the time with us here. Congratulations on winning the

Preakness and we are looking forward to what's next with

Napoleon. Thanks so much.

And thanks to trader Chad Summers outside of the the stall

inside the stakes bar there with Napoleon Solo.

Thanks to Napoleon Solo for jumping in on the conversation

as well. It is cool when horses are just

like that. They're just like.

Whatever. And he was so playful, just

trying to, he was like. How's your arm, by the way?

He. Did get me right at the

beginning of it. It's good.

I hope it leaves a mark so I can say I have an autograph from the

Preakness winner. That's the best a horse has ever

gotten me. Was when?

Yeah. There you go, man.

But they do that, no? He, he was super.

It's funny, the first half of the conversation you could see

like he was trying to steal our attention.

And then like the second-half, he's like, all right, I'm just

going to start eating. So I want, I want everyone to

really zone in on one thing that Chad talked about in this

interview, and that is how to attract new people.

And one of the themes on social media that I, I dislike the most

is this idea that everyone automatically needs to be a pick

5 para mutual wizard or they can't bet on horse racing at

all. And the ticket shamers and these

kind of people that don't, that don't see this sport as being

anything other than a way to make a living.

Yeah. OK.

As opposed to an entertainment product, as opposed to other

things. When we, when you and I have on

this program talk to trainers, many of them openly talk about

the fact that they know they're in an entertainment industry and

that they need to be entertaining to people.

And so they say things like we know we need to run it at night

once in a while and we need to just get over it.

We need to run on holidays and we need to just get over it.

We need to blah blah blah, whatever it might be.

We. Need to put the sport in front

of people and. That's what Chad really talked

about and there's like that cool thing we talked about the $2.00

better and then the King of England can put money on a

horse. They're both rooting for the

same interest, and it makes us different.

That has always been one of my favorite things about horse

racing is not only do you find yourself rooting with other

people, you're rooting against other people.

And we all love that part of it, too.

The pair mutual nature of this thing.

We can just disagree and then guess what the money decides.

Yeah, it's real simple. And I love that about Chad.

I've long argued and I know you agree with this before I even

say it to you, all we need to do is get people on the track.

If people walk in the doors and see those horses up close, they

see the sport up close, they're done.

It's over. They're hooked.

They're going to watch. They're going to bet, they're

going to do those things. This this real emphasis when I

got into the game of people being at home and watching on TV

and it didn't work. It did not work.

We need to work on getting people to the track.

And he he gave Churchill some credit for doing like the odds

evens bets. Those got killed online, killed

online. Guess what people bet over Derby

weekend. That is because you can do it

and you understand what it is, and you're only watching for

half the field then rather than trying to pick out one horse.

What color is this again? Like not everybody can do that

right away. Exactly.

Now the odds evens better, it's going to turn into a win place

better, it's going to turn into a pick three better, etcetera.

So I'm not worried about that. It's just get them in the door

#1 to see the races, but #2 get him in the door for betting.

He's totally right about this. We can simplify these things in

this, in this, in this sport, and then get them more

complicated as it goes along. I appreciate that part of the

conversation. I know it always seems like on

Twitter a lot of a lot of a lot of the gamblers like to think

that whatever is going to solve their problem, we'll solve the

sport's problem. You know what?

That's a great problem. No, because that's like, you see

stuff all the time, all the time on Twitter of like, oh, you

know, you know what would save the sport?

Lowering the take out from 18% to 15%.

I'm like, that's not going to bring new players in because

guess what? They didn't know what they were

betting on 18% and they still don't know they're betting on at

15%. So you can't expect people to

want to bet on something. You could tell them all the all

the takeouts, this you have this deal to put money in your

account and all that kind of stuff.

But you can't convince people to bet on horse racing if they

don't understand what they're betting on.

They're gonna bet on the sports that they know that the rules

of, that they know you know the athletes for.

And we see it every year in the Triple Crown that those are the

races that people bet on the most because it's the one time

that they see horse racing. So they have their fun with it.

They pick their name, they pick their number, but you need to

have that part of it to get them interested and think, oh, you

know what, I just won by picking a number.

That was kind of fun. Yes.

I want to feel the feeling again, right?

I'm going to, oh, I'm going to go out.

There's a track near me that's, you know, an hour away.

Let me go out to that next weekend.

And then you go there and you talk to somebody who's like

explaining you how to read the past performances and pointing

out, you know, what to look for on a horse and that kind of

stuff and introducing you to the jockeys and the trainers.

And, you know, these guys always win together and you feel like

you start to learn a little bit about it.

And then that's what then turns into you gotta start at the

$2.00 bet. You can't just do.

You can't just do. Come in.

It bet 100 bucks a race with knowing nothing.

Exactly. They're not.

They never come back. They're not gonna do it.

If they're gonna do that, if they're gonna go in having no

idea what's going on and want to put their money on the line,

hope they get lucky, they're gonna go to the casino.

That's the best place to. Do or they'll never come back to

the track. They'll do it once and never

come back. That doesn't help.

You got to focus on making the sport interesting first so that

it appeals to people to want to get into it.

You know, I'm the only reason I'm in the sport is because I

watched the Triple Crown races. That was my introductory point.

I started learning because I really loved the horses that won

those first couple ones. Smarty Jones, a fleet, Alex

Barbaro. That's what pulled me in, was

seeing those horses, learning about them and their connections

by watching the show. And then it turned into where

now I'm sitting here working in the industry.

That's the kind of thing that needs to happen is you have to

have that starting point. You have to have people come

into the racetrack. As Chad said, the less race

tracks there are, the harder that's going to be to do.

And so we need to put more of an emphasis on just trying to make

sure that sport is entertaining enough to be present in front of

people to where they are thinking about it.

And then as they enjoy it, just watching it at that smaller

level, they are like, you know what, I kind of want to learn a

little bit more and I want to get more involved.

That's going to be what we need to work on, not just like

randomly changing all these all these things and hoping for the

best. I appreciate Chad saying that,

and I mean it. And I think, you know, speaking

the Haskell, one of the things I hear a ton so people don't know

that are watching. I do a general sports talk radio

show here in the market in Louisville five days a week.

And one of the things I hear most often from my listeners is

can we just get fixed odds? Can I just know what I'm getting

back on a bet? And when you know, he talked

about Hong Kong and Japan and transparency to betters.

When the the para mutual thing compared to sports betting feels

non transparent. It feels opaque to them because

they put in 5 bucks, they don't know how much they're getting

back. Whereas if you bet a sports

game, I put in five, I'm getting 9 back.

If it wins, I'm putting in five, I'm getting back 12.

If they win whatever in horse racing, you put in five, you

might get 10, you might get 30, right, that kind of thing.

But if you just know what you're sitting on and it's on your

ticket when you sit down, I think that's going to be part of

it. And I and I think that

conversation moving forward, even for those of us who adore

the Para mutual game, I do, I love it and I don't want it to

go away. I think we need to be realistic

about that conversation as well. But it's time to hear from Al

Gold. He is the owner of Preakness

winner Must Feel feel good to hear that we'll find out if he

feels that way. But previous winner and of

course owner of Cyber Knife who won the Haskell just a couple of

years ago after the race and the Arkansas.

Thank you. Thank you for that reminder

actually. But yeah, no stranger to Grade

1A winner's circles, here's Al Gold in our interview with him.

All right, we've heard from Paco Lopez.

We've heard from Chad Summers. And now it's time to hear from

the ownership side of things. His name is Al Gold joins us

here on the program on Blood Horse Monday.

Al, congratulations. My goodness, a Triple Crown

race. How's that feel?

It's I'm over the moon. That's the that's the standard

answer I've been giving to every podcast and interview.

I still feel elated. I still, I'm still elated.

That that feeling hasn't disappeared at all over the last

two days. You know, no, I, I just, I'm

looking at, I'm, I'm enjoying my 15 minutes of fame.

I'm enjoying everything. I'm reading online and talking

to everybody. I'm, I'm getting emails because

people know I'm talking to you. So everybody's sending me stuff,

but I'm enjoying, I'm enjoying the whole thing.

That's awesome. Well, Al, these are the kinds of

races that are career makers for many, many people.

And certainly in your past, a lot of great horses, including a

horse named Cyberknife, of course, a winner there in the

Haskell Stakes, your Jersey guy, you know, winning the Haskell.

Obviously very personal from you for you, Excuse me as a guy who

grew up going to Monmouth Park, but winning a Triple Crown race.

Is it? Is it even a level up from that

feeling? You know, the governor asked me

the same question when I, when I was up there because the,

because the Haskell came first. I don't know if it could be

topped. This was, this was every

evidently, obviously exciting. Maybe the Derby would be #1

because that's the number one for every, for me and everybody

else in the sport. But they, they were both

memorable and there's no reason to compare 1 better than the

other. So I I enjoyed them both

thoroughly. You said going into the race you

you kind of made a joke at at the press conference, I'm asking

everybody that was there attending to raise their hand if

they thought that Napoleon Solo could get the mile and 316th

distance. I think 1.

I think one guy raised his hand and then Chad told you he

actually picked the horse 4th in the race and so.

But. But what, what were your

expectations kind of coming into it off of those 5th place

finishes and kind of the the ups and downs that he went through

throughout the winter? What were your realistic

expectations on how he would perform?

First, first of all, I thought that was hysterical.

The guy raises his hand and he picks the worst 4th.

But I, I, I did not, I did not have faith in him getting to

this. I thought he was the best horse.

If they raced it in a mile, I think he would have won by 10 or

maybe not ten. He would have won by 5 easily.

I didn't think he would get the distance.

I just wasn't confident in it. I mean, the, the, the race

before it was very deep. It was a 99 CFR, the closing

bias. So he ran a huge race against

the bias, but I just didn't think, I honestly didn't think

he would go get that far. And you and Chad mentioned

really one of the biggest people pushing for trying that distance

in the Preakness was Paco Lopez coming out of the Wood Memorial.

How much of a difference did he make on the horse this weekend

and what do you think? I know you made some.

You were talking about him constantly looking over his

shoulder, turning for home down the stretch.

So just what do you think of his performance?

Well, he, Paco always turns his head.

That's, that's, that's Paco. But I, I give him, I give him

all the credit. I, I didn't really didn't want

to go into the race because I didn't think we'd go that far.

But he said immediately after the wood, he told Chad, we will

go to the Preakness. So we listened to him.

He said he's won 4500 races. He knows, he knows what he's got

underneath him. And if he said, if he said go

there, we're going to go there. So we went there and I owe him a

lot of tequila besides the money he gets because that was just a

great call on his part. Al, you are shooting for grade

ones with horses like Napoleon Solo.

Certainly the win in the Champagne in the fall

established him as a Grade 1 where he backs it up here.

You'll head to the Haskell next, back at your home track of

Monmouth Park. I got to ask you though, Chad

Summers has less than 800 career starters out of the gate in his

career. What is it about working with

Chad that gives you such confidence?

And obviously the results at this point speak for themselves.

But before that, what gave you the confidence?

Chad had a Grade 1 winner, a multiple winner in in Mind Your

Biscuits. So I mean, you know how to train

a horse. I tease him that he doesn't know

how to train a grass horse because we had the full Count

Felicia. He couldn't win with that horse

and then a horse, you know, wanted a lot of money in grade

ones and everything. So I just tease him with that.

But he, he won a couple grass races for me, so I can't

complain. But you know, he, he works very

hard. He, he, he sleeps 3 hours, four

hours a day, whatever it is. And he's the first one out there

in the morning and he does night feeds.

His total dedication. He's 100% dedicated and that

counts. That counts for for everything.

When we talked to Chad earlier in the show, he mentioned kind

of when you guys first started or when he first started buying

horses for you. You told him that buy you a

really nice horse and a couple others.

But what was it about when you had first met him that made you

want to go ahead and kind of reach out and give him that

opportunity? And that first horse that he

picked was Cyber Knife. So a good start for you.

Well, I, I talked to people and everybody said he had a

reputation of being very honest, very honest, hard working guy

and he was very knowledgeable in the game and that, and that

proved true. It is extremely knowledgeable.

He takes great care. He takes everything personally,

how everything affects the horse and every insult he gets on

Twitter, he says it doesn't bother him, but it, it, it

destroys him inside. So he, it, this was a great

vindication, you know, for all his naysayers and it, it really

makes him happy. He doesn't want to admit that,

but it it really makes him happy.

Along with that, the performance of the horse mixer I'd be

obviously I was going. To say a good guy.

Yeah, Yeah. You talked to our colleague

Bobby Halt, who is, I don't know if he's not the best at this,

He's one of the very best at this.

But you told him that it's in this article.

Do you talk to Chad Summers a half dozen times a day?

Is that happening? Yes, I talked to, I talked to

him quite a bit. You know, today I today we spoke

three times. So I, I have 68 horses that he

manages and he takes and he knows where I said, how's this

one doing? He tells me, how's that one

doing? So which mirrors are we waiting

to have them have have their falls?

You know, we, we, we talk about a lot of different things with

this awesome. Awesome.

Yeah. Well, the half school coming up

next. So we've mentioned earlier about

how important that that race is to you.

Just what are your thoughts about taking a Preakness winner

into your home track, trying to win that big race for a second

time? Just what what would that mean

to you as we get two months down the line?

I was thinking, we're going to go win there.

We're going to end up being the fourth choice.

You know, they're going to have, which I'm going to find.

You know, it's kind of curious. I mean, they're going to have

Pumas in there. Further ado the horse, the one

that the Pat Day mile and there was another one that said he was

going. So we're going to have like it's

really going to be a packed field.

It's going to be very interesting to see how it goes.

And I'm sure some from the from the Derby and from the from the

Belmont. We'll we'll go too.

So it'll be it'll be some, some race.

All right, I have to ask. No trip to the Belmont, a trip

to the Haskell essentially right away, as soon as this race was

over, was that predetermined? Was that something because of

your affiliation with with being from New Jersey that you wanted

or was the Belmont actually in play if the horse?

Was no. The Belmont was never in play

with the choices were the Haskell or the Amsterdam.

If he didn't run well, we were going back and sprinting them or

we were going to try grass or something else, most likely the

Amsterdam. But after that performance,

we're going to we're the Haskell is what we really wanted to

happen, and that's what happened.

Well, I got to ask you about the horse's name and kind of just

your general, how you come up with the names for these horses.

So I'll let you tell the tell the story about the TV show that

he's named after. But like we mentioned your

horse, I love giraffes earlier that one on the card as well.

Where do you where do you come up with these names?

They're just random names. They don't.

There's no pre planned and the only one I I planned was very

disappointing. I named the horse in honor of my

granddaughter and she did not run well on Friday.

So she won first time out easy. I was all excited, you know, I

thought this is the perfect race for but you know, I was thinking

like she was a 2 year old, not a three-year old, you know, so you

always go into a stake if you win first out as a 2 year old,

as a three-year old. We were bracing against the

horses that had five, six starts.

We were the only one coming off of 1 start and it was too much

for her shoes. She, she just wasn't ready for

that kind of a of a race. So we'll go back to the drawing

board, find a 1X and we'll race her there.

As for the, the other names, they're all, you know, just a

lot of random names. I'm a big met fan and named the

worst David Cleon Jones. I have I named one my Italian

rabbi or from my close friend who's a rabbi, who's a is a

lawyer, but he's my but he's I call him my Italian Rabbi and I

named another one after him free legal advice because he gives

him free legal advice. That's a.

Great horse name. And a few other a few other

names like that. And you've had a couple of TV

show names. I mean, I know Howard Wolowitz

went winning in grade one a couple of years ago, Napoleon

solos from an old TV show in the 1960s, right?

Is that was that one of your? What kind of lead do you pick in

that show? I just like the name and I've

watched the show. I was about, I'm 70 now.

I think it was like 12 when that show was on.

It was that, you know, it was a long time ago.

Everybody says they watch the show unless they're my age.

I don't think they actually did, but it was a it was a very it

was an I remember I didn't understand a lot of this show

when it was when it was on, but it was the name I like the

Poland solar thought was a great name.

And I guess I, if I, if I read correctly, because I have not

seen the show, if I read correctly, he was, I guess the

character was like a police officer or something.

Because I saw somebody comment on Twitter that it would have

been great if he was #11 instead of #10 in the race because

apparently the the characters badge number was #11.

Well, I mean it was a Ian Fleming from a different show

wrote, he contributed to this somehow and it was an originally

something that he wrote and other than that, my memory is

not that good. So from from being 12 years old

when I saw it so. All right, so Al, did you at

least get to hear Dave Rodman's call when I love giraffes?

One earlier in the day and he said he won by a long neck.

Were you at least able to hear that call?

Brilliant. In the motion.

I, I was right near the winner's circle and all these people were

coming up to me before the race show me their, their pictures of

drafts. They had draft jewelry.

Everybody was had the giraffe thing going.

And that was a red call by him and and the fellow, I don't

remember his name and who does a great job at Gulfstream when she

broke her maid and said and the winners, I love giraffes.

Who doesn't? So I like that.

Oh, bad. Yeah, we got, we got a bunch of

great race callers right now. I did want to ask a personal

question. Your friend Lou Feloso was with

you this weekend. Feloso, by the way, is is a is a

another term for son and then, you know, family kind of thing

there. And another name he's used for a

horse. And another name you used for a

horse as well. Haven't Lou there though?

What did that mean for you? But Lou was friendly with him

for 35 years or so and, and he suffered from leukemia and he

was really in bad shape for months.

And I kept telling we have to go see Billy.

He's he's close. I don't know Billy well, but

he's very close with Billy N, who runs Pimlico, runs Maryland

Racing. And I kept telling him, you

know, we got to get healthy. We have to go see him and he's

he's a very positive person. And he was getting a lot of

blood transfusions constantly calling him.

He was getting transfusions, you know, two or three times a week.

And he made a remarkable recovery and he's healthy and,

you know, meant the world to see him there.

And we, we all remember a few years ago with Cyber Knife, he

was named after the the treatment that it was used for

your cancer as well. So what does it mean to you to,

you know, be here in these moments kind of with these

people and being able to celebrate a victory like this?

Yeah, I'm I'm sitting there and I'm going over in my mind all my

friends that passed away. You know, that I was close with

the role degenerate worst players like I am, you know, and

we all you know, the special media thinking about everybody

and he just like the appreciate life and making it.

You know that Lou was there and and I had friends at home

watching and and other friends that came out to the races.

So it was always just a beautiful a beautiful

experience. The whole day.

I was I was cranky as hell the day before running third and 4th

in races and and the day before that I ran third was the first

time starting in New York. So I I was not in a good mood

starting the day on Saturday, but it ended tremendously.

Headed to the Haskell next with with Napoleon Solo.

You know we have seen this story before where horses who come

along after the Derby are the ones that end up being the best

3 year old. Al, do you think you might have

the best 3 year old in the crop this year?

I'm not going to go there. I'm sure there's six other

people that have horses. They'll say theirs is the best.

Let's just see after each race how he how he does.

All right, Al, we appreciate you jumping on Blood Horse Monday

with us. We'll run into you, I hope, in

New Jersey, and maybe we'll even get to say hi to Luke.

I'll look forward to it. Thank you.

I appreciate it very much, Al. Take care.

Yeah, Al Gold joining us from Gold Square Racing.

Appreciate them. Jumping on with us here on Blood

Horse Monday. Awesome story.

I love that stuff. And the the naming thing, by the

way, is an important part of this conversation because I

think there are very much only two schools of thought on naming

horses. You try to name them, you know,

like, you know, like like a Pharaoh baby, you'd get like

Miss Pharaoh or, or Madam Pharaoh or something like this,

right. And that's, you know, a young

Philly. But her dad is American.

Feral. Exactly.

Napoleon Solo is is a son of who?

Liam's map. OK, Yeah, sure.

That's the other way to think about this.

Yes. And I've had many debates over

the years that's. One of the best guessing games

though is to have somebody try to guess the sire based off the

horse's name. Good luck with that.

I've played that before with. People yeah, that would probably

be a pretty popular episode on this show actually, because as

as dudes one of the things I don't know if you does your

generation do this where you just sit around and you're like

where did Damian Lillard play college basketball does your

generation do that Yeah OK yeah, Weber State I just.

Don't know any basketball. Fans, none of my friends.

Are basketball fans? Yeah, Yeah, we don't.

Do that or where did. Yeah, where did Kelvin Johnson

go to college or something like this?

Yeah, right. And so the, you know, those

kinds of things, I think you could play like a trivia night.

Yeah. With Al Gold's horses only and

do like 12 rounds and see if anybody can get any of these

right. Yeah, because going from

Napoleon Solo to Liam's map, that's not a, it's not one to

one. That's not a direct connection

between those things. Just Nope.

OK. Just all right.

It's just, yeah. But it's good stuff though.

This. Is how does that like when

you're naming that horse, like, why was the TV show in his mind

for that time, you know? It's really well and to the

other idea of him and Chad just back and forth all day, these, I

want to put those numbers in perspective.

They talk more than 40 times a week.

They're in the press conference. We mentioned Paco winning the

race after they had a horse in that race too.

And they're sitting in the press conference and they pause the

press conference to watch the horse running in the race on the

TV. And then you like I think they

add Chad a question like he answered it very quickly and.

Like 1 sentence. And then went right back to

tell, like Al what he thought about the horse running, running

in the race right before it. And like, you could, you could

hear him like give it like the I think, I think we should put her

on turf next or something. As Baba E Hall points out of

bloodhorse.com, he managed to blend the triple crowd with the

man from Uncle. Yes, yes, that's exactly what

happened over the weekend. We look forward to the Haskell

for sure. In New Jersey.

I don't think we got a straight answer from him that the Belmont

was something they were. I think they weren't even.

Thinking about they said in the press conference on the weekend

that they did not, they were not planning to run this horse back

in three weeks at all. So I don't see this as like

we're not going to the Belmont and then like a week or two

they're like, oh, actually we are going to Belmont.

No, as as you heard from Al, the Haskell's an important race to

him. They want to go into that race

100%. They they don't have any

interest in the Belmont. And he was already concerned

about the mile and 316th distance.

I'm sure he's not, he's not going to be wondering too much

about that mile and 1/4. So they were.

Talking about the answer to him, yeah.

So which he would be really? Good.

Yeah. So I would I would be shocked at

this point if he run runs in the Belmont.

I think we're definitely gonna see him in the high school.

I'll. Go ahead and make a prediction

In 2027, Napoleon Solo is one of the three favorites in the Met

Mile. I like that.

Prediction. I think he turns into one of

those kinds of horses and I think like $40,000 purchase.

I think he's gonna run for a little bit.

Now these Liam's map babies are showing up.

I mean, like, Oh yeah, that's a, that's a real thing that's

really happening this year. But William.

'S Map Greatest cup Dirt Mile winner.

That mile should be perfect. Someone had pointed out the

other day he only had eight lifetime races, was never out of

the money. I think he won six of them and

two of them were in huge spots. And so it's not surprising

totally that he would jump back this way.

When he lose 1 of the Saratoga grade ones by like a by just

like a bed or a nose or something, that's a Whitney I

think. He's not never won with the top

2, frankly, but but to see his kids running this well, I could

still see where there's there's a world in which Chad Summer

still has this horse in his barn next year for sure, like for

sure. And so I'm hopeful at least he's

one of those 3 year olds we'll see as a four year old.

I kind of wanted to talk about that to close the show where we

are with the three-year old crop because after two Triple Crown

races with very different horses in the two races and very

different horses that we expected to be in these races,

there's no palate and there's no Ted Noffy.

There's some of these horses are simply not there at all.

Here's what I would like to say. I think this is AB plus 3 year

old crop. OK but it's a plus on depth.

Yeah, and excitement. But I think like.

You're going into any of these races the rest of the year like

I have no idea exactly who's winning any so.

Not only, not only the races that we all think about for the

rest of the three-year old year, you know, the Haskell, the races

at Saratoga, the Pennsylvania Derby, those sorts of things.

Move those out of the way. Think about what these Midwest

derbies are going to look like this year.

Iowa, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, etcetera.

Like those are all going to be stacked fields this year.

Because here's what could really happen is you're going to have a

bunch of horses that are looking to get graded at stakes, right?

And you can go to Iowa for that. You can go to Indiana for that.

You can go to Ohio for that. You can go to West Virginia for

that. I think you're going to see some

horses that just missed in these races.

Maybe an Iron Honor or something like that where they're trying

to jump up. Probably not an Iron Honor,

probably Chip Poncho. Better example, I feel Iron

Honor I feel like is a guaranteed Jim Dandy Travers.

Totally agree. He's he's going to Saratoga.

We know what he's doing, but but horses that are going to be

coming back this direction at least toward Kentucky like a

chip poncho, I think are going to pop up in these races.

We might see him at Thistledown, right.

We might see him in horseshoe Indianapolis.

We might see him at Prairie Meadows.

And so I, I think that part of the three-year old year is going

to be awesome. And I've watched enough turf

racing this year in the three-year olds.

This is a very good turf class. Yeah, a very good turf class.

So that part, maybe we're just got an imbalance of where the

turf class is a little bit better than the dirt class.

By the way, I don't care. Just put them in the Gastardi

gates. Let me watch them.

I mean, we knew going into the Kentucky Derby that we had a

full field waiting for the Preakness.

I mean, we just had that many horses that were willing to take

the shot this year. And now they're all now that the

Triple Crowns were 2/3 of the way through.

Now everybody's got to disperse into what we're doing afterward.

And so you got 18 to pick from from the Derby, 14 for the

Preakness. We'll see how many we end up

getting in the Belmont, but I mean, I wouldn't obviously

Renegade I think is going to still be favored in the Belmont,

but if I'm anyone, the way this three-year old crop is going, if

I have a nice horse, I'm putting them in there.

Take a shot. Yeah, take the shot.

I hope that continues to be the theme here.

Obviously we didn't have a lot of Derby horses come back for

the for the Preakness, but outside of that, there's been a

lot of just take a shot this year kind of mentality.

And it worked out here with Napoleon Solo, it worked out

with Golden Tempo and the Kentucky Derby.

And so hopefully we continue to have that.

We continue to see this three-year old crop grow, but so

much different from the three-year old crop last year

where we could already kind of see the writing on the wall.

Sovereignty Journalism by Aza. Those are the top 3.

Places right away. And you know, you probably could

have predicted already at this time of year in May that we were

going to be struggling to find opponents in the Travers the way

that we did last year. Right now doesn't look like that

at all. So is is, are they up to the

same quality of, you know, the sovereignties and the

journalism? So we'll hopefully we'll find

that out in November, but or excuse me, October this year,

October 31st in the Breeders Cup.

But I think we're going to get a lot of excitement in this

three-year old crop. And a lot of times so many

people just go on to Twitter and when you have different horses

winning all the races, oh, this crop sucks.

This crop's awful. It's like, no, what?

Just have a year where we have a lot of evenly matched horses

that are good horses and it makes for an exciting time.

And so I'm hoping that that's going to be what this three-year

old crop is. We might see a lot of trading

some blows and stuff like that, but I think this is going to be

a very, very interesting crop to watch as the year goes.

I thought just a a good week and excuse me, of racing in general.

I mean just I actually really enjoy and I know there was some

talk with, you know, with Mark Cassie about the undercard on

the Preakness weekend being what it is.

I love it. I love a good list of 6.

I love a couple good grade threes, whatever.

What the gallaurette was a bad race.

The dinner party was a bad race. Not in my mind, but hey, a

reminder too. If you are watching online,

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