Algorithms won Gulfstream's Holy Bull by five lengths over champion Hansen. Adam Coglianese/Gulfstream Park photo
An unedited, longer version of the feature on Algorithms that will run in Wednesday’s Courier-Journal:
Clients in Todd Pletcher’s deep stable have an idea what Swen Nater felt like as back-up at UCLA to basketball great Bill Walton, who called Nater the best center he’d played against all season.
“I mean, you’ve got to get in line in this barn,” Jack Wolf said with a laugh.
But Wolf also says he prefers the tough intramural competition because he knows exactly where he stands with the Starlight Racing horses he manages and owns with partner Donald Lucarelli.
“That’s the truth,” Wolf said. “You’re training against the best horses. If you’re at the top of the class in his barn, you go into these races with a lot of confidence.”
Take Sunday’s $400,000 Fountain of Youth – and Wolf hopes to do just that with Algorithms, who is 3 for 3 after winning Gulfstream Park’s Grade III Holy Bull. Among Algorithms’ competition will be his brilliant stablemate Discreet Dancer.
“I would always love to split the horses up and put them in situations where they are not running against a stablemate,” Pletcher said by phone. “I always want to take chances at as many different purses as I can. But you always have to put the horses’ and owners’ best interests first, and everything will work out.
“In this case, you had two horses who are 2 for 2 at Gulfstream. It makes a lot of sense. One of them was going to have to run against a stablemate no matter where we went, whether to (Saturday’s) Risen Star or (next week’s) Gotham.”
Algorithms broke his maiden June 3 at Belmont Park by 5 ¾ lengths before being sidelined with a hock problem. He returned to win a 6 ½-furlong allowance race at Gulfstream over favored Consortium and then defeated 2-year-old champion Hansen by five lengths in the mile Holy Bull.
The Holy Bull winner's circle, with Javier Castellano up on Algorithms
Wolf loves Algorithms, saying “he might be a special horse.” But you won’t hear any braggadocio from the former hedge-fund manager, who with wife Laurie moved from Atlanta to Wolf’s hometown of Louisville to pursue horse racing.
“Hansen stumbled out of the gate and went too fast,” Wolf, a St. Xavier product who holds two degrees from Murray State, said of the Holy Bull. “Consortium didn’t take to the track. We had the outside post. Everything went our way, not to take anything from our horse. I mean, I thought he ran a fantastic race. But you’ve got to have the racing luck, too.”
Discreet Dancer set a Gulfstream track record in his debut in a 9 ¾-length romp and then won a mile allowance race by 5 ½ lengths. But the Fountain of Youth favorite likely will be the Michael Matz-trained Union Rags, whose only defeat in four starts was by a head in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.
“That’s what I like about this game, getting in there and competing against the best,” Wolf said.
The 1 1/16-mile Fountain of Youth is the first two-turn race for Algorithms and Discreet Dancer. It appears something that Algorithms should relish. His half-siblings are the classy sprinters Keyed Entry and Justin Phillip, but Algorithms also is a son of the red-hot stallion Bernardini, the Preakness and Jockey Club Gold Cup winner en route to the 2006 3-year-old championship. And Algorithms’ dam, Ava Knowsthecode, is a daughter of distance-loving Cryptoclearance.
“More important to me is the way he’s been training,” Pletcher said. “Everything indicates to me he’s going to run at least a mile and an eighth, I’ve got no doubt. The mile and a quarter, who knows with any of them until you get there?”
Discreet Dancer, owned by Robsham Stables, would seem the bigger two-turn question. He’s by the brilliant miler Discreet Cat and a half-brother to the sprinter Travelin Man.
“I honestly don’t know how good he might be,” Pletcher said, “because we’ve never needed to find out more than what we’ve seen so far – which has been full of run at all stages.”
Pletcher also has Let’s Go Stable’s allowance winner El Padrino in Saturday’s $300,000 Risen Star in New Orleans, where he’s the 2-1 favorite.
Javier Castellano rides El Pradino and Algorithms, and was the rider for Union Rags (who picks up Julien Leparoux) and Discreet Dancer (now with John Velazquez).
In the in-house decision between Algorithms and Discreet Dancer, Pletcher noted that Castellano has a strong relationship with Starlight, “and Mrs. (Joyce) Robsham and Johnny have had similar success. It just worked out where everybody was happy.”
It’s already been a huge year for Murray State’s sports fraternity, with quarterback Casey Brockman making All-America honors for the 7-4 Racers football team and the 12th-ranked basketball team 26-1 and fresh off an appearance by Dick Vitale.
Wolf, a St. Xavier product who played tight end for the Racers and received undergraduate and graduate degrees from Murray, could make it even bigger if Algorithms progresses on the Derby trail.
“That’s unbelievable,” he said of the Racers’ year. “I’m still involved with the football program, and I was talking to their coach the other day and said, ‘This basketball team is making you guys look bad.’ He said, ‘Just the opposite. This has really helped the recruiting.”
Starlight, which also campaigns Hutcheson winner Thunder Moccasin, is a partnership rather than a syndicate. Wolf and Lucarelli buy the horses, then sell chunks without mark-up to a pre-committed small group of partners, including the Louisville father-son team of Ed and Clinton Glasscock. Algorithms and Thunder Moccasin are from a crop of 12 Starlight yearling purchases selected by former trainer Frankie Brothers.
Pletcher has trained for Wolf since 2002, when he took over the training of Harlan’s Holiday, who won the Florida Derby and Blue Grass for trainer Kenny McPeek. Starlight’s victories with Pletcher include the 2004 Kentucky Oaks and Breeders’ Cup Distaff with champion Ashado, with other standouts including Keyed Entry, Purge, Octave and Hilda’s Passion.
“We’ve had a tremendous amount of success together,” Pletcher said of Wolf. “… He appreciates straight upfront, brutally honest answers to everything. He’s not a guy you have to worry about hurting his feelings because a horse is no good.”
The Glasscocks, who began buying into the Starlight horses several years ago, hope to have their first Derby starter after thinking they had a contender in recent years with Buffalo Man, A.P. Cardinal and Soaring Empire.
“But we never got over that hump in the prep race,” Clinton Glasscock said. “The Holy Bull got us over that hump. Now we just hope to keep him sound. My dream is for Dad and the family to somehow make that long walk (from the barn to Derby paddock) on the first Saturday in May.”
Said Wolf: “Yeah, it’s fantastic, being from Louisville. But I don’t care if you’re from Mars, it would be fun to have a real contender.”
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