WIN SPEAKS WELL OF TRAINER ROBBINS.Byline: KEVIN MODESTI ARCADIA - If horse racing's four Robbins brothers were Beatles, Jay would be George Harrison, the quiet one. Tom and Don, both racetrack executives, are gregarious like their father, the great equine veterinarian An Equine veterinarian is a veterinarian who treats horses. Horses are different in anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, and husbandry to other domestic species. Most, if not all, veterinary schools worldwide still produce graduates able to practice with a wide variety of Jack Robbins. David, an attorney, must be able to argue a case. Then there's Jay, the thoroughbred trainer whose attentive troubleshooting made Tiznow the winner of the $1 million Santa Anita Handicap The Santa Anita Handicap is an American Thoroughbred horse race held annually in the late winter at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California. It is a Grade I race for horses three years old and up, and is considered the most important race for older horses in North America during on Saturday. Jay Robbins is so soft-spoken that when I interviewed him by telephone a few weeks ago, I couldn't hear his voice over the squeak of my note-taking pen. I asked him to speak up. He tried. It didn't help much. Jay Robbins is so low-key that he'd never blow his own horn even after a triumph like this. Fortunately, he had a couple of willing spokesmen. One spokesman was Michael Cooper Robbins was typically modest when someone asked him to rate his own performance in the trying days leading up to the 64th Big 'Cap. ``I think I did a pretty good job,'' he said in the postrace press conference. Cooper chimed in: ``I'll give him a vote of confidence - he did a great job.'' The other spokesman was the horse. Tiznow's five-length victory, in front of a loudly appreciative crowd of 34,176, was an emphatic statement about Robbins' stature among California's trainers. It's never simple to define what a trainer does. Depending on the man or woman and the demands of his owners, a trainer might operate like a baseball general manager, or like a field manager, or like a traveling secretary, or like a physical therapist - or like all of the above. But if you wanted a picture of a trainer at his best, you'd focus on Robbins during the week that ended with Tiznow's trip to the Santa Anita Santa Anita may refer to:
n. pl. winners' circles An enclosed area at a racetrack where the winning horse and jockey are brought for awards and publicity. Noun 1. late Saturday afternoon. Asked to sum up the week, Robbins never got a word out. He guffawed ruefully rue·ful adj. 1. Inspiring pity or compassion. 2. Causing, feeling, or expressing sorrow or regret. rue , his eyes appeared to mist, and he reached for a glass of water. It began last weekend when blood appeared from beneath the fiberglass patch protecting Tiznow's cracked right front hoof hoof, horny epidermal casing at the end of the digits of an ungulate (hoofed) mammal. In the even-toed ungulates, such as swine, deer, and cattle, the hoof is cloven; in the odd-toed ungulates, such as the horse and the rhinoceros, it is solid. . The patch was removed and a second crack discovered. A vet and a horseshoer worked early Tuesday morning to cut out the crack, pull the pieces together with screws and wire, and re-patch it. Every morning after that, Tiznow would go out for a gallop in the mud, and Robbins would hold his breath, hoping the foot would come back in one piece. Tiznow is the 2000 Horse of the Year. You wouldn't want to mess that up. Five consecutive rainy days Rainy Days itself isn't an official XYZ release, it's a collection of demo tapes from 1985 which has been released by guitarist Bobby Pieper, who recorded the said demos with the band. complicated matters. Robbins had to consider scratching Tiznow from the biggest race of the early season if the track wasn't certifiably safe. ``You wonder if you're doing the right thing,'' Robbins, 55, said from behind wire-frame glasses. ``It's the first time in his 12 races that I've run him when everything wasn't absolutely perfect. I knew it could cause a problem if the patch came loose in the middle of the race. ... I had my doubts.'' Robbins finalized the decision to run after Tiznow looked OK jogging on the barn-area road Saturday morning. After that, another potential problem arose: On the drying-out track, almost every winner was a front-runner hewing Hewing is a method of cutting wood. One can hew wood by standing a log across two other smaller logs, and stabilizing it somehow, by notching the support logs, or using a 'dog' (a long bar of iron with a hook tooth on either end that jams into the logs and prevents movement). close to the inner rail. If Tiznow, out of post 5 in a 12-horse field, got caught on the outside of other horses, his chances could be compromised. ``Chris (McCarron, the jockey) and I discussed it in the walking ring,'' Robbins said. ``Chris said, `I'm going to put him in it (early in the race).' '' Tiznow dueled on the outside of Wooden Phone before taking charge on the turn for home. The stretch run was a one-float parade. This was the day Tiznow, already a Breeders' Cup The Breeders' Cup World Championships is an annual series of Grade I thoroughbred horse races operated by Breeders' Cup Limited, a company formed in 1982 by a consortium of North American racing organizations, led by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association. winner and Horse of the Year, took big strides toward being a star. The largest Big 'Cap crowd in five years had something to do with the California-bred's drawing power. His even-money odds, in the race following his Strub Stakes The Strub Stakes is an American race for thoroughbred horses run at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California each year. Currently a Grade II stakes race with a purse of $300,000, it is open to horses, age four, willing to race one and one-eighth miles on the dirt and offers. defeat, said something about his popularity. This was also the day the racing world remembered how good the man behind Tiznow is. Robbins had flown below the radar since the early 1990s, when he won major races with Jack Kent Cooke's Flying Continental. After some prodding, Robbins said this might have been his most gratifying grat·i·fy tr.v. grat·i·fied, grat·i·fy·ing, grat·i·fies 1. To please or satisfy: His achievement gratified his father. See Synonyms at please. 2. victory. ``The reason we went with Jay (11 years ago) is because he had a reputation for putting the horse first,'' Cooper said. ``His horses are always well-cared-for. His horses are always happy. This is a happy horse.'' Tiznow showed that Saturday, and spoke volumes about a trainer who wouldn't. |
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