How A Golden Touch Introduced Best of Pals

He stood by the elevator, at the base of the grandstand at Hollywood Park, and waited. Passing friends asked him what the hell he was doing, hanging around for hours in a suit, instead of the usual jeans and polo shirt. Next day, Sunday, he was back in position; and again the following weekend, and every weekend afterwards, until most people would have long abandoned the siege. Until, at last, the elevator opened and there he was: John C. Mabee.

“Mr. Mabee, my name is Randy Lowe,” he said. “You don't know me, but could I invest this in your company?”

Mabee opened the envelope and found a check for $100,000. Still plenty of money today, and this was 1986. Mabee looked at Lowe.

“Is this real?” he asked. “Where did this come from?”

So Lowe told him. He had always played the Pick 6. It was the only bet, he felt, that might change your life if you could actually hit one time. A few weeks previously, he had gone to Santa Anita with $120 in his pocket. It was as much as he could scrape together, as an insurance agent wearily accustomed to doors closing on his pitch. He staked $96 on his Pick 6. Add the price of his seat, something to eat, there wouldn't be much left. He was 29 years old, struggling to pay his bills, going nowhere.

Almost everybody was out after the first leg, a 35-to-one blowout. A professional gambler heard that Lowe was still in, asked to see the remaining lines, and offered $10,000 for his ticket. Lowe held his nerve and, though three of the next four legs were also won by outsiders, was still clinging to a live bet come the final leg. He had four shots.

It wasn't a typical Santa Anita day at all, and he peered down the track into a cold fog. “I was sitting there all by myself, nervous as nervous could be,” Lowe recalls. “It was a six-furlong sprint. As soon as the race started, I was yelling. Turning in, there were five horses across the track, and only one I didn't have. I remember looking up and saying, 'Please God, please don't let that horse beat me.' We ended up running one, two, three, four.”

The tension didn't end there, though. How many others could possibly be left standing? This really could change his life. Then the voice of track announcer Trevor Denman.

“Ladies and gentlemen, one ticket wins the Pick 6 today.”

Lowe rushed downstairs to the phone booth, which had to be unlocked by request, and called home.

His father could hear Lowe panting. “What's wrong?”

“I just won the Pick 6.”

“Well, what did it pay?”

“$156,000.”

“What!?”

“I don't know what to do. Do I take it in cash or what?”

After the IRS took their share, Lowe asked for $100,000 as a check and the rest in bills. For a couple of months, he carried that check around with him. He'd take it out and stare at it, asked banks about interest rates. Then he heard that Mabee, doyen of Californian racing, was starting up an insurance division. So Lowe took up his post by the elevator and waited.

Mabee heard him out, shook his head, and gave Lowe his check.

“I don't have partners,” he said.

But then he added that if Lowe believed in him, to quite that extent, then he should make an appointment at his head office in San Diego and they could see whether there might be a vacancy for him somewhere.

A week later Lowe drove down the coast, checked into a hotel and presented himself at Mabee's office.

“And where does he take me for this interview?” he says, grinning. “Del Mar racetrack.”

Mabee had a couple of runners on the card. The first would win, he declared, proposing a $1,000 exacta with the three horse.

“Okay,” Lowe said. “But you're going to lose your money. The one is going to finish second.”

And that's just how it played out. Next race, Mabee was betting the four horse.

“Again, you're going to lose your money,” Lowe said. “The nine will win.”

Sure enough, Lowe was right again. Long story short, he put Mabee on six consecutive winners and a couple of exactas into the bargain. Mabee looked at the young man in bewilderment.     “If you can sell insurance as well as you pick racehorses,” he said, “we can go very far.”

Before long, Lowe was getting calls from his workaholic boss at 5 a.m. asking for counsel not just in handicapping but in placing his horses. Gradually he became a fixture in Mabee's entourage. At the time, remember, his boss was on the board of the Breeders' Cup, chairman at Del Mar, and building up the Big Bear Markets grocery chain.

“John was a very honest, stand-up kind of guy,” Lowe recalls. “He wasn't the kind anyone could push around, but he was very fair. He demanded that things be done in the right way. He used to tell me that meetings were for people who like to waste time. If you had an idea, you should just go ahead and do it.

“And it was a friendship that really blossomed. I just couldn't believe that a man of his importance and stature would take an interest in somebody who really didn't have much of anything. A lot of the times, I couldn't afford where they were staying. So, I'd try to find a cheaper hotel and John would say, 'Nonsense!' And he'd get me a room. He made me feel like part of the family. And, you know, that rubbed some people the wrong way… I mean, I'm a Chinese guy. I used to stand in the back of pictures. But John would say, 'What you doing back there? You come down here and stand right near me.'”

Before long, anyone seeking insurance from Mabee's company in Los Angeles was being referred to Randall E. Lowe. He would be taken into even the biggest meetings: with Bob Lewis, or Saudi princes. Mabee's former partner in the Los Angeles Chargers, Barron Hilton, kept calling him Mr. Lowe. “No, sir,” he would say. “Please, just 'Randy'!”

Lowe's first venture into racehorse ownership had been, let's say, enterprising. Having identified a potential claim, he approached his uncle: “I got two-thirds of what I need, can you loan me the rest?” Then he went to his father, and said: “Dad, I got two-thirds of the money, can you lend me the rest?” Finally, he went to his mother–his parents had divorced–and you know what he said. That horse won a couple of races, and Lowe did even better with one claimed from Mabee himself, winning seven in a row. And meanwhile he has honed that freakish acuity as a handicapper, winning the Pick 6 201 times since that fateful day in 1986.

Obviously, we can't expect Lowe to share the secret. “But I have been handicapping ever since I was seven years old,” he says. “My dad used to stare at the Racing Form, spread on the dining room table, and I'd look from the other side and ask questions. He would tell me what he knew, my uncle would tell me what he knew, my cousin the same. And I started reading books and gradually put the whole thing together, my own formula.”

Soon after Lowe entered Mabee's life, so did Best Pal–the best horse ever raced by his Golden Eagle Farm, runner-up in the Kentucky Derby and winner of such iconic West Coast prizes as the Hollywood Gold Cup and Santa Anita Handicap. And fate decreed that many years later Lowe would honor his mentor by naming a horse for a combination of the stable (Golden) and its champion (Pal).

This chapter of Lowe's remarkable story traces to a Barretts sale in the fall of 2005. Mabee had died three years earlier, and Lowe had just broken up with a girlfriend. Seated today alongside his wife Brenda, he laughs at the memory. “You can print this if you want,” he says. “I said, 'The heck with these women, I'm just going to own racehorses instead!' And that's why I went to the auction.”

By that stage, having done so himself, Lowe had resolved to move his horses up in the world. There had been good claims, bad claims, plenty in between. But he figured that if ever he was going to find a Best Pal, he would have to change tack. So at the Pomona auction he bought a $28,000 weanling filly by Mutakddim (a son of Seeking The Gold who had raced in Europe) from the estate of Leon Rasmussen, the dosage theorist.

Lowe named her Sumthingtottalkabt and she won five for Wally Dollase, just falling short at stakes level but often melting the clock, both mornings and afternoons. Lowe decided she had enough speed to try his hand at breeding, and paired her with Midshipman.

The result was Lady Shipman, who missed by a neck in the GI Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint of 2015, but racked up 11 stakes and over $900,000. Her very first foal, by Uncle Mo, is Golden Pal, now limbering up for a Breeders' Cup treble after brilliantly avenging his dam's defeat in the equivalent race last year, having already won the GII Juvenile Turf Sprint in 2020. And, throughout, it has almost felt as though somebody up there is taking a benign interest.

Lady Shipman herself, for instance, fell well short of her reserve in a 2-year-old sale. She had worked nine-and-four, no medication and no whip, and Lowe wanted $210,000. She was led out at just $35,000. In turn, moreover, Lowe thought so much of Golden Pal as a yearling that he raised the bar higher yet at the September Sale. This time, however, bidding stalled at $325,000.

With Lady Shipman, people had more or less mocked him to his face. “You don't have any money,” they said. “And yet you're sitting there holding out for what you think is 'fair'!”

“Well, I didn't want people to take advantage of me,” he recalls with a shrug. “So I didn't sell her. And with Golden Pal, I told all these different trainers what the horse would be. And nobody believed me.”

The unchecked box against the colt had been sesamoiditis, but Coolmore remained interested. Lowe was so confident that he gave them 60 days to see how the horse came along. After what he recalls with a grin as “59 days and 23 hours”, the colt was returned. Okay, no problem, Lowe would send him to Wesley Ward. He had seen how the trainer adored the colt at the sale, but couldn't find a buyer.

Soon Golden Pal was showing so much speed that Lowe found himself turning down multiples of his sale reserve until, after that first Breeders' Cup, yielding to a renewed offer from a Coolmore partnership.

Now Lowe is once again showing his faith in Lady Shipman, her Omaha Beach colt another RNA in the same ring last week at $385,000. Lowe is undaunted. Eventually, people have always had to come round. “This was my fourth time trying to sell a horse,” he says. “And this time I didn't even try to talk anybody into buying him. But I'm telling you now: this horse is very, very fast. I'll just race him myself and I'll show everybody. I'll win the Breeders' Cup with him, too!”

Despite producing a champion at the first attempt, Lady Shipman has certainly charted the full spectrum of this business, having meanwhile lost both her next two foals. But Lowe is ecstatic with Golden Pal's weanling full-sister, Luvwhatyoudo; while she's now in foal to Essential Quality.

Whatever happens from here, it has already been a remarkable odyssey. When Golden Pal won his first Breeders' Cup in the silks of Ranlo Investments LLC, few realized that this was one guy with one horse. Sure, Lowe has had plenty of other horses over the past 38 years; and right now, indeed, has an interest in five. But he still watches the big names spending the big money, and wonders how many of them will ever find a horse this fast.

He hopes that the friends who bought Golden Pal will prioritize a third Breeders' Cup, but understands they have vast experience and a corresponding agenda. If they want to raise the bar by trying him on dirt–albeit the plan is apparently the GII Woodford S., on grass, on October 8–then he wishes them all possible luck.

After all, this is a man who got through college living off 50-cent enchiladas, twice a day, requesting extra chips and a glass of water. Somehow, from $20 a week, he needed to salvage something to take to the windows after getting into the racetrack for free before the last race.

“When Lady Shipman ran at the Breeders' Cup, we were in front one step before the wire and then her head came back,” he recalls. “One more half-step, we win the race. And then I probably would have sold her, and we wouldn't have had Golden Pal. Now all these different people are telling me to sell her. But every time I've ever been to see her, at all those different racetracks and now on the farm, she has come up and put her head on my shoulder, like she wants a hug. Every single time. And looks for her peppermints. So it would be very hard to sell. Sometimes there's more to life than just making money.

“It's impossible, what's happened. For a person who used to stand there at Hollywood Park, begging people as they're leaving the track, 'Excuse me, sir, could I have your Racing Form, your program?' It's taken a long time. It's almost like life is played like some kids' board game. You go this way, you go that way. All I know is that when I hoisted that Breeders' Cup trophy up in the air, I was thanking John Mabee.”

Lowe remembers seeing an old movie as a boy. About kids his own age: one was selling newspapers, one was shining shoes, that kind of thing. And they pooled their few cents and befriended a racetracker who would place their wagers. Every time, they lost. But then they won the big pool. Their friend got so excited that he had a heart attack, dropped to the floor.

“The kids are waiting for him outside,” Lowe recalls. “His car is still there. But he never comes out. And I always think that watching that movie, growing up, gave me inspiration. Because my motto has always been that if you believe in anything enough, and you want it bad enough, it will happen. You might not do it today. You might not do it tomorrow. But if you believe to the day you die, it will happen.”

The post How A Golden Touch Introduced Best of Pals appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Shah Bringing His ‘Best’ to Del Mar

Kaleem Shah went to $1.8 million to acquire a pair of powerful-looking :9 4/5 breezers from the OBS March 2-Year-Old Sale earlier this spring. Both are expected to be in action this summer at Del Mar.

Arman (Bolt d'Oro), a $600,000 OBS March graduate and the first of the highly regarded duo to make the races, debuted with a visually impressive 'TDN Rising Star' performance at Churchill Downs June 23. Named after Shah's son, the bay is being aimed at the GIII Best Pal S. Aug. 14.

Shah, ahem, clearly made them an offer they couldn't refuse extending to a sale-topping, $1.2 million for OBS March boss Don Corleone (More Than Ready). He is nearing his debut in a spot still to be determined at the seaside track.

Both purchases were advised by Shah's primary trainer Simon Callaghan and bloodstock agent Ben McElroy.

“One thing that I've known is money does not buy you love, and money doesn't buy you a fast horse,” Shah said with a laugh. “Having said that, it all remains to be seen.”

Drawn widest of all in post 10, Arman had his work cut out for him after breaking toward the rear going five furlongs in his unveiling. Hung out in a four-wide fourth heading into the far turn, the 8-5 favorite began to rev up with a sweeping move approaching the quarter pole. He gained command as they straightened for home and leveled off nicely after a couple of left handers from Martin Garcia to win going away by 2 1/2 lengths. He earned a respectable 74 Beyer Speed Figure for the effort.

Shah–the founder and president of the Virginia-based CalNet, which handles intelligence analysis and telecommunications for its clients, including the U.S. federal government and military–made a special trip to Louisville to be on hand for Arman's unveiling last month.

“He's named after my son, so I had to be there,” Shah said. “He'll be 24-years-old soon and is doing his masters in cybersecurity at George Washington.”

Shah added of the four-legged Arman, “Most of the pundits thought that coming from the outside post at Churchill was a difficult task, but he got it done that day, so on to the next one. He's pointing to the Best Pal. We shall see what he does.”

Bred in Florida by Loren Nichols, Arman RNA'd for $52,000 as a yearling at OBS October. Offered on behalf of Nichols by Top Line Sales at OBS March, Arman brought $600,000 from Shah after motoring through an eighth in :9 4/5.

Already one of eight winners for promising freshman sire Bolt d'Oro (by Medaglia d'Oro)–currently ranked a narrow second by earnings via TDN Sire Lists–Arman is out of Beautissimo (Uncle Mo), an unraced half-sister to the stakes-winning and multiple graded-placed Two Thirty Five (Stay Thirsty). He hails from the extended female family of champion Halfbridled (Unbridled).

Don Corleone, meanwhile, topped the two-day OBS March Sale following a much-buzzed about :9 4/5 breeze from the Wavertree Stables, Inc. (Ciaran Dunne), agent, consignment. Bred in Kentucky by WinStar Farm, LLC, he was previously a $120,000 KEESEP yearling purchase by Lehigh Bloodstock, a pinhooking partnership led by Dunne. The dark bay is out of the unraced Indian Charlie mare Broad Spectrum, a half-sister to recent GIII Sanford S. winner Mo Strike (Uncle Mo). Don Corleone breezed four furlongs in :49 (32/61) at Del Mar July 21, his seventh workout since early June.

“Obviously, you've got to go one race at a time, and you don't want to get ahead of yourself,” Shah concluded. “We'll see how this all pans out. But, certainly, it's promising for now.”

The post Shah Bringing His ‘Best’ to Del Mar appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Lost And Found Presented By LuibriSYN HA: The Stories Behind The Top Summer Stakes Races

Racing aficionados likely are aware of the meanings behind the names of long-running stakes while others might find them both perplexing and amusing. The Peter Pan Stakes — New York's traditional Belmont Stakes prep — comes to mind. Some may think of a peanut butter brand or the forever young character, but the race honors the 1907 Belmont Stakes winner and Hall of Famer of the same name.

The Preakness Stakes is widely known as the second leg of the Triple Crown and few connect the event with the durable star of the late 1800s who was named for a New Jersey township. In 1870, he won a stakes on opening day of Pimlico Race Course's inaugural meeting and was still campaigning when the track's signature event was rebranded three years later. The tradition of honoring the very best continues today, often after a marquee winner retires. Such is the case with Churchill Downs' Wise Dan Stakes, formerly known as the Firecracker for its spot on the calendar around the July 4 holiday.

This month's Lost and Found highlights some “lost” meanings of well-known stakes “found” on the summer schedule. The sampling is arranged in chronological order.

Matchmaker Stakes (July 17 at Monmouth Park) This fixture was conceived with an unusual incentive to attract the best fillies and mares. In addition to the financial reward, the prize for the top three finishers came with breeding options to premiere stallions. The original edition was held in 1967 at the now-idle Atlantic City Race Course. As sponsorships gained traction in the 1990s, Kentucky's leading stud operations began adding their brand to the title in addition to seasons to their stallions. Known as the WinStar Matchmaker since 2014, the 2021 renewal offered matings to Audible, Global Campaign and Tom's d'Etat.

Molly Pitcher Stakes (July 17 at Monmouth Park) Whether Molly Pitcher was a real person is a subject of debate, but the general consensus or legend is that she was a woman who carried water to troops at the Battle of Monmouth during the American Revolutionary War in 1778. The modern-day Molly Pitcher, first held in 1946, is undeniably a race that has attracted countless champion fillies and mares to the Jersey Shore track.

Jim Dandy (July 31 at Saratoga) The naming origin sometimes gets lost in translation for this test that is synonymous as the prep for the Travers Stakes, the Saratoga season's headliner. The race is a nod to the Thoroughbred who won the inaugural Travers in 1930 in a stunning upset over Triple Crown winner Gallant Fox. The surprise was one of the many that resulted in the track being dubbed “the graveyard of favorites” that has morphed into “the graveyard of champions.” Jim Dandy never came close to duplicating his best when it mattered the most. In his 141 starts, he produced just seven victories. By the stallion Jim Gaffney, Jim Dandy's label most likely reflected the definition for something of superior quality, a term that may have been inspired by a minstrel song of the mid 1800s.

[Story Continues Below]

Yellow Ribbon Handicap (August 7 at Del Mar) In racetracker slang, “get tied on” for this explanation of a pretty name with a pretty convoluted background. For starters, the summer edition is the rebranded Palomar Handicap while the first incarnation at Santa Anita is now the Rodeo Drive. The original was first held in 1977 during Santa Anita's autumn meeting when the Oak Tree Racing Association traditionally leased the facility. A popular song of the era was “Tie a Yellow Ribbon (Round the Old Oak Tree)” and somehow the wording grew into a good idea for a race. The varied symbolism and history of yellow ribbons includes awareness of the military although the hit song apparently is about a freed prisoner and his girlfriend.

Best Pal Stakes (August 7 at Del Mar) In short, the race for 2-year-olds recognizes the California-bred gelding but the story goes deeper. Best Pal was one of the most popular horses of his time thanks in part to his folksy name, West Coast roots and consistency during 47 races spread over seven seasons. His first of 12 graded wins came at Del Mar at age two in the Balboa Stakes which reflected area locations honoring the Spanish explorer. Best Pal retired in early 1996 and later that year the Balboa became the Best Pal. His 47-18-11-4 and $5,668,245 record includes Grade 1 victories in the Santa Anita, Charles H. Strub and Oaklawn Handicaps, Hollywood Gold Cup, and Hollywood Futurity and a runner-up effort in the 1991 Kentucky Derby.

A homebred of the revered Golden Eagle Farm of John and Betty Mabee, Best Pal returned to his birthplace but was less than thrilled with a life of too much leisure. He became a stable pony to accompany young horses to the track at Golden Eagle's training division. He died of an apparent heart attack at age ten and was buried on the property.

Beverly D. Stakes (August 14 at Arlington Park) The race for fillies and mares was designed in 1987 as the counterpart to the track's marquee Arlington Million that is run on the same day. The event honors the late wife of Richard Duchossois, whose name is forever linked with transforming Arlington Park into a spectacular setting for world-class racing. This year the Million will be contested as the Mister D. with a purse of $600,000. The Secretariat Stakes, the track's signature test for 3-year-olds, has been rechristened the Bruce D. to commemorate the couple's son who died in 2014.

Alabama Stakes (August 21 at Saratoga) Since 1872 some of the nation's finest fillies have been associated with Alabama which can be a head scratcher when glancing at headlines. The stakes refers to the home state of William Cottrell, a prominent owner-breeder of the era, who declined to have a race named for himself.

Singspiel Stakes (August 21 at Woodbine) First held in 2005, this race pays homage to the remarkably consistent international runner whose only two North American starts were at Woodbine. After winning the Canadian International at the Toronto track, the Irish-bred Singspiel was runner-up in the Breeders' Cup Turf to earn the 1996 Eclipse Award as champion grass horse. In his 20-race career, Singspiel was first or second on 17 occasions and banked just shy of $6 million. His triumphs include the 1997 Dubai World Cup. That triumph is commemorated with a race in his name that is contested early each year at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai. After a productive stud career in England, Singspiel was euthanized in 2010 following complications of laminitis. By definition, Singspiel is a German opera with spoken dialogue. He is a son of In the Wings (GB) which is a theatrical term for a player waiting to go on stage.

Riskaverse Stakes (August 26 at Saratoga) This lyrical label sounds racehorsey, but with a hyphen after “risk” the term relates to investors reluctant to take certain gambles. A newbie on the calendar with an inaugural running in 2009, the 3-year-old filly feature is named for the mare who earned more than $2 million before closing her five-season campaign in 2005. Her record includes consecutive victories in the G1 Flower Bowl Invitational Stakes at Belmont Park.

Ballerina Stakes (August 28 at Saratoga) First run in 1979, the label easily conjures up images of athletic and elegant dancers so one might not consider an equine version. However, the name is a nod to the standout filly of the 1950s who won New York's inaugural Maskette Handicap (now the Go for Wand).

Travers Stakes (August 28 at Saratoga) Arguably the most famous race of summer, the “The Midsummer Derby” is revered for highlighting returnees from the Triple Crown trail and the late bloomers getting into stride and for memorable victories and defeats. Dating back to 1864, the showcase honors Saratoga Race Course co-founder William R. Travers, who won the inaugural running with his horse Kentucky.

The post Lost And Found Presented By LuibriSYN HA: The Stories Behind The Top Summer Stakes Races appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Hall Of Fame Trainer Gary Jones, Conditioner Of Turkoman, Passes At Age 76

News regarding the passing of retired Hall of Fame trainer Gary Jones hit hard at Santa Anita Monday morning, as word circulated that Jones had passed away following a lengthy illness at age 76 at his home in Del Mar.

The son of one of California's all time training greats, Gary Jones was born June 16, 1944 in Long Beach and he was unquestionably destined for a life at the racetrack, which he certainly made the most of.

After an extended apprenticeship with his father, the legendary Farrell “Wild Horse” Jones, Gary Jones took over the Jones Stable in 1974 and from there, took it to new heights, as the barn produced an incredible 104 stakes winners over the next 22 years, including 1986 Eclipse Award winning Older Horse, Turkoman.

A trainer who redefined hands-on horsemanship, Jones operated a split stable between Santa Anita and Hollywood Park for several years and he had a bushel basket full of speeding tickets to prove it.

“I gotta seem 'em go myself,” he once said, when asked why he felt compelled to watch a set or two of his horses train in Inglewood prior to blasting up the Harbor Freeway back to Arcadia in time to oversee the training of his Santa Anita-based charges. “I've got good people, but I just can't take somebody's else's word for it. I want to see them myself.”

A two-time winner of the Santa Anita Handicap—in 1992 with eventual Hall of Famer Best Pal and in 1994, via disqualification, with Stuka, Jones ranks eighth on Santa Anita's all time Winter/Spring win list with 576 victories and he is currently ninth in Santa Anita stakes-won with 72.

Jones, who was a fierce advocate for California racing, trained an incredible 104 stakes winners prior to his retirement in 1996 that included Kostroma, Quiet American, Time to Explode, Lakeway and Wishing Well, who would go on to become the dam of 1989 Horse of the Year Sunday Silence.

Gary Jones is survived by his wife Joanie and two sons, trainer Marty and David, who is a Los Angeles-based attorney.

Services are pending.

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