Brian Hernandez Jr. | Horse Racing Free Tips

Art Collector Puts In Easy Maintenance Drill Ahead Of Aug. 9 Runhappy Ellis Park Derby

Bruce Lunsford's 3-year-old Art Collector, winner of Keeneland's Grade 2 Toyota Blue Grass Stakes in his last start, worked an easy half-mile in 49 seconds Saturday morning at Churchill Downs in preparation for the $200,000 Runhappy Ellis Park Derby on Aug. 9. Regular jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. was aboard.

Trainer Tommy Drury said by phone that he shipped Art Collector to Churchill Downs because the track at his Skylight Training Center base in Oldham County is being resurfaced. He said Art Collector will stay at Churchill Downs until shipping to Ellis Park the morning of the race.

“He's fit; we weren't looking for much today,” Drury said. “Just a little maintenance half-mile, let him stretch his legs a little. Brian said he couldn't have been happier, kind of had his ears thrown up. Just cruised along. I think Big John (Churchill clocker John Nichols) had him galloping out in 1:01 and change. It was really nice, just what I wanted. I think he got off the first eighth-mile in 13 (seconds) and just kind of picked it up from there. He's on the same schedule he's been on. He'll come back and work next Friday or Saturday and that should pretty much set us up for the race.”

“Everything was good,” Hernandez said. “Just a maintenance move, nice and smooth.”

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Coronavirus Leads to New Debate on Weights

Throughout the sport, the coronavirus has meant adjustments, For most jockeys, that includes no longer being able to use the “hot box” to take off weight. For several racetracks and racing departments, that has meant a concession to the jockeys in the form of raising the scale of weights.

But will these temporary solutions become permanent when life returns to normal and might eliminating the saunas in jockeys’ quarters ultimately prove to be a solution that helps riders stay healthy? These are questions already being discussed.

The saunas, which many saw as a necessary evil, are a small, confined space where several jockeys might congregate. With social distancing a means to combat the virus, tracks had no choice but to shut them down. Jockeys’ Guild President and CEO Terry Meyocks estimates that 75% of all jockeys go into the box before riding to shed a few pounds. For them, losing access to the hot box could have been a serious problem, but several tracks stepped in and allowed jockeys to ride at higher weights. It started at Gulfstream, where three pounds were added to what would have been the weight a horse carried in the pre-COVID-19 world.

“I think Gulfstream had the right idea,” jockey Tyler Gaffalione said. “With social distancing and wanting to keep everyone spread out, going into the hot box and to be in a confined area with numerous other guys is too risky. Tracks have done the right thing helping us jockeys.”

Monmouth Park has also added three pounds to the weight a horse carries and the least any journeyman jockey carried on the card that featured the GI Haskell S. was 118 pounds. With NYRA not yet making any adjustments to the weights, jockeys at Saratoga have taken matters into their own hands. No matter how much weight their horse is assigned, no journeyman jockey will ride at less than 120 pounds. Jockeys who can ride at a lighter weight will make sure that they are overweight, oftentimes by using a heavier saddle than they would normally use.

Changes have also been made overseas. In Ireland, two pounds have been added to the scale of weights. In Australia, they added one kilogram, the equivalent of 2.2 pounds.

For now, the days of seeing a journeyman rider having to make 114 or 115 pounds have disappeared.

“You have to be happy with this,” said Monmouth regular Antonio Gallardo. “I don’t mind having to lose weight. We used to be able to go in the hot box or use a gym. You can jog outside, but what happens when it rains or it’s too hot or cold? Then you don’t have anything and how can you lose weight? You really need something. There are some jockeys who are really light. They don’t care. But what about the rest of the jockeys? When you do 116, that means when you are naked you have to weigh 113 or 112 to do that. Only bug boys can do that. It would be great if the minimum weight was always 118.”

Jockeys are obviously pleased to be able to tack on a few extra pounds and the changes haven’t led to any noticeable backlash from trainers, owners or gamblers. Many seem to not have even noticed that the weights have changed. The Jockeys’ Guild and its members have long been campaigning for tracks to raise the scale of weights and Meyocks said the issue is not going to go away.

“It’s always been on our list to have the scale of weights raised,” he said. “For the most part, tracks have done that. Is it 100% where we’d like it to be? No. We understand you can’t continue to increase them and increase them more. There is a fine line. We have a situation at the NYRA tracks where there are only three or four jockeys who can do 116 without having to pull weight. These kids coming up are bigger now than they ever were.”

Jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. said he’d be all for maintaining the weights at current levels once the hot boxes are re-opened.

“Everybody has dealt with it and nobody is complaining about it,” he said. “It’s been a positive thing for everyone. We’ve all been able to maintain our weight and those couple of extra pounds has really helped some people.”

In Europe, the coronavirus forced the sport to look at whether or not providing easy access to a hot box is ultimately the right thing to do.

“We’ve been wanting to remove saunas from the racecourse environment for some time and for various reasons we haven’t,” Lisa Hancock, the president of the Injured Jockeys Fund told the TDN. “Now, the jockeys can’t use the saunas and they’re finding they don’t need them and there are much better and healthier ways of maintaining appropriate weight. It’s things like that that we’ll be really trying to keep as the new norm. I think there are some real benefits to the restrictions and we’ll hopefully take some good points away from it. As things get back to normal we’ll hopefully create a new normal that might even be a little bit better.”

Hernandez said he sees, with the saunas shut down, more jockeys taking better care of themselves.

“We’ve all been doing what we have to do with no hot box,” he said. “People are using different methods. Guys are exercising more and watching their weight better. Everyone is trying to make adjustments to the situation.”

There’s little doubt that spending too much time in the hot box can have a negative impact on the physical and mental health of a jockey. It can’t be easy to ride, particularly on a hot day, after dehydrating yourself. In some cases, it has been fatal. A handful over the years have died from the effects of reducing and starving themselves.

Is there a solution that works for everyone? Would tracks be willing to raise the scale of weights permanently if jockeys agreed to have the saunas removed from their quarters?

“I don’t know,” said Joe Bravo. “I wasn’t a guy sitting in there hours on end but it was an everyday thing for me. If they took it away I’d miss it.”

Gaffalione is open to the idea.

“It would be an adjustment,” he said. “If you look into the science of it, it might be good having fewer people having to reduce and lose that much weight in a day then have to perform in 90 degree weather. That has to be a health risk.”

Gaffalione is lucky in that he doesn’t have to take drastic measures in order to ride. But what of those that do? For now, they are getting a break, sometimes as much as three pounds. Where this goes after the coronavirus has stopped upending everyone’s life is a question that has yet to be answered.

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Art Collector to Runhappy Ellis Park Derby

Bruce Lunsford’s GII Toyota Blue Grass S. winner Art Collector (Bernardini) will run in the $200,000 Runhappy Ellis Park Derby Aug. 9, trainer Tom Drury told the Ellis Park notes team.

The Runhappy Ellis Park Derby, with its purse doubled and distance extended from a mile to 1 1/8 miles, this year carries GI Kentucky Derby qualifying points. The winner receives 50 points toward qualifying for the Sept. 5 Derby, a number that virtually assures a spot in the 20-horse field at Churchill Downs. The runner-up receives 20 points, with 10 for third and five for fourth. Art Collector, by virtue of his 100-point win in the Blue Grass, is safely in the Derby field already, which had Drury considering training the colt up to the Run for the Roses.

“Bruce kind of left the decision up to me,” Drury said. “I felt we needed to go somewhere, and that was our only option. Before I said too much, I just wanted to make sure my horse came out of the Keeneland race OK and everything was in good order. Now that we’re back on the track and seeing him train, gosh, if anything it seems like he’s better. The timing of it is going to be good leading up to the Derby. That’s the ultimate goal, and we’re going to try to take our best shot.”

Added Lunsford, “You could try to train him up to the Kentucky Derby. That’s a long eight weeks. You don’t want to start working horses quick; you might as well just have a race. We’ve got four weeks to get ready. There are a lot of things I love about Ellis anyway, and it gives me a chance to give back. They’ve always been good to me. Every time I’ve been in politics, I’ve won every time in Henderson. I know a lot of people down there. And I think [jockey] Brian [Hernandez, Jr.] and Tommy are excited about doing this.”

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Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: ‘I Still Can’t Find The Words’

Tommy Drury is used to standing on the sidelines, watching horses he had a hand in go on to major success on the racetrack. He doesn't mind; the unique niche he's carved out in the Kentucky Thoroughbred industry allows him to stay home with his son and daughter year-round, and to work hand-in-hand with some of the sport's top horsemen.

Last Saturday all of that changed when Art Collector earned the trainer his first graded stakes win in the G2 Toyota Blue Grass at Keeneland. Still, Drury found himself pulling back to watch the post-race celebrations from the rail.

“When the horse came back, they started sponging him off and everybody high-fived and all that,” Drury remembered. “The horse was circling, and I was just lost, I was kinda standing there, off to the side.

“I was just watching, literally I was just taking it in. I was so happy for my assistant Jose Garcia, for (long-time friend and groom) Jerry Dixon; I mean this is the same crew that you're gonna see in the last race at Turfway Park and here we are in the Blue Grass. I just wanted to watch it for a minute. As they started circling the horse, finally (jockey) Brian (Hernandez) kind of hit me in the back and said, 'Hey, you just won the Blue Grass,' and it just hit me, like, 'Yeah, yeah we sure did.'”

With Art Collector established as one of the top three contenders for the Sept. 5 Kentucky Derby, Drury can't help but be awestruck at the sudden shift in his career.

“The way we got the horse, the way everything's fallen into place, how do you describe it?” said Drury, who followed his father into racing and has saddled 471 winners since 1991. “It's just, it's unbelievable.”

Neither Drury nor the 3-year-old son of Bernardini would be in this position had the coronavirus pandemic not caused the postponement of this year's Run for the Roses.

Art Collector made his first five starts for trainer Joe Sharp and began his career on the turf, winning a 6 ½-furlong maiden special weight sprint at Kentucky Downs in his second out. The colt made his first attempt at two turns in the G3 Bourbon over 1 1/16 miles on the Keeneland turf, but he leveled off late to finish seventh.

Switched over to the dirt, Art Collector found his stride in his fifth start when he won a six-furlong allowance at Churchill by 7 ½ lengths. Unfortunately, a post-race test found elevated levels of levamisole in Art Collector's system, and the colt was disqualified.

Owner and breeder Bruce Lunsford gave Art Collector a brief break at Kesmarc, then sent him to Drury's barn in January to prepare for a return to the track. He and Drury have a long-standing business relationship, and Lunsford's horses often use Drury's facility as a waystation between races.

“The only thing Bruce said was, 'This is a really, really nice horse,'” said Drury. “The only reason I knew who he was was Brian had sent me a text and asked me if I had Art Collector… At that point I thought, if Brian's trying to figure out where this horse is at, he must be alright.”

Art Collector was intended to move on to the care of trainer Rusty Arnold when he was ready to resume racing, but the virus put everything on hold.

Keeneland canceled its April meet, and Churchill kept delaying the start of the Spring meet, awaiting permission from the Kentucky governor to resume live racing. Meanwhile, Art Collector kept quietly accumulating solid workouts over the Pro-Ride synthetic surface at Skylight.

Hernandez, who is Drury's long-time friend and has been the trainer's go-to rider since his bug-boy days, shipped back to Louisville from his winter home in New Orleans early this year to be nearby after his wife gave birth. The jockey began coming out to Skylight nearly every week to breeze Art Collector, and his reports back to both Drury and Lunsford were extremely optimistic; everyone was just waiting for the chance to get him going.

Finally, Churchill announced that racing would resume in mid-May and released its first condition book.

There was an allowance race that would be perfect for Art Collector on May 17, but Churchill was only allowing trainers to ship in to the backstretch in stages based on where they had spent the winter; Arnold's string from Florida wouldn't be allowed on the track until after the first weekend of racing.

Rather than wait and miss the race, Lunsford allowed Drury to saddle Art Collector for his first start of 2020. The colt won the seven-furlong contest by 2 ¾ lengths, and Lunsford decided Drury had done such a good job that he ought to keep training him.

Arnold also called Drury after that first win, congratulating him.

“It was one of the classiest things anybody's ever done,” Drury said. “Rusty said, 'Tommy, that horse ran fantastic. There's absolutely no reason to change anything, that horse needs to stay exactly where he's at.'”

Lunsford was ready to try Art Collector around two turns again, but Drury wasn't convinced he wanted to go that far. The colt isn't particularly large, Drury explained, and his one previous race around two turns hadn't gone well.

Art Collector is bred for the distance, though. His dam is a two-turn stakes-winning daughter of Distorted Humor named Distorted Legacy, whose half-brother Vision and Verse earned over a million dollars on the track, running second in both the G1 Belmont Stakes and the G1 Travers.

With the colt training exceptionally well, Drury entered him in another allowance race at Churchill, this time over 1 1/16 miles on June 13. Art Collector responded with a dominant 6 ½-length victory, earning a 100 Beyer.

“I was a little nervous before that second race,” Drury admitted. “I was really happy to see him get around the second turn that day, that was pretty exciting.”

The decision was made to enter Art Collector in the Blue Grass. On Wednesday before the race, Shared Sense, whom Art Collector had beaten in the June 13 allowance, came back to win the G3 Indiana Derby.

On the same day, trainer Ken McPeek decided to enter the points-leader for the Kentucky Oaks, Swiss Skydiver, in the Blue Grass. Suddenly, Drury started to wonder if he'd picked the wrong Derby prep to point for.

Lunsford is a staunch supporter of Kentucky racing, though, and Drury knew that if he wanted to even think about the Derby with Art Collector, the colt would have to be tested.

That doesn't mean the trainer wasn't nervous.

“It's funny, I can run a $5,000 claimer at Belterra and get nervous, so that part doesn't change,” Drury said. “The toughest part for me is after you throw the jockey up and you're just waiting. That post parade was the longest six minutes of my life. Actually, Tammy Fox (trainer Dale Romans' partner) yelled at me over the fence, 'You look like you're washing out, are you okay?'”

Standing at the sixteenth pole, Drury watched with his heart in his throat as Mike Smith sat chilly on Swiss Skydiver at the top of the stretch. Art Collector was coming on strong, but from his vantage point it was hard to tell whether the colt would get to the wire in time.

When the pair blew past him, Drury could see Art Collector passing the filly, and the images around him started to blur.

“You know, my program really hasn't been geared toward getting this kind of horse,” Drury explained. “I'm the behind-the-scenes guy. If a guy needs a 2-year-old legged up, he calls me. If a guy runs out of stalls at Churchill and he has three horses coming, he calls me. I'm happy to do it, and I've made a good living doing it, but because I do it, you don't even think about stuff like this.

“You kind of feel like it's never going to happen, you almost know its never going to happen. And now, all of a sudden this thing… I don't know how to describe it. I still can't find the words. People keep asking me what I think and how I'm feeling, and I just don't know.”

Drury sent excited texts to his son and his daughter after the race, but otherwise settled in for a quiet evening at home with a pizza and a cold beer. By the next morning, he had over 312 text messages on his phone, and voice mails from other trainers and friends from all over the country.

“I laughed and told Bill Mott, 'I always wondered what it was like for you guys after you win a big race!'” Drury joked. “I called Rusty and I told him, 'Thank you so much for what you did, because this thing has changed my life.' You know Rusty, he just said, 'Tommy, that was the best thing for that horse.'”

Whether Art Collector makes another start before the Derby has not yet been decided, with Drury deferring the decision but suggesting the Ellis Park Derby on Aug. 9 as the most likely option.

Looking forward to the first Saturday in September, one day before his 49^th birthday, Drury has a hard time imagining what it might look like with the virus protocols Churchill will employ. He hopes to be able to bring his children with him on the walkover, but no matter what happens he's grateful to be along for the ride with his horse of a lifetime.

“You know, the best part of all this is that I'm sharing it with my crew and my friends,” Drury said. “It means so much to be here with Jose, and Jerry, and Brian, and with Bruce as well.”

“The most special thing about it is to be on this trail with Tommy,” Hernandez echoed, speaking to the Ellis Park press office. “I've ridden at every little racetrack in the country, I think, for Tommy. Indiana, River Downs, Beulah, Ellis and now to win the Blue Grass for him is a special moment. Being friends like we are, it's more special to have this good of a horse. We've always talked about 'Man, if we could ever get a really good one like this, the trip it would put us on.' It's meant a lot.”

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