Sadler’s trophy case has a few open spots

“Just don’t go on about me never winning the big one,” said John Sadler, adding a grin that told you he was in on the plot.

And I won’t. There is no good reason to point out that Sadler is to racing what Sergio Garcia was to golf, at least until the talented Spaniard won the 2017 Masters after 18 years as a professional, most of them under the cloud of being the best of his generation to never win a major.

Sadler, who just turned 61, has held a license to train since he was 22. This qualifies him as a lifer. He currently ranks 20th in all-time earnings with more than $107 million banked by his runners, and yet he and Scott Lake are the only trainers among the top 20 who got there despite winning neither a Breeders’ Cup event nor a Triple Crown race.

Sadler can’t do anything about it right now. But he does have a shot at winning his first Pacific Classic on Saturday at Del Mar, a million-dollar race that qualifies as big enough.

Sadler will lead over the 4-year-old colt Accelerate, last seen winning the 1 1/16-mile San Diego Handicap by half a pole and leaving Horse of the Universe Arrogate far in his wake. Arrogate’s performance that day baffled everyone from Bob Baffert to the bartender at Red Tracton’s. But racing fans forgive, and usually forget, which means Arrogate will be heavily favored right back on Saturday going 1 1/4 miles, a distance at which he has won the Travers, Breeders’ Cup Classic, and Dubai World Cup.

Sadler hasn’t flinched. In fact, he’s been having some straight-faced fun this week insisting that the horse he fears most on Saturday is Collected, Arrogate’s stablemate. As for Accelerate, the trainer is confident his colt has the class and the condition to repeat his San Diego. He’s just not sure about the 10 furlongs.

“You can train a horse to get a mile and a quarter,” Sadler said. “But you’d rather they’d just be able to do it. As good as our colt is, that’s not a certainty.

Sadler has gotten the better of Baffert stars twice during the summer. One week after the San Diego, Stellar Wind defeated Vale Dori in a running of the Clement Hirsch that has been the best race of the meet.

“Bob walked by the other day complaining that I was beating him all the time,” Sadler said. “I played him a little violin.”

When Stellar Wind beat Beholder twice last year for Sadler, there was a shrug of expectation rather than surprise, since his filly was already a champion. But for those who had been following the Sadler story, there was a definite pattern.

The trend began in 1986, when Sadler handled his breakout star, the gray filly Melair. Her decisive victory over Preakness winner Snow Chief in the Silver Screen Handicap at Hollywood Park put her young trainer immediately on the map.

At various points along the way, Sadler has defeated Breeders’ Cup Distaff winner Adoration with Victory Encounter in the Vanity, subsequent champion Blind Luck with Crisp in the Hollywood Oaks, reigning female sprint champion Informed Decision with Mona de Momma in the Human Distaff, and Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner Cajun Beat with Our First Recruit in the Dubai Golden Shaheen.

Sadler also sent out Line of David to win the 2010 Arkansas Derby in his stakes debut. The colt was injured and never ran again, while runner-up Super Saver won the Kentucky Derby in his next start.

“And don’t forget the Sunshine Millions,” Sadler said. “I guess you could call that kind of big.”

Much to his surprise, Sadler won the 2005 running of the $1 million Sunshine Millions Classic at Gulfstream Park with the Cal-bred Musique Toujours, at 70-1. The favorites that day were trained by Bobby Frankel and Todd Pletcher.

Sadler learned his trade as an assistant to Dr. Jack Robbins, the respected veterinarian, as well as trainers Tom Pratt, David Hofmans, and Eddie Gregson before going out on his own. Anyone who trains for nearly 40 years is going to have countless highs and lows, but no race stung more than the 2011 Pacific Classic, won by Acclamation by a head over Twirling Candy.

“He was such a good horse,” Sadler said of Twirling Candy, winner of the Malibu, Californian, and Del Mar Derby. “I didn’t think there was any way he’d get beat that day.”

Accelerate, like Stellar Wind, is owned by brothers Pete and Kosta Hronis, proprietors of the Central California agricultural empire that bears their name. If their colt can pull off another upset of Arrogate by winning the Classic, he would join Twirling Candy on the top shelf of Sadler’s personal list of all-time jewels, which includes Santa Anita Derby winner Sidney’s Candy and American Oaks winner Lady of Shamrock, along with a collection of sprinters like Switch, Track Gal, Olympic Prospect, Frost Free, and Valiant Pete, a lit fuse of a Thoroughbred who beat champion Quarter Horse Griswold in a half-mile $100,000 winner-take-all match race at Santa Anita in 1991.

“Now that was a big one,” Sadler said, enjoying the memory. “And if I can get Valiant Pete to win going six furlongs, like he did in the Cal Cup, I ought to be able to get a mile and a quarter with Accelerate.”