Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Head returns with another ace in BC Mile
In 1988 at Churchill Downs, 41-year-old Freddie Head, stirrups set short, white jockey’s cap bobbing up and down like a buoy in choppy waters, cruised down the turf-course homestretch on Miesque, who won the Breeders’ Cup Mile for the second year in a row, the first repeat winner in Breeders’ Cup history.
In 2010 at Churchill Downs, Head watched from the stands as Goldikova, the best horse he ever has trained, skittered around the same course and won the Mile for the third year in a row, the first horse to win three Breeders’ Cup races.
The Breeders’ Cup is back at Churchill this year, and Freddie Head, the only winner of Breeders’ Cup races as both jockey and trainer, is back with another classy turf miler. Polydream is a 3-year-old filly, just like Goldikova was when she won her first BC Mile 10 years ago. She was bred by brothers Alain and Gerard Wertheimer, just like Goldikova, and like Goldikova races in their powder blue and white silks.
But stop – just stop right there. Freddie Head won’t brook comparisons to the incomparable Goldikova.
“No, it’s impossible to compare,” he said. “Will there ever be another one like that?”
Will there ever be another one like Freddie Head, though?
There have been champion jockeys who have become moderately successful trainers and moderately successful jockeys who have become champion trainers, but Head, now 71, was a champion jockey who mothballed his race-riding boots in 1997, took out his trainer’s license, and did not take long to attract top-shelf clients and the horses that come with them. Head has trained 14 Group 1 or Grade 1 winners in four countries and seems to specialize in milers. Besides Goldikova there has been Moonlight Cloud, a four-time Group 1 winner, and Solow, who won the Group 1 Queen Anne and Group 1 Sussex, two of the best one-mile races in England, and captured the Dubai Turf over nine furlongs at Meydan. Injury kept Solow from coming to the Breeders’ Cup, but in 2014, Anodin, a lesser horse than Solow, finished second to Karakontie in the BC Mile.
During his long career as a jockey, Head was best known in the United States for his consecutive BC Mile wins on Miesque, but in France he was a four-time winner of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, a race he covets as a trainer but that he hasn’t yet come close to cornering. Three of Head’s Arc wins came on horses trained by family members. In 1966 he won on Bon Mot for his grandfather William; in 1972 he won with Ivanjica, trained by his father, Alec; and in 1979 he won his last Arc on Three Troikas, trained by sister Criquette. Now it is Freddie’s son Christopher who serves as his apprentice, but Freddie has no plans to leave his 120 horses in training anytime soon.
“I’m very happy, very happy,” he said, reached by phone in France earlier this week. “I have a great time training, I have very good owners. I’m not thinking about retiring yet.”
On Wednesday, Head sent Polydream out for a sevenfurlong workout over a lefthanded turf gallop at Chantilly – just like he used to do with Goldikova. Polydream, a daughter of Oasis Dream and Polygreen, by Green Tune, has been a favorite of fixed-odds bettors in British bookmaking houses for a several weeks now, but she has much more to prove than did Goldikova in her first trip to the BC Mile. When she came to Santa Anita in 2008, Goldikova already had won the Group 1 Prix Rothschild over one mile against fillies and the Group 1 Prix du Moulin over one mile facing older females and males. Polydream began her season with a 14th-place finish in the French 1000 Guineas, then regrouped winning a Group 3 race before scoring her most important win Aug. 5 at Deauville in the Group 1 Prix Maurice de Gheest, a straightcourse 6 1/2-furlong race. Polydream was favored Oct. 7 on the Arc undercard in the Group 1 Prix de la Foret, run over a little less than seven furlongs, but was stopped cold in the final furlong and a half when trapped along the inside with no place to run.
“The Foret, that was something to forget,” Head said. “That was no race.”
At 2, Polydream won her first two starts impressively (including a sharp score over Laurens, who has won multiple Group 1’s this year), but then could only finish second making her Group 1 debut in the Marcel Boussac, where she was beaten by Wild Illusion, one of the favorites for the Filly and Mare Turf. Polydream came out of the Boussac with a bone chip in her knee that required surgical repair and led to a delayed start to her 3-year-old campaign. In the French Guineas, her comeback race, she pulled wildly and tossed her head about in the early stages, leaving nothing for the finish.
“Goldikova was such an iron mare, and this filly is more fragile,” said Head. “She’s a bit different, maybe faster, with more speed.”
Head hopes – believes, really – that Polydream’s 6 1/2- and seven-furlong form around straight courses and one bend in France will translate fluently to Churchill’s somewhat tight seven-furlong turf oval, with a homestretch short by European standards. Polydream at her best has fast-twitch acceleration that could carry her to the front and across the wire before she has time to think about getting tired.
And Freddie Head knows what it looks like to win a Breeders’ Cup Mile at Churchill Downs – through a jockey’s goggles and through a trainer’s binoculars.