Nyquist’s team a tight bunch
The team behind the Preakness favourite considers itself a family
J. Paul Reddam’s pale BALT IM O R E violet shirt is unbuttoned; he looks ruffled, as if he has been racing through a great wind which, in a way, he has. Since his horse Nyquist won the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago, Nyquist and every member of the Reddam racing team have been objects of fascination and intense focus.
Thursday morning at Pimlico racetrack, Nyquist showed off for the media with a 1.4-mile gallop around the track. Reddam’s team fielded questions, gave news conferences, and got lightly roasted by members of the horse racing community at the annual Alibi breakfast, where trainers joust and make claims as to why their horse will win it all. But Nyquist is the only horse anyone is talking about today, and spirits are high: Nyquist is comfortable. Relaxed. Great energy. Staying loose. Having the time of his life.
In the car on the way back to the hotel, the mood is jocular. Bob Baffert, who trained last year’s Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, had been “making nice,” says jockey Mario Gutierrez. “Watch out,” Mario’s agent Tom Knust says to Reddam, and everyone laughs. It’s the laughter of confidence, and the same emotion Reddam says he felt when Nyquist won the Derby. “Relief.”
Back at the hotel, the team spills through the doors into the marbleinlaid foyer: Gutierrez; his wife Rebecca; Knust; exercise rider Jonny Garcia. Reddam’s wife Zilla, dressed in black, sleek as a thoroughbred, and distinctly unruffled, is a picture of calm as she organizes a large table in the lobby restaurant for the Nyquist family.
Reddam has put the entire team up in this luxury hotel on Baltimore’s inner harbour, giving everyone who works with Nyquist, from Garcia to trainer Doug O’Neill and Gutierrez, the same treatment the horse is getting — the best of everything. (Only groom Elias Anaya isn’t staying here. Anaya likes to be close to Nyquist at all times, and sleeps with him in the barn.)
Reddam leans over his cellphone, punches in a quick text — a New York Times reporter who has been chasing him all morning has gone to the wrong hotel — then looks up. “Nyquist is a horse that is very, very special. I’m very lucky that he’s come into my life. He’s a horse that, 20 years from now, people will be talking about.”
Thursday morning the team revealed that it won’t follow Preakness tradition and saddle Nyquist on the turf. He will be saddled in the paddock, the same way he’s been saddled in his stall all week. As for Gutierrez, he is focused on mental preparations. “The horse will be ready, and I have to be at the same level of concentration.”
Five years ago, Reddam gave the young jockey a chance to ride I’ll Have Another in a stakes race at Santa Anita, Calif. It was the opportunity of a lifetime. I’ll Have Another was just coming back from an injury, and no one else wanted to ride him. The odds were 40-1.
“I told him beforehand, there’s a speed horse inside you, don’t get in a fight with him, just follow him. He followed my instructions perfectly. In the far turn I saw him take down his goggles and I knew — the horse is going to get a piece of this. He won, which started our relationship, and it’s been strong ever since,” says Reddam. “Mario is very intelligent. He listens very closely, he’ll follow instructions to the letter and he’s very calm. He looks at the races beforehand, knows what he has to do.”
After I’ll Have Another was scratched from the Belmont Stakes, ending the team’s Triple Crown dream, it was Reddam himself who called the young jockey to break the news.
“That was a tough call to make,” says Reddam, as his face flushes and his eyes suddenly brim with tears. “I remember when my brother passed away and I had to call my family. It was a little bit like that. Very emotional. We were all just in shock.”
To win the Kentucky Derby with Nyquist and the same team four years later is a moment to be savoured, says Reddam.
“It’s redemption. Doug took a lot of abuse in the press, he made himself so open, but no matter how hard he tried he just got crucified. So now, being back here four years later with a horse Doug has trained to the top of his game, people seem to be perceiving him differently.
“On the Mario side, people had been saying he won the Derby because the horse was so much better than anyone else. When that happened, it’s like someone attacking your kids. So for me it’s really great to see them being shown for who they really are.”
Reddam, who first got into racing when he blew part of his University of Toronto scholarship to help a friend claim a horse, has been in the horse racing game ever since. To him, this team is family. Whatever happens on Saturday, win or lose, will never take that away. He glances across the lobby at Gutierrez.
“He still calls me Mr. Reddam. After I’ll Have Another I tried to get him to call me Paul, but he just couldn’t do it.” Reddam shrugs, and smiles, gets up to join his wife and the team at the lunch table. The race is two days off, but it’s clear that something has already been won.
Nyquist is a horse that is very, very special. ... He’s a horse that, 20 years from now, people will be talking about.