Return engagement for Mongolian Groom
Horse put in Woodward soon after Pacific Classic
No matter where he finishes in the Grade I, $750,000 Woodward on Saturday, Mongolian Groom will be adding another noteworthy item to the vast history at Saratoga Race Course.
Mongolian Groom will be the first horse to run in the Grade I Pacific Classic at Del Mar and then in the Woodward since the Woodward was moved to Saratoga in 2006. The Pacific Classic-woodward double was way more attractive and doable when the Woodward was run in mid-september at Belmont Park and there was about a month between the races. Equibase stats show that 13 horses — Bertrando did it twice — ran in both in the same year between 1991 and 2000. These days, two weeks separate the top-level dirt races for older horses and Enebish Ganbat is the first trainer interested in running in both. Mongolian Groom finished third in the Pacific Classic and he and new rider Luis Saez will start from post position No. 4 in a field of nine in the Woodward.
Of course, there is a good reason why Ganbat, the native Mongolian who handles the Mongolian Stable owned by his friend Ganbaatar Dagvadorj, would bother to ship across the country and pay a supplemental entry fee of $11,250 for the Woodward. Ganbat hopes to run his 4-year-old gelding in the Group I Champions Cup at Chukyo Racecourse near Nagoya, Japan, on Dec. 1. Besides a winner’s share of an estimated $870,000, the Champions Cup offers bonuses to international runners who have won select Grade I races. The Woodward winner would collect an additional $700,000 for winning the
Champions Cup, $280,000 for second, or $175,000 for third.
Ganbat said he wasn’t thinking about the Woodward until he took a look at Mongolian Groom the morning after the Pacific Classic.
“I was surprised,” he said, and explained that Mongolian Groom was not tired and appeared to be ready to run the next day.
Ganbat quickly started looking for another race connected to the Champions Cup and landed on the Woodward. The horse shipped to Saratoga on Sunday. Ganbat said the hardy Mongolian horses he trained for about a decade before relocating to America in 2010 might run back a week after a distance race of about 15 miles. It was not unusual for him, he said, to bring one of his Thoroughbreds back in 14 days. Mongolian Groom did just that in April. After finishing third at 53-1 in the Grade I Santa Anita Handicap on April 6 he was fifth in the Grade II Charles Town Classic in West Virginia on April 20.
“It depends on the horse,” Ganbat said. “If the horse comes back good, the legs are good, he’s feeling good, yeah. If the horse doesn’t look good to me they cannot go.”
Mongolian Groom passed all his tests and shipping was arranged for Saratoga. Ganbat said the horse did not run well at Charles Town following his first ride in an airplane, but was much more relaxed on this trip.
This will be Ganbat’s third starter at Saratoga Race Course. Wild Mongolia — yes, all of the stable’s horses have Mongolia in their names — was 10th of 11 in an allowance race in 2015. Mongolian Saturday, who put Ganbat and the stable on the map by winning the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, was fifth of eight in the 2017 Troy Handicap.
Mongolian Groom, purchased for a mere $12,000, has earned $369,141 and is now the star of Ganbat’s 17-horse stable. Since he was equipped with blinkers three races ago, he has finished second by a length to Catalina Cruiser in the Grade II San Diego Handicap and missed second by a neck in the Pacific Classic.
Despite that success in California, Mongolian Groom figures to be a long shot in the Woodward. He is 15-1 on the morning line. After nearly a decade in America, Ganbat said his stable is no longer the curiosity that it once was.
“I think people now are not surprised to see the Mongolian name, the Mongolian horse,” he said. “It’s known now. There are many people betting on the Mongolian horses.”