Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Mullins has high hopes for Tatters to Riches
DEL MAR, Calif. – When a horse is sold at auction for a giant number, the expectations are high. Jeff Mullins is hoping that Tatters to Riches is, truly, one in a million.
Tatters to Riches – a Union Rags colt purchased at auction for $1 million in April – has raced just once, and his debut victory on July 29, coupled with the sterling works he has put in here at Del Mar in recent weeks, has made him one of the leading contenders for the Grade 1, $300,000 Del Mar Futurity on closing day Monday.
But it’s the long-term implications of Tatters to Riches that offer hope for Mullins, for as good as Tatters to Riches might be now, the belief – based on pedigree and the way he gallops out after his works – is that the longer Tatters to Riches goes, the better he’ll like it. And with a 2-year-old male with that kind of potential, one can’t help but dream.
This is a rare opportunity for Mullins. Though he has carved out a reputation locally as an excellent trainer whose runners always are well turned out, he hasn’t had a top 3-yearold male since 2009, when I Want Revenge, winner of the Wood Memorial, had to be scratched the morning of the Kentucky Derby. Mullins had won the Santa Anita Derby three straight years, from 2003 to 2005, but usually in these parts the pricey yearlings and 2-year-olds are confined to a handful of barns, Mullins not included.
That changed in April, when longtime owner Jed Cohen and his son Tim went to $1 million to buy Tatters to Riches at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co’s auction. Asked if it there was pressure or excitement training a horse so highly regarded before he ever raced, Mullins replied, “Both.”
“You’ve got to keep him healthy, that’s the main thing,” Mullins said while sitting astride his pony outside his barn. “You pray he stays healthy and everything goes well. We could have a little fun. I feel very fortunate to be put in this position, for sure.”
Mullins, 54, trains five horses for the Cohens, with their most notable older horse being the long-distance grass specialist Itsinthepost. In April, Itsinthepost won the Elkhorn Stakes at Keeneland just days before Tatters to Riches was to sell at OBS. Mullins has long worked the sales with the noted Southern California-based clocker Gary Young, who had Tatters to Riches on his short list of prospects.
In his breeze before the sale, Tatters to Riches “was slightly late to switch leads, but about 50 yards before the wire he got lower and leveled off with a work that was unbelievable,” Young recalled while clocking horses earlier this week at Del Mar.
“He got low and you could see the acceleration.”
Mullins examined the colt at the barn, and liked what he saw.
“He’s an amazing horse to look at,” Mullins said. “Good size, a real presence about him. He doesn’t act like a baby. He acts like an older horse.”
According to Young, because they expected Tatters to Riches to go for a big price tag, two vets independently examined him on behalf of the Cohens and Mullins before he went into the ring. One of them wrote on the bottom of his report, “If at all possible please buy this horse.”
There had been other 2-yearolds at that sale that Mullins, Young, and the Cohens all considered, “but they all blew past our budget,” Mullins said.
“It pretty much came down to him,” Mullins said. “I never dreamt they’d spend that kind of money. That was kind of a rush.”
A little more than three months after the sale, Tatters to Riches was ready for his racing debut. His reputation preceded him. Tatters to Riches was sent off as the odds-on favorite, and won without jockey Tyler Baze asking him for his best.
“That was what we hoped,” Mullins said. “When you pay that kind of money, and based on what he was showing us from the start, you’re hoping he runs like that. He wasn’t 100 percent cranked up for that race, either.”
Tatters to Riches has worked four times since then, all with Baze aboard. Mullins said Baze didn’t say a thing after his last work on Tuesday. “All he does is grin,” Mullins said.
It’s a million-dollar smile.