Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Catalano made all the right moves with Aloha West
DEL MAR, Calif. –There was a little strain in trainer Wayne Catalano’s voice back at the barn early Sunday morning at Del Mar, a condition befitting what must have been a long and raucous celebration following his fourth and latest Breeders’ Cup victory with Aloha West the previous afternoon at Del Mar in the $2 million Sprint.
Fortunately for Catalano, his horse seemed to be doing a lot better than he was the morning after the race.
“He looks great, he’s bucking and playing and acting pretty happy in his stall,” Catalano said when asked how Aloha West came out of the Sprint.
Catalano pulled off one of the more remarkable training feats of the 2021 season with the 4-year-old Aloha West, who had never started until early February, or had won a stakes race of any kind before rallying from last during the early running to nail hard-luck runner-up Dr. Schivel right on the money to register a nose victory in a pulsating renewal of the Sprint.
“I saw him move a little early, but he was back enough, he really had to,” Catalano said. “And I knew we’d be okay if he could finish up that run like he’s supposed to. Jose [Ortiz] did what he was supposed to, he stayed tucked-in around the turn before tipping outside and letting him level off down the stretch.
“I didn’t know if we got up or not. The first shot I saw on the screen I thought we got beat, the second I wasn’t sure, and the third one, well, maybe we got up. At my age, sweating those things out can be a little hard. Fortunately they hung the number up pretty quickly. I don’t know how much longer I could have stood the suspense.”
Aloha West got a 100 Beyer Speed Figure for the victory.
Catalano helped broker the deal along with owner Aron Wellman to purchase Aloha West privately after his second start. He said following his horse’s near miss in the Grade 2 Phoenix at Keeneland, and especially the way he worked coming out of the race over the same track 11 days later, that he believed he had a big chance to win the Sprint.
“He finished unbelievable and came out of that workout at Keeneland like it was a morning jog,” Catalano recalled. “At that point I told Aron this might be the best horse I’ve ever had my hands on. And I’ve had some good ones over the years. We got him out here a little early to get him acclimated, which I thought made a big difference. When you only have one bullet to fire, like I had, you’ve got to make all the right moves. Obviously I knew the race would be tough, especially with Jackie’s Warrior in there, but that’s why they line ’em up. After that, you have to go get ’em. And he did.”
Catalano said Aloha West would return to Keeneland this week, make a few trips to the hyperbaric chamber, then get a little freshening before he sits down with Wellman to map out a plan for his new star’s 2022 campaign.
“This was definitely the biggest of all my Breeders’ Cup wins, coming at this time of my career,” said the 65-yearold Catalano, who won nearly 1,800 races as a jockey and is now closing in on 3,000 training wins, including four in the Breeders’ Cup. “We’re down a bit on horses, but that’s fine. It gives me more time to enjoy my family. I always say, you have to enjoy life, because it’s shorter than you think.”
Tight photos like the one that barely separated Aloha West and Dr. Schivel at the wire in the Sprint always result in different sets of emotions depending on which side of the bob you’re on at the end. In the case of Mark Glatt, who trains Dr. Schivel, he was still trying to cope with the feeling of having gotten so close – only to come out second best in the Breeders’ Cup.
“You don’t get these types of chances very often, so this was a tough pill to swallow,” Glatt said Sunday. “I didn’t have a great angle of the wire from where I watched the race, but at first I thought we were going to get the bob, but the more they kept showing the slow-motion replay I realized he probably didn’t get there.
“It was a tough one to lose. I was feeling confident through most of the stretch, then I saw the other horse coming and he tagged us right on the wire. We got a perfect trip. Flavien [Prat] couldn’t have done anything different.”
Glatt said Dr. Schivel seems to have come out of the race well and mentioned the Grade 1 Malibu at Santa Anita on Dec. 26 as a possible option for his next start.
“We’ll let the horse tell us. This was a hard race for him, but the Malibu does give us one more shot at a Grade 1 against his own age group, so it will be under consideration.”
Trainer Steve Asmussen reported that Jackie’s Warrior came out of his disappointing sixth-place finish in the Sprint in good order. Jackie’s Warrior, the 1-2 favorite, disputed a hot pace with Special Reserve before tiring through the final furlong to finish 4 1/2 lengths behind Aloha West and Dr. Schivel.
“He never was in the place he needed to be at any time during the race,” Asmussen said.