San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
Early Voting owner hits home run in Preakness
Riding back from an epic, roller-coaster of a minorleague baseball game between the Worcester Red Sox and Scranton/wilkesbarre Railriders, former Padres CEO and Petco Park architect Larry Lucchino answered the phone.
The Sox clubbed a grand slam to claw back from 6-0 deficit and tie it, but fell 7-6 in front of 8,000 or so of the hot dog-and-beer crowd at Polar Park.
“Almost a good day,” he said.
When Lucchino was told what happened 325 miles away at Pimlico Race Course, the baseball boss learned the day was far from a total loss for members of the Boston Red Sox’s board of directors, though.
The big club’s CEO and president emeritus had no idea Seth Klarman, a minority owner of the team, had watched his horse Early Voting pocket $990,000 after winning Saturday’s Preakness Stakes.
Early Voting, who had raced just three times before, all at Aqueduct, entered the stretch with the lead and fought off favorite Epicenter’s rail run to win in 1:54.54. The 1¼-length margin of victory, which paid $13.40 to win, salvaged the day for a baseball guy or two.
On Klarman’s 65th birthday, three blocks from where he grew up, no less.
“Isn’t that nice,” Lucchino said. “He’s a very knowledgeable baseball person. In our board meetings, he’s not afraid to stand up and be heard, or cross examine the GM a little bit. He’s a first-class guy. His intellect just shines through, no matter what he’s talking about.”
Hardly surprising, given that Klarman is the billionaire hedge-fund giant behind the Boston-based
Baupost Group.
As Klarman began to blow out the candles on a day that gifted him his second Preakness winner on the five-year anniversary of Cloud Computing, the baseball connections f lowed. Klarman has been involved in graded-stakes winners named Fenway Faithful and Yawkey Way.
That might connect a few dots after listening to trainer Chad Brown’s unvarnished description of the horse that sounded a bit like a fan who tipped a few too many frosties at Fenway.
“He is a big, handsome, burly,” Brown said. “I said the other day to somebody, he is like a bar fighter. He has a good mind on him, but he is going to step into you if you get in his face, this horse. … He is going to fight all the way to the wire.”
Early Voting represented a wise and lucrative roll of the dice by Brown, who chose not to run in the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago in spite of accumulating enough points to do so.
The Preakness and Pimlico was the target. Bull’s-eye.
“It’s very hard to get a winner (in two of three previous starts) to pass on the Derby,” jockey Jose Oritz, who won the Triple Crown trail’s Belmont Stakes aboard Tapwrit in 2017, said on NBC. “They made the right choice. I don’t think he was seasoned enough to run in the 20-horse field. They proved that they were right.”
Klarman marveled at the sudden alignment of stars because of his four-legged one.
“I’ve lived my adult life in Boston, but it’s an incredible experience to come back to my hometown (and win again),” he said.
On television, Klarman was asked if his five-year pace of winning the Preakness — based on a sample size of two — could become part of his long-term plan.
“Yeah,” Klarman said. “See ya’ in five years.”
Early Voting exhibited a stress-free run among the 3-year-old horses covering 13⁄16ths of a mile on dirt. The colt settled into second going past the finish line for the first time and calmly stalked from that spot until reaching the stretch run.
As a gap developed between the winner and the field, only 6-5 Epicenter produced a credible push.
Even that, though, failed to seriously pressure Early Voting.
“When we hit the (fiveeighths pole), I felt like I had a lot of horse,” Oritz said. “Then I want to see where Epicenter is at. I wanted to see where (filly Secret Oath) is at, because I thought she had a good shot.
“I didn’t see nobody.” So, where will everyone see the Preakness winner as the calendar unfolds?
Though the group stopped just short of pinning plans in concrete, the tea leaves indicated the Belmont Stakes in three weeks is a long shot. Klarman and Brown each mentioned the Aug. 27 Travers Stakes by name.
“Certainly a race like the Travers,” said Brown, speaking of a big target a race or two down the road. “I know it’s a tick farther. I don’t believe he will have any trouble getting the mile and a quarter. (And) growing up just 20 minutes from Saratoga … (the Travers) would be really at the top of the list.”
Meanwhile, Lucchino of the “Woosox” found himself rethinking things. He’d heard Klarman share his baseball thoughts in Boston. What about picking up some horse-racing tips, as well?
“Yeah, maybe I should start,” Lucchino said.