ESPN.com - Triple Crown 2000 - Barn notes: Globalize looking for some luck for a change

Barn notes: Globalize looking for some luck for a change
By Marc Connolly
ABC Sports Online

ELMONT, N.Y. -- No bets are safe when it comes to horse racing. Just ask Neil Drysdale.

But if they posted odds on how close the Jerry Hollendorfer-trained Globalize will come in contact to other colts during prep for Saturday's Belmont Stakes, they'd go off at around 1-10.


	Globalize raced to a third-place finish at the Peter Pan Stakes last month, a race that has produced three Belmont winners since 1992.

Howard Litt, one of the triumvirate of owners for the chestnut colt, gets a kick out of that one. It wasn't very funny five weeks ago, though, when his horse bowed out of the Kentucky Derby two days before the race after being kicked by a stable pony. Litt believes Globalize is the "best by far I've ever had" over his nine-year partnership with Hollendorfer

"Yes, it was a huge disappointment, but once it happened we couldn't dwell on it," said Litt, on a picturesque Thursday morning at Belmont Park. "We were too concerned about the horse."

Though the cut appeared minor to an outsider, Globalize's racing future remained in the clouds for another 5-6 days until his doctors found him fit to continue this spring. At that point, Litt looked to Hollendorfer (a.k.a. "The Dorf" to Northern California racing enthusiasts) to chart out the son of Summer Squall's season.

Before the grueling one-and-a-half mile race at Belmont Park could be whispered, Globalize needed to show them something in the Peter Pan Stakes on May 27. His surge to the lead at the eighth pole and subsequent third-place finish behind fellow Belmont entries Postponed and Unshaded was exactly what his connections were looking for out of the stalker.

"He kind of needed that race," said jockey Mike Smith, a veteran of seven Belmont Stakes. "When he was kicked at the Derby, there were six, seven days where he didn't get to train. With that last race, he's come back and trained extremely well and doing very, very good."

At 20-1, Globalize is expected to finish in the middle of the pack, but anyone can spot the "Shhhh" mentality that is sweeping through Barn 4.

"I don't think he'll have any trouble with the distance," said Litt. "He traveled really well, and he seems to love it up here in New York. This place is a real fit for him."

Smith, whose only taste of the Winner's Circle in the Triple Crown came in 1993 aboard Prairie Bayou in the Preakness, has also liked what he's seen.

"I think he's got a good shot," said Smith. "I know just about every horse in there. I know their style, I know their strength, and what it's going to take for them to win the race. But I also know what it's going to take for us to win and hopefully he goes out there and runs the race and I think he'll be very tough."

With a wink, Litt sums up it up best.

"Jerry wouldn't run him if he didn't think he had a shot. You watch."

That is, as long as Globalize watches his back in the stalls this time around.

Looking ahead to the Travers
It takes a brave man to say he's using the prestigious Belmont Stakes to "prep" for the Travers Stakes in August, but Carl Nafzger has never exactly been the most predictable trainer. After waffling all spring over the schedule of his Lexington Stakes winner, Unshaded, he finally deemed his bay colt ready for the Belmont once both Fusaichi Pegasus and Red Bullet were nothing but a memory from the Triple Crown circuit.

Now, he is downplaying the third jewel just two days before it goes off.

"Our main objective is the Travers," said Nafzger, a trainer of more than 50 stakes winners. "This race is a big race, so what we see here will help us build and prepare for it."

The only reason the 58-year-old trainer is here this week is because of the drastic turnaround he saw in his horse at the Peter Pan, where he finished second behind Postponed.

"It was a 180-degree turn," said Nafzger, who won the Kentucky Derby in 1990 with Unbridled. "This race wasn't even in the schedule ? The last 40 yards of the Peter Pan were the most encouraging. He really tightened his bounce."

Throwing his hat into the Triple Crown ring didn't become a definite until he saw what went on between Unshaded and esteemed jockey Shane Sellers, who had the mount for Nafzger's Vicar in last year's Derby.

"There was such communication between Shane and Unshaded," said Nafzger, as though he was describing a young couple after their first date. "He [Unshaded] was focused and relaxed, waiting and listening to Shane. Anything Shane wanted him to do, he did."

He couldn't think of any reasons not to enter the Belmont at that point.

"Put it this way, I'm the idiot that advised [owner] Mr. [James] Tafel to put the money up," Nafzger said of the $100,000 supplement Tafel needed to pay to enter the colt in Saturday's race.

But with a bad showing here, who says Tafel will make the same decision for the Travers?

The "Giant Killer" lurks
You never know who you're going to find milling about the track with a major event looming in the days ahead. But it's not often you find a 71-year-old Hall of Fame trainer aboard a little filly riding around with the fanfare of a teenage exercise rider. That's what a few lucky souls encountered on Thursday morning when the legendary Allen Jerkens went out for a short ride.

Forever known as "The Giant Killer" for pulling off numerous upsets, including two over Secretariat in 1973, over his 50-year career in horse racing, Jerkens' specialty has always been in endeavors not related to the Triple Crown. He generally seemed disinterested in Saturday's race.

"It's never lackluster," said Jerkens of the Belmont, "but it's a shame certain horses aren't here."

In a sport where owners and trainers are now strategizing as much as a National League manager, Jerkens remains from the old school. For one, he thinks trainers are afraid to make certain decisions today because of public scrutiny. He also believes horses are babied these days.

"They're not as tough," said Jerkens, who ran Best of Luck in a rare Belmont Stakes appearance last year. "Real good horses feel better when you work them harder ? Horses are bred for the market these days, not by their original owners. They didn't baby them."

Jerkens believes that one of the reasons so few horses run in all three Triple Crown races has a lot to do with the way they are handled as 2-year olds.

"Years ago, you used to run your 2-year old every Sunday to give him experience," said Jerkens.

Going Hollywood
Chris Rock, Jack Nicholson and Bob Baffert? Yeah, that's what viewers must have been thinking when the Silver Fox was shown during NBC's telecast of the NBA Finals on Wednesday night when a "celebrity roll call" was made. Of course, Baffert is not in New York this week after bringing Captain Steve to the Derby and the Preakness.

No Preakness repeat expected
Weather-wise, the Belmont Stakes shouldn't resemble last month's Preakness in the least bit, according to local reports. While the Baltimore area was entrenched in clouds, non-stop mist and overall long-sleeve conditions, Saturday is expected to bring temperatures in the 90-degree range, complete with sunny skies on Long Island.