Alan's a great young rider, he's just nervous. In these races you need somebody with ice water in their veins; Dominguez has ice water in his veins. |
As soon as [Dominguez] chirped him, he just explodes. As soon as Ramon asked him to ease up, he eased up. This horse can do anything you want him to do. |
He's as good as any 3-year-old that's run. |
I already know what I have; he doesn't have to prove anything to me. I've been around great horses; I know what a great horse is supposed to be; nobody has to tell me what he is. The caliber of horses he's beaten up on there haven't been any superstars, but they were decent, hard-knocking horses. |
I don't know what the hell his problem is. He's not lame. He has no filling, no swelling, no breaks, no strains, nothing. There's nothing wrong with him. |
It's a good test for him, and I expect him to run huge. Nobody scares me if he runs his race. If he runs his 'A' race, he's as good as anybody in the country. |
She has a gift for that. She breaks horses in a matter of minutes, literally, no joke. I've seen her break horses in five minutes. I've seen her break a horse where it took 45 minutes and she'd be upset. |
She looks at them more as pets than as racehorses. She looks out for their best interests, which is great. Me, I believe if they're fit, things take care of themselves. If you got a fit horse, you got yourself a healthy horse. The worst thing for horses is overtraining them. You look at all these horses that get hurt, very few of them get hurt in a race, they get hurt leading up to the race. |
That was nothing more than an open gallop. He didn't really exert himself. |
There's going to be some speed in front of him and that should give him a chance to relax. If he's going to run in the Kentucky Derby, that's what you're going to need to do. You don't usually win the Derby wire to wire. |
This horse was ready to run, it just looked like we'd tear him up. He was just too big. He was this size when I bought him, he's just filled out. |