Racing: Shirreffs' lore finds new stage in Chicago
Friday, 10 August 2007
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Compared with pastoral, timbered Saratoga on the East Coast, and the salt breezes of Del Mar on the West, the maze of communal stabling at Arlington Park is true to the blue-collar traditions of this city. The ghostly moan of freight trains fills the sultry air. Planes clamber from O'Hare into the thick skies. Pick-up trucks, buggies and bikes weave between industrial, breezeblock barns. And here, at the heart of the melting pot, among all the different faces and races and languages, is a man whose story gives any American hope.
John Shirreffs opened his wallet and produced a worn photograph. "I love this picture," he said. "The horse is all sweaty, covered in dirt, and the jockey, look at him, he's just all pumped up." The horse is Giacomo, the jockey is Mike Smith, and they had just won Shirreffs the 2005 Kentucky Derby at 50-1. "It was almost overwhelming just to arrive at Churchill Downs, just being there to participate," Shirreffs said. "It was like, here we are. And then, when we won... I started on the fair circuit, you know. I saw my share of those."
He chuckled, and replaced the photo apologetically. "I don't have kids," he explained. A few yards away, his new champion, After Market, is being hosed down, a study in dense, virile power. Since being transferred to Shirreffs last winter, After Market has become the best turf runner in America and tomorrow will start favourite for the 25th Arlington Million.
Shirreffs is a tall, languid man of 62, wearing a baseball cap and beach shirt. You can tell he has just flown in from Del Mar. In fact, after serving with the Marines in Vietnam, he was on his way to Hawaii to be a beach bum when he stumbled across his vocation.
"I was going to become a surfer," he said. "We had stopped over in Hawaii going to Vietnam and I thought: 'Hey, I gotta come back for a bit more of this'. I saw myself paddling out with one of those long boards. But then I just happened to be riding my horse through a valley in California, and I got him stuck in a mudbog. He was down over his hocks. I finally got him out, and Henry Freitas came over. He was a ranch manager, and he'd been watching me, and said: 'Hey, it's September, we'll be breaking yearlings soon – you wanna job?' I started next day. Henry had been no help getting the horse out, but he was a lot of help after that."
For years, that was the way it was. Though his father was an airline pilot, Shirreffs had been raised among horses on the family farm in New Hampshire, and after Vietnam he drifted along, cowboy, hotwalker, assistant, private trainer. Eventually, he discovered Giacomo, and America discovered Shirreffs, and with him the kind of horse lore that teaches you when running a 50-1 shot is no mere crapshoot.
"He loved the track, he was peaking – and the big thing was that he had been properly tested," Shirreffs recalled. "But basically you have to be blessed to win the Derby. A lot goes on in that race, but it opened up here, it opened up there, it just happened right for him."
Giacomo did not open that many doors for Shirreffs, though his stable has gradually expanded from 40 to 60 horses. But one of them is After Market, a son of Storm Cat bred by his owners from their top-class racemare, Tranquility Lake. They never sent After Market to the sales, instead collecting $9.7m from Sheikh Mohammed the following year for his full brother. Jalil, as he was named, has so far mustered a Ripon maiden, whereas After Market has won successive Grade One prizes in California.
"For a Storm Cat, he has a great mind on him," Shirreffs said. "He's just a big boy, robust, lots of energy, wants to do things quickly. So all we try to do is keep his mind focused on the job."
Racing the previous day had been interrupted by a tornado warning, and the accompanying deluges left Shirreffs fretting about the ground: After Market's only start on soft for his previous trainer, Bill Mott, was a disaster. But dirt remains uncharted territory, and may yet tempt connections to the Breeders' Cup Classic. "It would be a big change," Shirreffs said. "But you couldn't rule it out, because of his breeding. It might be one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities."
Shirreffs has established his competence to deal with those. After all, the great lesson he learned with Giacomo applies as much to trainers as to horses: "In these Grade One races, every inch you get, you have to earn."
