GOLDEN GLIMPSES #145

December 15, 1998

By ED GOLDEN

If you can’t beat ‘em, leave ‘em.

Bill Morey Jr. wouldn’t go so far as to say Jerry Hollendorfer is the reason he’s considering uprooting his Northern California encampment to make Southern California his new racing home, but no one could blame him if he did.

Hollendorfer is the Babe Ruth of Northern California racing. When the term Big Fish in a Small Pond was created, they had Jerry Hollendorfer in mind. Often, it’s not a question of if Hollendorfer will win a race in the Bay Area, but by how far. Las Vegas casinos might do well to offer overs and unders on how many lengths a Hollendorfer horse will win by. Case in point: he’s won the Bay Meadows training title 17 consecutive years.

In terms of money won, Hollendorfer doesn’t have the quality stock to compete with Bob Baffert, Bill Mott and Wayne Lukas. But there’s safety in numbers, and through the first 11 months of 1998, Hollendorfer had won more than $6 million to rank fifth nationally in earnings, behind the aforementioned trio and Neil Drysdale.

But when it comes to winning races, a trainer has to race night and day to overtake "The Dorf." And that’s just what national leader Dale Baird does.

Through Dec. 8, Baird, racing on minor circuits, led all trainers in wins with 292 from 1,408 starts, a tad over 20 percent. Hollendorfer was second with 222 from 860, more than 25 percent or one win from every four starts. He also had 147 seconds and 123 thirds for an in-the-money percentage of nearly 63.

"I respect Jerry," said the 58-year-old Morey, who’s been training for 30 years. "Jerry’s a hard worker, and sure, the racing secretary throws him an awful lot of favors. But to Jerry’s credit, for a man who is No. 2 in the country in wins, he has only one string of horses. He’s won all the money (his purse earnings) out of Northern California. I don’t know many other guys in the top10 in wins who have one string.

"What I’m trying to say is those trainers usually have strings of horses on several fronts. A trainer like Dale Baird races day and night, but the racing department has set it up for Jerry, and if I were Jerry, I’d be doing the same thing.

"They kind of created this thing and what’s happening is, Jerry’s winning more and more races and the pie is the same size, so a few people (owners and trainers in the Bay Area) are starting to fall off. Believe me, running against Jerry Hollendorfer year-round is tough.

"I know in Southern California you have your Bafferts and McAnallys, but they don’t have $5,000, $6,250, $8,000, $10,000, $12,500, $16,000, $20,000, $25,000, $32,000 claiming horses. Jerry’s got three in every division. I realize here your Bafferts and McAnallys and Drysdales and Frankels, etc., dominate the big races. But Jerry dominates from the bottom all the way to the top.

"And when he loses a horse, he comes down south and snatches one off these guys and goes back up north with it."

And wins.

Morey, whose best horse is the multiple stakes-winning son of Dixie Brass, Dixie Dot Com, had a successful meet at Hollywood Park and presently is taking a long, hard look at making Southern California his permanent base of operations.

"We’re still kind of feeling it out," Morey said. "We did ask the (racing) secretary (Tom Knust) at Santa Anita if he could bed us down with some stalls, and he’s looking into it, but I guess space is pretty tight. If he can kick through, we’re probably going to take eight or 10 over there. I think we have some horses that really fit in. Knust gave me an option of two stalls at Santa Anita and eight at Hollywood, but that would be putting me at four locations (in addition to Golden Gate and Bay Meadows), and I just don’t have the manpower for that. I still have six at Bay Meadows and 30 at Golden Gate, so it would be spreading us too thin. Knust asked me if I would go back home if I didn’t get the stalls, and I told him yes. So far we’ve enjoyed it down here."

But shipping to and from Northern California, a distance of some 400 miles, increases overhead. "It’s got to be pretty close to $300 to ship a horse from Northern California to Southern California," said Morey, who is pointing Dixie Dot Com to the San Fernando Stakes, second leg of Santa Anita’s Strub Series on Jan. 16.

"We’ll pass the first one (the Malibu at seven furlongs on Dec. 26, opening day)," Morey said. "The San Fernando will be kind of interesting, because we finally could square off against Event of the Year. He was the big horse up north and we were scheduled to have a showdown up there last year, but it never came off because our horse got hurt. Maybe it will happen here. Our horse got hurt first, then Event of the Year (just prior to the Kentucky Derby. Hollendorfer trained Event of the Year at that time; Richard Mandella trains the undefeated Golden Eagle Farm colt now). But Event of the Year’s injury was much more severe than ours.

"It wasn’t so much because of Jerry that we came down to Southern California," Morey says. "The first condition book at Hollywood hit us real good, but I think nowadays, it’s nice to have two options. My son (William Edward Morey) works for me up north and does a great job. Hollendorfer isn’t what drove us down here, but then again, anyone who says Hollendorfer dominates Northern California is exactly right. He’s really too strong up there, and we had some horses fit down here, so what the heck?

"There’s no doubt Jerry gets a lot of help from the racing office (in Northern California, when it comes to writing conditions for races that fit his horses). But you’ve got to remember, he’s got over 100 head of horses in training up there. I asked him if he was going to come down to the Hollywood Park meet, and he said, no, he was just going to concentrate on Northern California.

"So I said good-bye."

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