One year ago, Michael Matz met the press en masse during Preakness week.
Now, only a solitary reporter has made the 63-mile trek north from Baltimore to the pastoral Fair Hill Training Center to talk to the trainer about his horse.
A year ago, the media wanted to know if Matz thought Roy and Gretchen Jackson’s undefeated horse, Barbaro, could win the Preakness and go on to become the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978.
Now, the question is: “Why aren’t you running Chelokee in the Preakness?”
Matz gave three “very good reasons” why the promising colt who has won two of six races and finished out of the mutuel money only once isn’t competing in Saturday’s middle jewel of the Triple Crown:
Street Sense, Hard Spun and Curlin, the 1-2-3 finishers in the Kentucky Derby.
“They made a very good impression on me,” Matz said. “Street Sense is a very, very good horse. If all three weren’t running, I probably would have given it a whirl. If it looked like it was a two-horse race, you never know what could happen.
“It’s going to be a long year. I don’t see any sense in pushing him too much when he’s not ready for it. He’s going to be a real nice racehorse at some point. When the time is ripe to run against them, he’ll be ready.”
So instead of saddling Chelokee in the Preakness, Matz intends to send him out in one of the supporting races on the card.
In a twist of fate, the colt owned by Don Little’s Centennial Farm is scheduled to try for his first stakes victory in the inaugural running of the Barbaro Stakes. And the trophy will be presented by Roy and Gretchen Jackson.
“It’s a horse I trained and it would be a bonus if we could win it,” Matz said, making a classic understatement.
If Chelokee is able to reunite Matz and the Jacksons in the Pimlico winner’s circle after the Barbaro Stakes, it will go down as one of the most touching tales in the history of American racing.
This is where these people were supposed to be after last year’s Preakness. Instead, the 2006 Preakness turned out to be a tragic tale when Barbaro broke down at the outset.
The following day, Dr. Dean Richardson put Barbaro’s right hind leg that had been pulverized in 30 pieces back together at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center, beginning a struggle to recover that captured the hearts of Americans from all walks of life and people all over the world.
But Richardson’s worst fear after the operation became reality. Because Barbaro was bearing an inordinate amount of weight on his left leg, laminitis set in and drastic surgical measures again had to be taken. Nevertheless, by autumn it appeared Barbaro was on the road to recovery.
But his condition took a turn for the worse and on Jan. 29, to spare their beloved Barbaro a painful death, the Jacksons told Richardson to give him a lethal injection.
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“Barbaro could do everything, and there’s no telling what he could have done,” Matz said, turning wistful. “It’s a mystery how he broke down, and it’s a shame for racing. Sure, there’s lots of times when you say to yourself: ‘Why?’
“I got tons of mail — maybe there was a bigger reason because of what Barbaro has done for so many other people.”
Among the heart-wrenching letters Matz received was one from a 10-year-old boy suffering from AIDS in an orphanage in Namibia. The boy loves racehorses and wants to someday ride show horses as the trainer had done.
But Matz prefers not to dwell on what Barbaro might have accomplished.
Matz lives in the present and focuses on bringing out the best in the 75 horses he trains.
“I’d love to have gone back to the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness,” he admitted. “Who wouldn’t want to run in the biggest races in the United States? But I just don’t want to go to the Derby. I just don’t want to go to the Preakness. I don’t want to run in them unless I feel I have a good shot to win.
“Everything went right on schedule with Barbaro until the Preakness. Everything didn’t go well with Chelokee. Too many things happened. He came out of the Florida Derby (third) with an abscess on his hoof that lingered for a while. After the abscess popped, I put some glue on his shoes and he wasn’t comfortable with that. One day when was scheduled to train at Keeneland, the rain kept us from going out.
“Barbaro won five stakes before the Preakness; Chelokee was third in a Grade I (his only stakes race). I thought he was the best horse in the Florida Derby, but none of the horses that came out of the Florida Derby did anything in the Kentucky Derby. There’s no sense in trying to take one big step forward in the Preakness and then having to take three little ones back.”
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*For more on the Preakness, go to www.chicagosports.com