In the educated opinion of Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert, “Mike Smith shows up on the big days.”
Saturday is the biggest day of the year in Illinois racing, and the Hall of Fame jockey, who turned 51 on Wednesday, is due in from California to attempt to put The Pizza Man on a pedestal alongside the iconic John Henry by making the defending champion the second two-time winner in the 34-year history of the Arlington Million.
Smith flaunts a record 17 Breeders’ Cup victories and boasts more than 500 graded stakes triumphs, but the three times he has tried to win the Arlington Million his horses have finished seventh (in 1992), sixth (in 2003) and 13th (in 2004).
Early in a career that began in 1982, he was based at Arlington and had modest success. After he moved to New York in the early 1990s, his career skyrocketed and he became a bicoastal superstar.
This will be the second time that Smith has ridden The Pizza Man. They were introduced in 2015 on Thanksgiving Day and Smith took him to the Del Mar winner’s circle in the Grade II Hollywood Turf Cup.
That’s the 7-year-old gelding’s lone victory in his six races since becoming the only Illinois-bred winner in Million history, and his slump is reflected in his morning-line status as a 10-1 outsider. In three of those unsuccessful outings he was ridden by Florent Geroux, who became a fixture in his saddle two summers ago and was at the reins for 11 straight races.
In trainer Roger Brueggemann’s opinion, “When Florent rode him 75 percent or 80 percent of the time he rode him perfectly.”
But Brueggemann and owner-breeder Rich Papiese became increasingly concerned about the times the ride was less than perfect. A fifth-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Turf on Oct. 31 at Keeneland prompted them to solicit the services of Smith in the Hollywood Turf Cup.
With Smith unavailable for his next three races, they employed three jockeys — Javier Castellano, Geroux and Robby Albarado. The results were out of character: a fifth followed by a pair of fourths.
Brueggemann and Papiese felt Geroux’s performances at Keeneland last fall in the Shadwell Mile and the Breeders’ Cup Turf and in this spring’s Grade II Wise Dan at Churchill Downs suffered when compared with Smith’s ride at Del Mar. They also were dissatisfied with Albarado’s trip in last month’s Grade III Stars and Stripes, an Arlington race The Pizza Man had won in 2014 and 2015.
“Robby has ridden great horses and he won two other stakes that day, but I don’t think it made any sense to take him all the way back (to a distant sixth in a seven-horse field) after he broke sharply and then take him (five) wide on the far turn,” Papiese said. “He doesn’t have to be wide. He can come up the rail. You’ve got to save ground and set him down when the time comes.
“Mike is a relaxed rider. He fits the horse. He’s cool. He’s not going to be frazzled. He’ll put the horse into the race and when the time comes he’ll set him down.”
Geroux, meanwhile, will be at the reins of World Approval, the 9-2 third choice in the 13-horse race. He rode the 6-year-old gelding for the first time last time out in Monmouth Park’s Grade I United Nations and brought him from just off the pace to win by 11/4 lengths.
Tryster, a 5-year-old gelding from the Great Britain branch of the Godolphin Racing powerhouse, is the 7-2 morning-line favorite. William Buick, who won the 2010 Million on Debussy, will ride Tryster in his North American debut.
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Second choice at 4-1 is Wake Forest, third-place finisher in the United Nations and winner of Belmont’s Grade I Man o’ War. Sixth when he made his first U.S. start in the 2015 Million, the transplanted German-bred 6-year-old horse is now residing on the East Coast in trainer Chad Brown’s barn.
Brown also trains Sea Calisi, 7-5 favorite in the $700,000 Beverly D. for fillies and mares, and Beach Patrol, 2-1 favorite in the $400,000 Secretariat for 3-year-olds, and Geroux will ride both.
Neil Milbert is a freelance reporter for the baiduhai.