Mott, Lea, Déjà vu, and the Donn

Lea, Will Take Charge, and Sunday’s Donn Handicap have given me a nasty case of déjà vu.

This year’s Grade 1 Donn, featuring the champion, Will Take Charge, and ten others, is leaps and bounds more difficult than the $100,000 Hal’s Hope Stakes was for the winner, Lea. Making his first start for Hall of Fame conditioner, Bill Mott, and only his third career start on dirt, the five-year-old son of First Samurai pressed the pace that day, set by the favored Csaba, before seizing command at the top of the lane, on his way to coasting home to a 3 ½ length score. The convincing victory was an eye-opener suggesting that Mott’s new horse might have a bright future on dirt after being thought of as primarily a grass horse.   

Now back to that nagging feeling that I’ve seen all this before. Perhaps I have. It was 19 years ago when Mott’s new, transitioned turf to dirt horse, Cigar, went on to roll in the 1995 edition of the Donn Handicap. It was his fourth straight win since switching to dirt for his new trainer, Bill Mott. As we all know, that streak would bulge to 16 before all was said and done, as Cigar streaked his way to back-to-back Horse of the Year titles. That was the good news from that fateful Donn.

Back to present day; if you are keeping score for Lea, that’s 1 down, and 15 to go, before he can be thought of in the same vein as the great Cigar. Still, the similarities are there between the Lea of today, and the version of Cigar who was still new to Mott’s Barn. Previously raced by trainer Al Stall Jr., for owners and breeders, Claiborne Farm and Adele Dilschneider, I thought Lea was quite impressive when running 1:35.30 for the eight furlongs of last month’s Hal’s Hope, much the way the legendary horse had been in the fall of 1994 while winning the NYRA Mile in 1:36. As a matter of fact, the things Mott is saying now are not all that different from what I remember being said 19+ years ago.

“We were pointing him to either the El Prado Stakes or the Fort Lauderdale (on turf), and then we started looking at it and examining his dirt form, which was pretty good. He’s got two races that are actually quite good. Discussing it with Walker Hancock (of Claiborne Farm), we both decided to give him a shot early in the year on the dirt just to see what direction we want to go the rest of the year. I think the way he gave us good reason for trying that (running on dirt again). I suppose now we have to decide how far we want to run him. But he looks like he’s one of those unusual horses that handles turf and dirt. Obviously, there are some big races on the dirt.” ~Bill Mott (2014)

Getting back to the past; I’ve already foreshadowed that all the news from the 1995 Donn was not positive. That edition was about much more than the emergence of Cigar as a real star. Sadly, the huge favorite that afternoon never made it to the finish line. Bet down to 3-10 against Cigar and the rest, the reigning 3yo champ and Horse of the Year, Holy Bull was pulled up in the backstretch by rider Mike Smith in clear distress. Thankfully, the injury to the champion was not life threatening, but the ligament damage was enough to end his racing career.

You can see why my feeling of déjà vu is not a pleasant one. While I see absolutely no good reason to believe a similar fate awaits the reigning three-year-old champion, I do, however; like the prospects of Lea.

We all know that Bill Mott is a master horseman who can develop a horse into something special. Whether Lea has the talent to become one of America’s top horses remains very much to be seen, but at 10-1 or so, I see him as a very interesting possibility in Sunday’s big race. Hopefully my  déjà vu radar is only in tune with the good from 1995, rather than the negative.