Barn Tour: Steve Sherman plans for Golden Gate closure

The last we checked in with Steve Sherman, he had just found out that The Stronach Group would close Golden Gate Fields, his base, on June 9. He was in shock and hadn’t begun to figure out how he would adjust his operation.

Now, his plan is to go to Del Mar this summer.

“I'm going to see how I do down there,” Sherman told Horse Racing Nation on Monday. “My barn's a little better this year than I've had in the past. I don't have a real big abundance of horses, but I've got a lot of quality horses. So I'm definitely going to give that a shot. And my mom and dad live down in San Diego, so a chance to visit them too.”

Sherman’s dad is retired trainer Art Sherman, trainer of multiple Eclipse Award winner California Chrome.

“So I'm definitely going to go down there, and then after Del Mar, I don't know. I think a lot depends on how I do down there before I commit to stay at Pleasanton full time, full year. I'll just kind of leave things up in the air right now.”

Sherman said he has been to Del Mar “off and on” over the years, but “not on a serious note in a long time where I've took a bunch of horses down there. So I'm going to give it a new spin this year. I'm going to maybe try to claim a bunch before I go down there. And I have a lot of people that are interested in going down there. Some of my clients, and I owe it to them. I've already kind of committed myself to go there, so I'm definitely going.”

Sherman has 32 horses in training, and he owns a stake in nine of them, including some from the estate of Jerome Moss, who died in August.

“I just kind of got in on a bunch of horses,” he said. “I was in a position where unfortunately when Mr. Moss died, the estate wanted to sell off a lot of the horses. I got in partnerships with two really good clients we've been training for. Even my dad trained for them and I've trained for them ever since I've been on my own, Svika Akin and Greg Avery. And Greg said, ‘hey, let's get these horses,’ and we bought a package of them and then we bought a second package of them. And we've done well.”

Sherman provided updates on his top horses for the latest in HRN’s Barn Tour series.

Bletchley Park. Trained by Bob Baffert through last year, the 5-year-old gelded son of Nyquist is 3-for-3 for Sherman at Golden Gate this year, most recently winning an optional-claiming allowance Sunday. “He ran a really good race. The horse is really doing good right now, and what we have on the horizon is probably kind of keep him in that same category. It seems like that's kind of a second-condition allowance horse. But he's a joy to be around, just a pro's pro. There's no doubt about that. Very nice horse to be around.”

Sky Maker. The 5-year-old Sky Mesa mare won two claiming races to start the year and then was second in an allowance on Feb. 25. “Sky Maker's a filly that I've had all along, she's just done very well here at Golden Gate Fields. She really likes the Tapeta. She's run a couple of good races on the turf. But she's just a filly that we turned out for about five or six months. She had a long campaign, and she just needed some freshening, just take a lot of pressure off those legs, just let her kind of be a race horse and relax, a lot of R&R. She came back in September after an 11-month break and was sixth in an optional-claiming allowance at five furlongs on turf. “You throw out that first race because I only ran her there because I was actually going to be on the vet's list because it was going to be a year up before she was going to run. I just kind of stuck her in that sprint race to beat the time frame without having to go through all that vet work and all that stuff, waiting for blood and all that stuff. So we kind of threw her in there. We didn't expect anything, but she didn't run bad. First time to kind of stretch her out. She just got a little tired and then she got sick and we lost some time with her a little bit. And then she's come back and run three pretty good races.”

American Farmer. The 7-year-old son of Bluegrass Cat is 0-for-3 this year after winning three of eight starts last year. “My warhorse. He's doing good. He's kind of a funny horse. Sometimes when you try to go up on the inside, he just doesn't kick it in, like if you whip him out. And we kind of got forced out on the inside last time. But you know, he's a 7-year-old and we're going to probably find a little softer spot for him. There's another one that came out of this race good. We're probably looking at a race like for 32 or 40, something like that for him.”

Nolde. The 8-year-old gelded son of Pioneerof the Nile is on a three-race win streak and finished in the money in all but one of his last nine starts. “I just sent him to the farm. It was nothing bad, he just had a long campaign. And I think he was at my barn like two years or a year and a half straight. And we just decided he was just kind of getting tired. Nothing really bad, some filling here and a little filling there, and we had such a good campaign with him, we just put a good blister on at the farm and we're just going to turn him out. We're going to bring him back in June 1, so we're going to give him a solid three months off. Hopefully I can have him ready to take the Del Mar, that's kind of my goal. It won't be probably at the beginning of Del Mar. I see him running maybe more towards probably the back end. So hopefully we can get him ready and I can get him down there.”

Sir Greyson. The 5-year-old gelded son of Quality Road had a record of 8: 6-2-0 before finishing seventh in an allowance at Golden Gate on Feb. 23, his first start beyond six furlongs. “We tried him at a mile and it just didn't work out last time. So we're definitely going to shorten him back up. He came out of the race in good shape. And we're definitely going to keep him with the sprint. I probably see us going in some kind of a second-condition optional claiming with him. But we're definitely going to make sure we sprint him. Whether that's sprinting him on the turf when the turf comes up or on the Tapeta, either one's good. He's run, obviously, well on both surfaces. We tried something, it didn't work, so life goes on. He came out of the race in good shape, so we have another day to fight and that's what matters.”

My Yammy Lady. The 4-year-old filly by Daddy Nose Best started the year with two allowance wins, then was fifth last out in an optional-claiming allowance. “She didn't run quite as good as I thought last time. But she's coming off two allowance wins, and I haven't given up hope. And that was one of her first bad races in a while. She just didn't quite get the trip that I was hoping for. But that happens in horse racing. You can't cry over spilled milk, just got to go on to the next race. But she did come out of the race in really good shape. So we'll try to find something. I don't know if that's going to be a claiming, or she might be one of those fillies that's not quite the second-condition level but still a 32, 40 type of horse. So we'll probably be shooting for something there.”