SARATOGA SPRINGS — Trainer Will Phipps has a small, young stable. But he’s hoping to make a solid showing in the remaining six days of the season at Saratoga Race Course.
“I’m running half the barn before the end of the meet,” Phipps said with a grin on Tuesday morning, as he watched his runners gallop across the Oklahoma oval.
He wasn’t joking.
The fledgling horseman, 38, has 17 horses in training at Saratoga. On Wednesday he will saddle Fancy Point in the P.G. Johnson Stakes. On Thursday he starts Riddle over hurdles in the first, plus Doe Run in division two of the Riskaverse Stakes. Friday, Manchurian High comes back from a third-place finish in the Saratoga Special to tackle turf in the Grade III With Anticipation Stakes. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, Phipps plans to enter several maiden runners in search of initial victory.
This end-of-the-season volley will feature some of Phipps’ best runners and could bring the trainer his first graded stakes win since he stepped out on his own in 2008 from an assistant’s position with Hall of Fame horseman Bill Mott. So far in his three-year career Phipps has saddled two black type winners, both at Tampa Bay Downs in Florida.
“Saratoga is about the deepest water you’re going to find in the country,” said Phipps. “But at the same time it’s a great test; it helps you assess your stock and where you’re at for the rest of the year.”
Phipps has saddled one runner-up and two third-place finishers in 17 starts at the Spa this season. But the lack of winners shouldn’t be taken as a lack of talent. Sometimes things just don’t work out exactly the way they were planned.
“We had some early ones that we thought were really exciting,” the trainer said. “Before the meet started there were six that came up with issues. For me, that’s a big number, that’s better than a third of my stable. And those were horses people were getting excited about; everybody was saying, ‘Oh, you’re going to have a good meet with this bunch.’ “
When you lose 40 percent of your string before the meet starts, that’s frustrating, especially when they were some of your best horses. And Phipps isn’t alone. Competition is tough at Saratoga Race Course and racehorses are often fragile creatures.
“Things happen,” said Chad Brown, another young trainer who went out on his own in late 2007. “Not every single horse that we brought for the meet made it. I had a couple have little minor injuries, one had a major injury and had to be retired, and those kinds of things are going to happen.”
For Phipps, however, many of those runners are now coming back into form. “We don’t press them too hard,” he said. “Some of these are just coming into hand, and the ones that we’ve taken our time with are ready now, and we’re gonna try. You have to try, right?”
And slowly but surely, Phipps’ string is growing. Newly added to his roster this year is a 2-year-old colt who will make his first start at Belmont Park this fall, owned in partnership by Dan Barraclough and Bruce Cerone. Cerone owns Pennell’s, a local Italian restaurant frequented by racetrack personalities.
“I like the boutique kind of atmosphere, and Will came through very capable hands through Billy Mott,” Cerone said. “Everything fell together the right way for him to take the horse and I’m very happy with where we’re at.”
Claire Novak, a freelance writer, covers horse racing for the Times Union.
