Todd Fincher, set to saddle a pair of graded-stakes winners in Slammed and Senor Buscador at Keeneland, is determined to shake off a historic embarrassment – as Jon Lees reports
USA: Todd Fincher is determined to show the best side of New Mexico horse racing when he saddles his first runners at the Breeders’ Cup – 26 years after no-hoper Ricks Natural Star caused widespread embarrassment when tailed off in the Breeders’ Cup Turf.
With no representatives from the state taking up the challenge since the hopelessly overmatched low-grade claiming horse was ruled a DNF [did not finish] after he had to be cajoled over the line at Woodbine, Fincher is heading to Keeneland with two live shots who have earned their places strictly on merit.
He has already served notice he means business with appropriately named Slammed who handed out a 6½-length beating to her opponents in the G2 Thoroughbred Club of America Stakes at Keeneland on her most recent start. The four-year-old will be joined by Senor Buscador, who won the G3 Ack Ack Stakes at Churchill Downs on October 1.
Neither Kentucky tracks are regular stops for horses trained by Fincher, who has compiled his career tally of more than 1,300 winners at venues around New Mexico and neighbouring states.
Nevertheless, he’s not afraid to roll the dice when he has a good horse. In Slammed’s case, the filly landed a ‘Win And You’re In’ race for the Filly & Mare Sprint – but her owners Brad Keen, Suzanne Kirby and Barbara Coleman still have to pay $200,000 to run as the daughter of Marking, co-bred by Fincher, is by a non-nominated stallion and not yet Breeders’ Cup eligible.
“She pretty much made that money [$179,025] when she won her last race so she is more or less paying her own way,” says Fincher, 51. “If the horse is doing all right we are definitely going to pay the money to get her in there. It’s a lifetime opportunity for the owners.
“The way she won at Keeneland gives them all the more reason to try to win at the Breeders’ Cup. She was very impressive. I hoped she’d win but I wasn’t expecting 6½ lengths. I would’ve been tickled to death with two or three.”
Slammed’s victory under Florent Geroux came the week after stablemate Senor Buscador secured a fees-paid passage into the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile.
Speaking from his current headquarters at Zia Park, in Hobbs, New Mexico, Fincher says: “Being based out in New Mexico, we just don’t get those quality racehorses, very rarely. We try to run them where they are competitive – circuits around here, Texas and Oklahoma. Then if we ever do get those quality horses we travel them like we did Slammed.
“I don’t know if she is the best horse I’ve trained,” he goes on. “I qualified Senor Buscador the week before at Churchill Downs. He won the Ack Ack Stakes and is a very nice horse too.
”He’s only run seven times in his life; he was out of training for over a year and a half but he’s definitely hitting his peak right now. I aspire to have the best horses and run in the best races. It’s just taken me a long time!”
Fincher was born in Denver, Colorado, but once he was school age his family moved to Albuquerque, where his father rode for 25 years as a jockey and then both parents were trainers. “I guess I was raised into it,” he says.
Fincher is the very essence of New Mexico horse racing. The state is the capital of Quarter Horse racing and Fincher has straddled both codes, as jockey and trainer.
Over eight years in the saddle, he rode 325 Quarter Horse winners and 576 Thoroughbred winners, while he has 261 Quarter Horse winners to his name during his 25 years as a trainer. “Whatever people send me, I’ll train it,” he says.
The poster horse of New Mexico racing was Mine That Bird, who overcame odds of 50-1 to land the 2009 Kentucky Derby for trainer Chip Woolley, who also trains Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses from his base at Sunland Park racetrack.
What is more, Fincher knows all about Ricks Natural Star, the horse from Artesia, New Mexico, who managed to get into the field for the Breeders’ Cup Turf, after his eccentric owner Dr William Livingston paid the $40,000 entry fee, despite the horse not having run in over a year and not having won a race for three years. It led Breeders’ Cup organisers to change the rules to prevent a similar farce.
“He was a bottom-level claimer – it was an embarrassing episode,” says Fincher. “What he did kind of put a black on New Mexico racing, but I hope we can put a shining light to it.
“We’ve got the whole of New Mexico on our shoulders. There is a little bit of pressure but to see what Slammed did at Keeneland, she represented well.
“We didn’t go there and embarrass ourselves, I am very proud of her. From here on out, the rest is just crazy.”
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