Animal Kingdom making noise

May 4, 2011 at 12:05a.m.

Photo by: Garry Jones

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Photo

Jockey Alan Garcia guides Animal Kingdom to a two-length victory in the $500,000 Spiral Stakes horse race at Turfway Park race course in Florence, Ky., Saturday, March 26, 2011.

Photo by: Garry Jones

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Photo

Trainer H. Graham Motion, left, shares a laugh with jockey Alan Garcia before he rode Animal Kingdom to a two-length victory in the $500,000 (Gr. III) Spiral Stakes horse race at Turfway Park race course in Florence, Ky., Saturday, March 26, 2011.

Combined dispatches

LEXINGTON, Ky.

Animal Kingdom strolled onto the track at Churchill Downs last Saturday morning and with little urging from jockey Robby Albarado, took off down the frontstretch.

No hesitation. No panic. No looking down his feet to see if he’d stepped in something.

The 3-year-old colt handled the dirt under the twin spires with ease, covering six furlongs in a solid if not spectacular 1:13.

More important than the time, however, was the way Animal Kingdom acted after getting dirty. He looked, according to Albarado and trainer Graham Motion, like a Kentucky Derby horse.

“[Robby] actually looked for things he could knock about the breeze and he couldn’t find anything,” Motion said.

This Saturday, Animal Kingdom, owned by Team Valor International (that includes Youngstown businessman Bruce Zoldan) will join 19 other hopefuls in the Run for the Roses.

It’s a destination that Motion didn’t envision when he took over as Animal Kingdom’s trainer last fall. Everything about the horse — from his pedigree to his training — seemed to make him destined for a career running on grass. Yet when he won the Spiral Stakes over the synthetic surface at Turfway Park five weeks ago, Animal Kingdom suddenly found himself on the Derby trail.

It’s a path that hasn’t led to success in the Derby. No horse who has trained primarily on grass or a synthetic surface such as Polytrack has won the first leg of the Triple Crown since synthetic surfaces were introduced in the middle of the last decade.

Yet nearly half of the expected field of 20 in this year’s Derby will have competed heavily on the turf or a synthetic surface thanks to a combination of Derby fever among owners and the perception that the gap between synthetic horses and dirt horses isn’t the chasm it was five years ago.

Motion allows that some horses will struggle switching surfaces, but thinks the dirt at Churchill Downs isn’t quite as mucky as other places.

And even if it is, there’s only one Kentucky Derby. Motion is well aware of the obstacles his horse faces, but hopes talent wins out.

“This horse has a grass pedigree, but I think if he’s a good enough horse he can overcome that,” Motion said.

Casual racing fans may not recognize Motion’s moniker the way they do Todd Pletcher and Bob Baffert. But in terms of respect and reputation, the native of Cambridge, England, lags behind few of his peers on the nation’s backstretches.

Since taking out his trainer’s license in 1993, Motion has compiled an impressive list of achievements in relatively swift fashion.

It only took until August of 1993 for the father of two to record his first graded stakes victory. Along with counting such Grade I winners as Film Maker and Bullsbay among his nearly 1,500 career victories, Motion developed 2004 Breeders’ Cup Turf winner Better Talk Now and took the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf with Shared Account.

This November, days after his latest Breeders’ Cup win, Barry Irwin’s Team Valor International operation showed just how much they thought of Motion when they gave him their entire 40-horse stable to train.

“It is very gratifying [to see Motion get recognition],” said Irwin, founder of Team Valor. “I just like the whole setup of the way he trains. He kind of reminds me of Neil Drysdale in that he puts a lot of foundation in the horses, and he doesn’t rush them.

“He’s very methodical. He thinks everything out. He doesn’t make any stupid moves.”

Rather than being a showy presence on the backside, Motion is primarily based at bucolic Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland, where his European methods are an ideal fit.

A former protege of Hall of Famer Jonathan Sheppard and the late Bernie Bond, Motion is a big believer in letting the horses dictate their own development, hence the reason he has only had two prior Kentucky Derby starters.

In 1998, he sent Chilito into the Derby and watched him finish 11th. Ten years later, Motion saddled an overmatched Adriano to a 19th-place run, a move he vowed never to repeat.

“I haven’t had great Derby experiences to be honest, and I just kind of made a promise to myself that I wasn’t going to do that again,” Motion said. “I really wanted the horse to take me there.

“When I came here with Chilito, I did everything by the book. I got [to Churchill] a month early, I came right from Florida. I think you have to go a little bit by your own beat. You’ve got to stick with what works for you and not get caught up in it.”

Motion and Team Valor suffered a setback on Tuesday when Wood Memorial winner Toby’s Corner was scratched from the Derby.

Toby’s Corner was scheduled to arrive at Churchill Downs on Tuesday from Maryland. Motion canceled the trip because of a problem with the colt’s left hind leg and sent him to an equine hospital.

The colt underwent a bone scan that yielded no answers. When Toby’s Corner didn’t improve by Tuesday, Motion decided not to send him to Louisville.

“At this point, there’s nothing obvious that’s causing the lameness,” Motion said.