The queen is back.
After two lacklustre efforts Big Hug, the two-time reigning Horse of the Year, turned in what was one of her finest performances winning Saturday’s $50,000 Lynn Chouinard Founders Distaff at Calgary’s Century Downs.
Big Hug won by 10 lengths and made it look ever so easy.
“She ran super,” said trainer Rick Hedge, who also co-owns the six-year-old mare, who is encroaching on $700,000 in career earnings, with Lori and Martin Neyka’s Empire Equestrian.
“She was back to herself.”
It was Big Hug’s 20th career victory in 32 lifetime starts.
But it was her last two efforts that had Hedge’s connections worried.
Those two races also had the public concerned as Big Hug unaccustomedly didn’t go off as the favourite in the Chouinard.
The latter role went to Chi Chi Time, who was bet down to 1-4 but ran a disappointing fourth after winning her previous seven lifetime starts including the August 22 Northlands Distaff by seven lengths where Big Hug finished third.
Chi Chi Time was running back in just seven days which may have been a factor.
Whatever the reason, Chi Chi Time’s loss set off disproportional large show prices when a bettor known in racing as a ‘bridge jumper’ places an unusually large show wager on a heavy favourite who finishes out of the money.
Big Hug, for example, paid $7.40 to win, $3.40 to place and $6.30 to show. Third-place finisher We the Fringe paid $84.40 to show.
Big Hug’s other ‘disappointing’ start was - strange as it sounds - a victory when she won the four-horse-field Fall Classic.
“She won. But just barely in a race she should have won by a dozen. I knew then that something was wrong,” said Hedge, who was certainly right.
Hedge said Big Hug had an ulcer on her epiglottis which according to the Mayo Clinic is “a small cartilage ‘lid’ that covers the windpipe.
“Epiglottitis happens when the epiglottis swells. The swelling blocks the flow of air into the lungs.”
The Mayo Clinic went on to say that Epiglottitis “can be deadly.”
“I was told that Big Hug was only getting 60 per cent of her available air,” said Hedge.
“We had her treated at a veterinarian clinic in Calgary twice a day.
“They got it. She showed that (on Saturday).”
Did she ever. Biding her time in third, Big Hug took off after pacesetter Chi Chi Time after three-quarters 1:12 4/5. Big Hug hung around just long enough to say hello and goodbye. Then she was gone.
“She finished it off really good,” said Hedge.
Absolutely.
Ridden by Amadeo Perez, Big Hug got the mile and an eighth in 1:52 3/5 which would be a full second faster than Al Reichert would take to win the $50,000 Don Getty for older males one race later.
There’s more. Six furlongs in both the Lynn Chouinard and the Don Getty both went in 1:12 4/5 showing just how much faster Big Hug finished.
Big Hug has now contested three Lynn Chouinard Founders Distaff Handicaps and has won them all - each with an Equibase Speed Rating of 101.
Hedge’s plans with Big Hug are uncertain. With Phoenix’s Turf Paradise race track’s plans not solidified, Hedge said he may have to take Big Hug back to Santa Anita again.
Big Hug ran in Santa Anita five times last year and not only did she certainly never look out of place she could have even won at least one of them if it wasn’t for bad racing luck.
“Big Hug is six years old now so I don’t want to give her five months off again,” said Hedge, who famously bought Big Hug at the Alberta Yearling Sale for just $3,500.“ Especially now that she is going good again. We may have to look at Santa Anita again.”
Referred to above, the Don Getty - the other stake on Saturday’s card at Century Downs - was taken by Al Reichert.
Jockey Perez captured that one too. After a flawless performance with Big Hug, Perez was even better with Al Reichert.
“That’s why you ride him,” said Al Reichert’s trainer Robbie Henson.
“He’s been B.C.’s leading jockey some 10 times for a reason.”
Al Reichert got the first call but when four other horses all wanted the lead Perez deftly took back. Then he patiently waited until the stretch before tipping out and going on to win by a length and a half over Abeliefinthislivin.
Ironically enough, Abeliefinthislivin and Al Reichert ran one-two in the 2023 Canadian Derby.
Favourite Fireman Dan, coming off a win in the Speed to Spare Championship was a solid third.
Lightly raced, Al Reichert has won three of his last four races - the only loss coming by a head at 43-1 in Winnipeg’s Gold Cup. “He likes his breaks,” said Henson, who took over training Al Reichert at the start of this year.
Henson vividly remembers his first up close look at Al Reichert, a stocky small horse that resembles a quarter horse, and not being impressed. He wasn’t impressed with the way the horse trained either.
“I thought this can’t be the same horse I watched win so many races,” said Henson, who trains the six-year-old for the horse’s owner and breeder Saskatchewan’s Colin and Cheryl Ganter. “And he just went through the motions when he trained.”
But then Al Reichert has been lackadaisical - except when it’s time to race - throughout his career.
He never ran as a two-year-old because he was getting outworked by 10 lengths and couldn’t get a time.
Nobody was thrilled with Al Reichert’s first two starts this year either so Colin came up with a plan to give the horse some confidence running him three times in Winnipeg - including the Gold Cup - and then running him back in Alberta in the Don Getty.
“It was all Colin’s idea so he deserves the credit,” said Henson, a sharp, talented trainer in his own right.
Al Reichert paid $19.80 to win.
STOCK REPORT
Overcoming the trailing ninth post position, Terrible Custard is proving to be one tough harness filly - refusing to give in or determined to catch them at the wire.
“If she can see them she’ll keep digging in,” said driver Mike Hennessy after winning Saturday’s $53,900 Princess Final at Nisku’s Century Mile. “She likes to have a target; she’s a pretty game little filly.”
Owned by breeder Lorne Duffield of Edmonton, it was Terrible Custard’s fifth win in her last six starts including the $89,160 Gord and Illa Rumpel, the $53,600 Marquis Final and now the Princess, which was one hell of a finish.
“I didn’t want to be three wide as long as I was but I didn’t want to take the lead too soon either,” said Hennessy, saying Terrible Custard can start looking around if she gets off by herself.
For the longest time it looked like Blue Star Strike wasn’t going to be caught after setting the pace and opening a clear lead at the sixteenth pole.
But both Terrible Custard and hard charging Lets Go Gals had other ideas with Terrible Custard jumping on them in the final strides and winning by half a length; Lets Go Gals just nailed Blue Star Strike for second.
After fractions of :28 2/5, :56 3/5 and 1:24 4/5, Terrible Custard stopped the clock in 1:54 3/5 and returned $4.50 to win.
“She just kept digging in,” said Hennessy. “She’s really matured from last year.”
Terrible Custard, who spends most of her days sleeping, is by Custard the Dragon out of Duffield’s mare, Remember Terror.
The $53,600 final of the Plainsmen wasn’t nearly as exciting. Jamie Gray out-left everyone with Boleto A Mexico to reach the opening quarter in a contested :27 1/5 first quarter when he was three-high. But when Gray made the top and was able to slow the half down to 57 1/5 it was pretty much over.
Boleto A Mexico went on to a comfortable two-length victory over stablemate Ruler of Dragons, who was last at the top of the stretch.
The mile went in 1:55 2/5.
Trained, driven and co-owned by Gray along with Max Gibb, Aaron Malkin and the 5 Amigos Stable. Boleto A Mexico had a similarly easy time in the Plainsman Elimination.
He paid a healthy $11.80 to win.
And, Shark Week added win No. 73 to his ever-growing resume winning by a length over Ernesto Delacruz in 1:52 2/5.
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Inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2017.
Author: The Turcottes: The Remarkable Story of a Horse Racing Dynasty.