STRAIGHT NO CHASER: A GREAT SHOT AT THE BREEDERS’ CUP
Dan Blacker is a real horseman. He is the kind of guy who puts his horses first and aims to get the best out of them. He trains one of the country’s best dirt sprinters, Straight No Chaser. This year, Dan is racing him in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. Owned by MyRacehorse, he is a serious contender. He won his last race, the Grade 2 Santa Anita Sprint Championship, by a record margin of 6 1/4 lengths. His time was the fastest since 2014. We thought it would be great to pick Dan’s brain. He sat down to talk about his journey to the Breeders’ Cup, Straight No Chaser, and the stories you might not know about Dan and his horse.
Dan was born in Oxford, UK. He was introduced to horses at an early age. His father, Phillip Blacker, is a sculptor known for creating life-sized horses at racecourses worldwide. Dan’s life changed when he graduated college and got into Godolphin’s Flying Start program. He went to the Kentucky Derby in 2006 as part of the program. He witnessed the mighty Barbaro romp by six and a half lengths. Dan cites this as an influential moment. He decided he wanted to train horses in America. Dan spent some time with Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella through the program. He was Richard’s assistant from 2007 to 2009. We asked him about this experience.
Dan, what did you learn from Richard Mandella?
Well, he’s the best. I mean, he’s the greatest horseman I’ve ever been around. I’ve been around horses from my earliest memories. When I arrived working for Richard, I felt like I had a good grasp on horsemanship, being around horses, and knowing how to help and influence them. But what I learned the more time I spent working for Richard as the weeks went by is how little I knew. And what amazed me was that he showed me things I didn’t understand. Every day, he would show me something new. How to help educate a horse, how to influence them, how to make their lives better, how to keep them happy, and also how to encourage them to do what we’re trying to achieve with them.
When you were with Mandella, were there any great horses you were around that you learned a great deal from?
Yeah. I mean, you had so many great horses when you were there. One of the horses that obviously is the most famous, but at the time, we didn’t know it was going to be one of the greats, was Into Mischief. And I galloped Into Mischief and was around him when he was a racehorse, and he was a horse that… Don’t get me wrong, he was a Grade 1 winner, but maybe he didn’t achieve as much as he could have on the track. And certainly, no one knew when he retired that he was going on to be one of the greatest stallions of all time.
How does it feel when you see his horses?
I have a little bit of secret pride. No one knows I have had a tiny little minor influence on Into Mischief’s existence. But looking back on him as a horse, I remember some things. Traits about his physical appearance and also his behavior that I remember and think, huh? I wonder if that had an influence on why he’s such a great stallion. For example, in all seriousness, he was the most horny horse I’ve ever been around. We would bring him over to the paddock for the races, and we’d have two people on him, and he would look like he was going over to the breeding shed, and he’d be on his toes, giving all those signs, like a male horse ready to go do his job. But he was coming in for the races. So, at the time, we kind of thought it was funny… But looking back on it, you have to think maybe that that has something to do with him being a great stallion. I’m not saying that that’s the reason he’s a great thing. I’m saying that his libido is very, very high for a male horse. And I think when you have more mares being bred and more foals on the ground, it’s obviously improving your chances of being a great stallion. So obviously, there’s
something genetically involved in him being a great
Who is your favorite horse that you trained?
Of the horses I trained, it’s hard to top Hit the Road. You never know what’s coming. But that’s hard to top. Craig (Boomer) Rounsefell and I picked him out of Keeneland. We sent him to Florida to be broke. We were part of that horse’s upbringing all the way through to the point where he won a Grade 1. So there’s something magical about this business when you are with a horse right from the start, and watch him, and develop and follow him right through all the way to winning a Grade 1. It’s something indescribable. I’d never won a Grade 1 before so that horse changed my life. He changed my family’s life, and I feel so indebted to that horse. And I really wanted to make sure that he had a job when he retired. And thankfully, now he’s in South Africa, of all places, breeding mares as we speak. And apparently, he’s doing a great job. So, yeah, he’s my favorite horse that I’ve trained. Now, that may change in the future. There’s other good horses I’ve got that could take his place. You never know.
And he was your very first Breeders’ Cup horse, correct?
Yeah, he ran in the Breeders’ Cup as a 2-year-old and had a rough trip that day. We had an outside draw, and Flavian got into all sorts of trouble. He actually got disqualified, I think… He was meant to run in the Breeders’ Cup as a 4-year-old. And he was so ready for that race. He was really doing good. He was primed. He was ready to go. And we shipped down to Del Mar. It was there this time of year. He had his final work. Everything went perfectly. And we shipped down to Del Mar and got down the next day. And he had a fever, and that was that.
So you had Hit the Road, and Straight No Chaser came into your life. Were they in the barn at the same time?
They overlapped a little bit. But they were very different types of horses.
How were they different?
Hit the Road, right from the start, he seemed like a nice horse. He had a great pedigree. He was Hip 16 out of book one at Keeneland. Hit the Road was the first foal out of the mare Highway Mary, and the mare was unraced, but she had an unbelievable family. It was all like champion milers in Europe. And he was, by More Than Ready, obviously, a really good stallion. But Straight No Chaser, he was very different to Hit the Road. He was not as precocious. He was one that we gave time to. As a 2-year-old, he wasn’t ready to be a racehorse at that stage. He came back at the beginning of spring of his 3-year-old year. But straight away, I could see there was some major talent there. When Hit the Road started, he didn’t have that natural speed. Hit the Road had to get to a mile on the turf to really show how good he was. He didn’t show that superstar status right from the word go in the morning. He was a nice horse, and I felt good about him. But Straight No Chaser, the first time I worked him five-eighths, I was like, “Holy shit, this horse is really fast!” Then, the next few times I worked him, I was like, “This is the best workhorse I’ve ever had.” And I was hoping that he would do in the afternoon what he was doing in the mornings. And we just had to get him to the races.
Talk about Straight No Chaser’s first start.
We actually planned to run him at Los Alamitos in his 3-year-old year. And just before Del Mar and his final scope, his final work, he scoped with some mucus. So we had to skip that race. And then the race at Del Mar on the dirt was like in August. So it was like, man, this horse is ready to fire. He’s jumping out of his skin. Let’s just run him on the grass. So they had a race opening day at Del Mar on the grass, five-eighths, and it could have been sand, grass, broken glass, or whatever. He would have won on any surface that day. He was super talented, and I was thrilled he did it in the afternoons. And I am thankful to the owners for giving me the opportunity with him.
You said Straight No Chaser is the best workhorse you’ve ever had. What makes him stand out as a worker?
In terms of pure natural speed and talent, he’s the best workhorse. If you got a watch on it, he’ll go :58, :59 without even being asked. He is just naturally unbelievably fast. For example, it’s not just me; his final work at Del Mar this summer before we came back to Santa Anita Jockey Antonio Fresu worked him. And he told me after the work, “This is the best workhorse I’ve ever worked.” He’s super-fast, super-talented, and has this super high gear. I’ve never had another horse like that.
How would you describe Straight No Chaser’s personality?
He’s all business. He doesn’t want to be messed with. He doesn’t want to be a pet. He doesn’t want people to come and cuddle him. He wants you to feed, train him, and leave him alone. That’s him. His groom has a great relationship with him. He looks after him really well. And he’s the kind of horse that’s not bonding with people. I wouldn’t want my kids to go up and pet him, put him that way. He’s just a racehorse, and that’s all he wants to be. His attitude is, “Feed me and let me run. Turn me loose.” So, we try and keep him happy. And when he’s not feeling good or not on his game, it’s very easy to tell. It’s straight away. We know because when he’s on his game, it’s time to go, you know?
What would you consider his most impressive performance?
I think the last race. Even though Straight No Chaser had won here at Santa Anita before, he’d never done that at home on this track at Santa Anita. It’s kind of a deep dirt surface at San Anita. It’s tiring. And I was not 100% sure this was his preferred surface, even though he worked super good on it. So, to run like he did that day last month, I was so happy. And I thought it was a dominating performance. A lot of these horses will work really well in the mornings, but there’s something that separates the great ones from the average ones. They have another gear when they get to the top of the lane. And what makes a great horse is not what you can see from the outside, the pedigree, or anything like that. What makes a great horse is in their heart, their ability to try as hard as they can and have that competitive dominance. That’s what makes a great horse. And that is something you can’t see in the morning. The only time you learn that is in the afternoon.
Last year, Straight No Chaser won the Grade 3 Maryland Sprint Stakes on the Preakness Stakes undercard. He established himself as one of the best sprinters in the country. Then he was sidelined for almost a year. Can you talk about what happened?
When you’re running and competing at the top level, you’ve got to have these horses absolutely A plus. If not, if you’re in a race and you get their B game, you’re probably not going to win because there’s going to be another trainer that will have their horses with their A game. So you want to have these horses have an absolute A game. And if you’re not at the A game, you need to figure out why and make a plan to get them back to that A game. That’s something I learned from Mandella. He never left a stone unturned. You try to improve and keep your horses at their top performance. And if they’re not, you need to figure out a plan to get them back to that however long it takes. So, with this horse, he was sound after the race at Pimlico. And the owners had a deal to sell a share in him. And they did a pre-purchase exam for that. And part of that prepurchase exam was a PET scan. They’ve developed this technology for horses to see where bone remodeling is going, basically bone activity and bone growth. So if you have a mature horse and there’s bone activity going on, it generally means there’s some weakness or fracture there because the body’s trying to repair. It’s basically bone growth. What they do is they give the horse an isotope into the bloodstream, and it binds onto the molecules that go to these areas where bone growth, bone remodeling, and bone recycling are going on. Then, they create an image of that particular joint or limb, showing hotspots or areas where bone remodeling is going on. And that shows you there could be like an impending fracture or something like that going on there. You don’t want bone activity in the racehorses. There will always be some, but what we’ve learned from looking at hundreds of these scans is that there are areas where you don’t want any activity that are kind of danger zones. So he had some remodeling going on in a fetlock. It was a really simple decision to give the horse some time. You’ve been in training for over a year and a half, run some big races, and as tough as it was, it was a real straightforward decision. I didn’t want to take any chances. Obviously, the deal did not go through. We gave the horse some time off. We brought him back in the fall of last year. He still wasn’t 100%, so we gave him more time and brought him back. I think around the beginning of the year, we started him back, and we had him back at the races in the spring.
How does getting to the Breeders’ Cup this year feel after overcoming so much?
Yeah, it’s so rewarding, and I feel really fortunate to the owners. They’ve just been so patient. They’ve never pressured me to get the horse to the races or never pressured me to make a race. And then that’s a real big part of the team. You know, the way the owners are, and the relationship with the trainer is so important in influencing a horse’s development and career. And MyRacehorse, you know, even though this horse has 900 owners, the management team has just been so patient with me and my team and allowed us to give the horse as much time as he needs to get back and be 100%. And this year’s been really frustrating. We had the horse ready to run in the spring. We ran him at Aqueduct because we felt like that was the best spot for him. He had bad luck. They stumbled out of the gate, and the race was over. And then we got him back.
Talk about how he wound up in his last Santa Anita Sprint Championship Stakes.
At the beginning of the year, the plan was to point for the Grade 1 Bing Crosby at Del Mar. And so after the Aqueduct race, we got him back to Santa Anita, and there was just no race in the schedule that allowed us to get to the Bing Crosby and be 100%. It was one of these weird scheduling issues that there were races that were either too close to the race at Aqueduct that we just ran in, and we weren’t going to be ready for that race, or they were too close to the Bing Crosby, and we wouldn’t have been 100% for Bing Crosby. So there’s nothing in that middle month that we could run in. So we ended up just waiting for Bing Crosby, and three days before the Bing Crosby, my assistant, Juan Landeros, who gets on him daily, you know, an integral part of my team, said, “There’s something not right. He doesn’t feel right.” And that’s the first time he’s ever said that. So I knew straight away. I was like, okay, we got something serious here. Something’s wrong. And, so we had to scratch him from the Bing Crosby. We did some tests and diagnostics, ruled out anything to be worried about, and got him back going good. And he’s never looked back since then. And he’s just been all systems go since then. And every single work is one of the best works I’ve ever seen. To get him back and have him run that race that he did at Santa Anita last month was just such a relief. And so exciting with what’s ahead.
So you talked about his workouts. How are you liking his workouts as he’s approaching the Breeders Cup?
He’s worked great. Juan, my assistant, gets on him, and he says he feels as good now as he did going into the last race, if not better. It didn’t seem like that race took much out of him. His weight’s been really consistent. He’s always a high-energy horse, and he wants you to turn him loose and let him do his thing. He’s one you got to keep reined in as much as you can. He goes everywhere with the pony because he’s just such a high-energy horse, and you’re just trying to keep him out of trouble. So, his works since that race have been really good. We did an easy one and then let him pick it up a little bit. He’s so talented that a fast work for another horse is an easy one for him. For example, he went a minute and three last time on my watch, and that’s a really strong work for all my horses in my barn apart from him. That’s just an easy one for him. So he’s just one you have to kind of reset your clock in terms of as a trainer. I have to think about him as a horse instead of like all horses in general because he’s special, unique, and has an ability much higher than all the others. You have to think of it as if you’re training an Olympic athlete as opposed to some guy who just got off the couch. You just have to keep the standard higher than you would for a normal horse.
How do you feel about your chances coming into this Breeders’ Cup?
Yeah, I think he’s got a great chance. I mean, he ran so big last time. You hope he’s going to come back and run as good a race, if not better, next time. And that’s really the key. It’s just trying to get him to this race to run his best race. And as I said, he’s kind of a high-energy horse. So we have to do enough in the mornings that he doesn’t come in too fresh and too, too wild. Like you want him in that perfect little sweet spot of like fresh enough that he’s really ready to fire but not too fresh that he’s going to have a hard time with all the crowd and the excitement of going over to the races, you know?
What would it mean for you to win a Breeders’ Cup race?
For me, it’s more about the horse. I mean, he’s so talented. It’s about him, not about me. I love working with horses, and I feel fortunate to have one with so much talent. And the owners, they’re the ones that gave me the opportunity with the horse. I try to stay out of his way, but I think it’s this achievement for the horse. He’s just so talented. He’s the one with the talent, and I hope that he can prove to everyone else how good he really is. He’s already shown that he’s obviously, very talented. But I’d like to do it on the big stage. That would be very rewarding. I mean, personally, obviously. Yeah, it’s always a dream to have horses running and winning in the Breeders’ Cup, you know? But I try not to think about that at this stage. I just make daily decisions to keep the horse in peak health and peak form and have him ready for November 2nd.
How is winning for MyRacehorse different? If at all?
You know, I do this because I love horses. The best part of doing this job is winning. And if anyone tells you something different, they’re lying. Being part of these owners’ lives, giving them so much joy and happiness, and sharing those wins and successes with all these people is one of the most fun parts of what I do. And so getting to share that with 900 people is awesome. And to see how much one horse can positively influence these people’s lives, it’s really fun to be a part of that, and it’s just very rewarding.
Dan Blacker is undoubtedly taking his MyRacehorse owners on an amazing ride. If you want to learn more about Dan, be sure to check out his racing stable on Instagram @db.racing. Be sure to root for Dan, his owners, MyRacehorse, and Straight No Chaser at the Breeders’ Cup. I’m sure if the horse hits the finish line first on Saturday, all of his connections will have a shot straight … no chaser.