Barbaro lives the luxe live before his date with destiny
ELKTON, Md. (AP) – The horse has it made. Better still, he knows it.
Barbaro’s date with destiny was some 24 hours off and 60 miles down the road, but the Kentucky Derby winner showed little sense of urgency, taking in the view outside his luxe condo in the rolling Maryland countryside.
All but one of his eight Preakness rivals was already hunkered down in ramshackle barns at Pimlico Race Course, a grim, graying concrete plant on Baltimore’s north side where, suffice it to say, the vista can’t be compared.
Yet even out here, trainer Michael Matz was reminded of what’s on the line.
“On the way to work today, there was a sign, ‘Barbaro for President’ out on Highway 841. Somebody must have just put it up,” Matz said with a chuckle Friday morning, “or else I was half-asleep all those other days driving to work.”
Matz can be forgiven for that, since he gets up at 4:30 a.m. each day before making the 20-minute drive to work. That proximity, rather than the luxury accommodations, is what first drew him to the Fair Hill Training Center five years ago. But since buying an existing barn and building a second, complete with faux-limestone walls, satellite dish, rows of skylights and cedar siding all around, Matz has never regretted the decision.
He pays a $6.50-per-day fee to the state of Maryland for each 12-by-12 stall, and since each is technically a condominium, he is subject to the state’s rules. With about 50 horses stabled there, the fees add up in a hurry.
But basing his operation at Fair Hill for most of the year is one reason that Barbaro’s owners, Roy and Gretchen Jackson, who live nearby, dropped the big bay colt in his lap. And the value of the onsite services are undeniable.
Attached to the new barn is a state-of-the-art facility that features office space, its own pharmacy, blood and radiology labs, a bookkeeper and veterinarian. The only thing even slightly out of date was the May 6 edition of the Louisville Courier-Journal with the headline “Barbaro in a Romp” sitting on the counter in the reception room.
Though a handful of other trainers have taken advantage of similar facilities – Englishman Michael Dickinson has a private estate, similarly outfitted, nearby – they are much more common in Europe. But Matz has never worried about doing things differently.
He turned to thoroughbred training full time after a decorated career in the much-more tranquil orbit of Olympic show jumping. He won a silver medal at the Atlanta Games in 1996, and impressed his U.S. teammates enough to be chosen as the flag-bearer for the closing ceremony. His equestrian experience taught him the value of treating mounts well, a philosophy that meshed seamlessly with the people who turned a state park in this sleepy corner of the state into an equine version of Club Med.
Across the 2,000 acres set aside for training, there is a perfectly groomed one-mile dirt oval and a 7/8ths-mile track inside that’s covered with wood chips so horses can run comfortably when it’s wet. Surrounding the barns are dozens of trails through the woods where Barbaro enjoyed plenty of carefree romps as a 2-year-old to break up the wearying routine.
“Going around a circle can get very tiresome and a horse might be hurt a little, or a little sore, and it just keeps him happier,” Matz said. “Maybe somebody else would do it differently. We try to make it as simple as possible.
“Horsemanship is quite old. It’s not something I invented.”
Nor perfected.
But Matz has always been a quick study. Beyond vague memories of watching the Kentucky Derby with his parents, he knew next to nothing about horses as a kid. He was cutting lawns and running errands for a neighbor the first time he got invited to ride. Too embarrassed to ask questions, he simply imitated what he saw more accomplished riders do. Soon after, he started working with show horses, then began riding them in competition for a living.
A few years later, in 1989, Matz led three kids out of the burning fuselage of a plane that crashed in an Iowa cornfield. The two brothers, Travis and Jody Roth, and their sister, Melissa Radcliffe, were in the grandstands two weeks ago when Barbaro steamrolled 19 other horses en route to his Kentucky Derby win.
Matz had already ridden in his first Olympics, in Montreal in 1976, by the time he struck up a conversation with the kids sitting near him on that flight. But all Radcliffe remembered Matz saying about a career, with typical humility, was that he “was just a guy who likes horses.”
Standing amid the sun-dappled hills Friday morning, that was apparent once more. As Matz talked, a groom raked the gravel in front of the barn where Barbaro lounged in his paneled stall. The hero and his horse were both ready to go.
“Considering he just came out of a race two weeks ago, his blood is good, he’s eating well. We blew him out a little bit and he seems happy,” Matz said. “I don’t know what more I can do.”
Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke ap.org