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| Rombauer and jockey Kyle Frey win the 2021 El Camino Real Derby Vassar Photography/Golden Gate Fields |
On the first floor of the Bay Meadows Race Course clubhouse there was a narrow hallway with exposed aggregate flooring about 15 yards long that led from the horse path to a small room containing a deli, a bar, and a few betting windows. Along the hallway's walls were framed 8 ½ x 11 photos depicting all of the winners of the El Camino Real Derby when the race was contested at Bay Meadows, located along the historic El Camino Real, the road that linked the 21 Spanish missions in California.
By 2003, I was in high school and the El Camino Real Derby had been relocated to Golden Gate Fields due to racing calendar changes implemented by Magna Entertainment, which at the time owned Golden Gate and leased Bay Meadows. I would make occasional trips with my father to Bay Meadows for simulcasting during the offseason when the clubhouse’s downstairs deli/bar and betting windows were closed. Between races I would in solitude walk down the dimly lit and almost entirely silent hallway and think about the racing history captured within the El Camino photos.
Northern California racing is what could be generously called a “B-circuit,” and by the time the 21st century had arrived star horses and horsemen were seldom seen at Bay Meadows. I would envy racing fans in Southern California, New York, Florida, and Kentucky who routinely got to see the sport’s elite participants. The photos would take me back to a bygone era when the stars, equine and human alike, would at least on occasion compete in front of packed grandstands at the humble but historic track on the San Francisco Peninsula in the city of San Mateo.
There was a photo showing the inaugural (1982) El Camino Real Derby winner, the one-eyed Cassaleria, the subject of his own Sports Illustrated article. There was a photo of Ruhlman, who went on to win the Santa Anita Handicap as a 5-year-old, crushing the competition in the 1988 edition of the El Camino, with the winner’s circle shot showing Pat Day patting the horse’s neck and a young Bobby Frankel displaying his characteristic sly smirk. There were photos of Ron McAnally’s consecutive El Camino Real Derby winners Silver Ending (1989) and the stub-tailed Sea Cadet (1990), both of whom went on to become Grade 1 winners who earned more than seven figures. And there were photos of Casual Lies (1992) and Cavonnier (1996), two horses who broke their maidens at Santa Rosa, won the El Camino, and finished second in the Kentucky Derby. The 1998 photo showed the locally based Event of the Year, who was expected to be the betting favorite in the Kentucky Derby but missed the race due a knee injury he suffered the week before the race.
The theme that stood out the most was how the El Camino Real Derby had at one time been a frequent stepping stone to Preakness Stakes glory. The photo from 1984 showed eventual Preakness winner Gate Dancer wearing his customary blinkers and earmuffs as he chased home that year’s El Camino Real Derby victor French Legionaire. The next two photos showed Tank’s Prospect and Snow Chief, the first two horses to win both the El Camino and the Preakness. The 1994 photo showed Tabasco Cat, who went on to win the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes, capturing the El Camino in his first start since severely injuring D. Wayne Lukas’ son Jeff in a collision at Santa Anita (the younger Lukas had emerged from a coma six days prior to the El Camino). Lukas, who also trained Tank’s Prospect, narrowly missed an El Camino triple when Charismatic fell a head short of the California-bred Cliquot in the 1999 El Camino; Charismatic later became the first (and so far only) El Camino starter to win the Kentucky Derby and then in his next start became the El Camino’s fifth competitor to wear the Black-Eyed Susans.
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| The El Camino Real Derby hallway in the Bay Meadows clubhouse (2007) Jim Fetter/Bay Meadows |
The El Camino Real Derby initially was a companion race to the El Camino Real Stakes, a race for 2-year-olds conducted at Bay Meadows every November. The Derby eventually overshadowed the Stakes, which was contested for the final time in 1984. In 2001, Magna Entertainment, which at the time owned Golden Gate Fields and leased Bay Meadows, made major changes to the Northern California racing calendar that resulted in the relocation of the El Camino Real Derby to Golden Gate Fields on the Albany/Berkeley border in the East Bay. The race returned to Bay Meadows in 2005 for the track’s final four years before its closure, with Golden Gate becoming the race’s permanent home in 2009.
A combination of schedule changes, the switch from dirt to Golden Gate’s Tapeta Footings surface, cuts to the Northern California stakes program, and the overall decline of Northern California racing caused the El Camino’s prestige to slowly wane, culminating in the loss of its graded status in 2018. The race in the 21st century still attracted a few nice horses (Captain Squire, Ten Most Wanted, Buzzards Bay, Bold Chieftain, and Silver Medallion come to mind) and the 2012 edition was particularly strong (the winner Daddy Nose best went on to win graded stakes on dirt and turf; third-place finisher Handsome Mike won the Grade 2 Pennsylvania Derby, and sixth-place finisher Lady of Fifty captured the Grade 1 Clement L. Hirsch), but 13 of the 21 El Camino Real Derby winners between 2000 and 2020 never won a graded stakes following the El Camino and four of them ended their careers in cheap claiming races.
After watching Rombauer blow past Midnight Bourbon and Medina Spirit to win the Preakness by 3 1/2 lengths, I immediately thought of the El Camino Real Derby hallway and the race’s golden age when it produced five Preakness winners in 16 years.
Rombauer, second in the Grade 1 American Pharoah and fifth in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile as a 2-year-old, made his 3-year-old debut in the El Camino, rallying from 11 ½ lengths back to defeat the filly Javanica by a neck. After finishing third, beaten 5 ¾ lengths in the Grade 1 Blue Grass at Keeneland, Rombauer had enough points to compete in the Kentucky Derby, but his owners John and Diane Fradkin elected to bypass the race and instead compete in the Preakness.
When speaking to the media following Rombauer’s Preakness victory, Diane Fradkin said, “We won the El Camino Real Derby. That was our Derby.”
I was surprised to learn the Fradkins hold the El Camino in such high esteem, given the race’s ungraded status and the fact that they live in Southern California, home of highly regarded Derby preps like the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby and Grade 2 San Felipe. I decided to call Rombauer’s trainer Michael McCarthy and ask him about how Rombauer came to use the El Camino as a springboard to the Preakness. McCarthy had won the 2018 El Camino with Paved (so far the only filly to win the race in its 40-year history) and saddled Connemara to victory in 2010 edition as an assistant to Todd Pletcher, but those runners had pedigrees that suggested that turf and synthetic races, not the Triple Crown series, were in their future.
“[The El Camino Real Derby] was more or less John [Fradkin’s] choice,” explained McCarthy. “I would have liked to have run right out of my stall [at Santa Anita]. All things being equal, I just feel it’s easier on a horse. If we had run in one of these preps at Santa Anita, he would have run a mile or a mile and a sixteenth. I did not think that running a mile and an eighth on a surface that was foreign to him and putting him on a van was in his best interest, but he’s a very smart horse. It was unconventional, but he was afforded a free entry into the Preakness because he won the El Camino Real Derby.”
In the El Camino on February 13, Rombauer was unhurried as he trailed the field in eighth before commencing a rally with a half mile to travel in the 1 ⅛-mile event. After angling between rivals midway on the far turn and swinging to the six path near the quarter pole, Rombauer rapidly gained on the leaders under jockey Kyle Frey’s left-handed drive and collared Javanica 30 yards from the wire en route to a neck victory.
“I have to thank Kyle Frey,” said McCarthy. “We were further back than we would have liked, but he was able to get his nose down at the wire. Good thing he did or maybe none of this is possible.”
Following the El Camino, McCarthy and the Fradkins debated where to run Rombauer next before circumstances led them to the Grade 2 Blue Grass on April 3 at Keeneland.
“After winning the El Camino, I would have been happy to run out of our stall in the Santa Anita Derby,” said McCarthy. “John did a lot of hard studying and numbers work and thought a race like the Wood Memorial would have been a great spot, but Tex Sutton was not flying to New York at that time and when shipping into New York you usually end up training at Belmont and shipping into Aqueduct for the day, so the logistics were not easy. We ended up in the Blue Grass by chance. At that point, I was happy just to get the horse started somewhere.”
Rombauer in the Blue Grass stalked the early pace along the rail in third, got shuffled back to sixth on the backstretch, advanced back into third going into the far turn, briefly fell back to fourth while being scrubbed by Florent Geroux, and lost ground in the stretch to the top-two finishers Essential Quality and Highly Motivated but stayed on well enough to take show honors.
“You don’t always like to ship out of state to race against the 2-year-old champion in Essential Quality, but [Rombauer] showed up,” said McCarthy. “He had been training well and the race was basically paceless on paper and we needed to keep the horse closer to the pace than we would have liked. I think that may have taken a little bit of the starch out of him, but he ran well in defeat and his gallop out was fantastic.”
McCarthy believes Rombauer would have given a good account of himself in the Kentucky Derby, but the Fradkins never wavered in their desire to skip the race in favor of the Preakness.
“I was bullish on running in the Derby,” said McCarthy. “John and Diane felt like the Preakness was the way to go. We had a couple of discussions, but I never really pushed it.”
The Preakness results make it difficult to question the Fradkins' decision as Rombauer made a steady run from sixth to challenge the leaders at the top of the stretch before driving clear to a 3 ½-length victory under jockey Flavien Prat.
“There were three or four different points during the race when I was content with our position and thought we were moving well,” said McCarthy. “At the 3 ½-furlong pole, I started to think the horse was moving better than a few others. There was a marquee or stage in the infield and I had a hard time seeing what was going on, so I looked over to the matrix board. When I looked at the matrix board, I could see the horse was moving well. Chad Brown’s horse [Crowded Trade] started going up and down and it did not look like he was making a ton of forward progress. At that stage, I looked to see who was coming from behind and it did not look like anybody was going all that well. When I looked back in real time, I could see my horse was not gaining on the leaders but certainly was not moving back from them. I looked at the jumbotron again and could not see my horse and got nervous. I looked at the top of the stretch and for a jump I could not see him, but from my vantage point he was blocked because he was coming outside of Midnight Bourbon and Medina Spirit, and when they straightened for home and I could see my white bridle and my white helmet cover and the Fradkin silks, I started getting real excited.”
“Unfortunately, I could not have my family join me with COVID protocols still in place at a lot of elementary schools,” said McCarthy. “When the horse crosses under the finish line you expect a hug and a fist bump and all that stuff that you do, so there really was none of that. Todd was there. I spent 11 ½ years working for him, and that was the next best thing to family.”
When asked to describe what he learned from Pletcher and Lukas, McCarthy struggled to provide a succinct and specific answer.
“Their attention to detail, organization, showing up, always putting in the work,” said McCarthy. “This blog does not have enough space to start talking about something like that. It’s a hard question to answer in just a few seconds. It’s perseverance. It’s everything. It’s giving it your best every day. It’s showing up and doing your job properly and leaving it all out there every day. Todd’s tree is growing. George Weaver, Jonathan Thomas, myself, and a couple of other guys have been lucky enough to spend some time there and climb the mountain.”
Although there was a smaller-than-usual Preakness Day crowd due to COVID protocols, Rombauer’s victory generated excitement at Golden Gate Fields. Track announcer Matt Dinerman described the scene.
For this year's Preakness, I made my way to the first floor bar, where many trainers and owners relax in between races. Although there were surely plenty of people who had bet on horses other than our El Camino Real Derby hero, everybody I talked to before the race indicated they would love to see Rombauer win – or at the very least run well – in the second leg of the Triple Crown.
Out of the gate, we were watching and, like most race viewers, chatted to the people around us about how the race was unfolding. One person exclaimed, “Baffert's got an easy lead again!” when Medina Spirit entered the backstretch. At the half-mile pole, I looked to a friend next to me and said, “You know what? Rombauer is in a good spot and he looks good. He’s just coasting right now.” Midway on the far turn I told the same person, “He’s still in with a chance. He’s clearly into third.”
At the quarter pole, John Velazquez started to get to work on Medina Spirit. Irad Ortiz Jr., aboard Midnight Bourbon, had yet to shake the reins at his mount. Flavien Prat, atop Rombauer, started to pump on his mount and used the whip once before turning into the stretch. At that point, a few of us said, “Midnight Bourbon's gonna be tough.”
Turning for home, Rombauer was starting to catch up. His stride changed, his feet quickened, and the son of Twirling Candy began to accelerate.
“Come on, Rombauer!” one onlooker cheered, followed by the rest of the bar. The sound of discussion turned into loud cheering in a matter of a second or two.Shouts of “Go, Rombauer, Go!” and “Come on, baby! You got this!” could be heard as Rombauer roared to the lead inside the furlong pole. Drawing off from his company, the high fives began amongst our group, and the cheers of victory bellowed through the bar as Rombauer hit the wire clear of his competition.
McCarthy said he appreciates the support from Northern California horsemen and racing fans.
“It’s exciting to have a horse come from somewhere like Golden Gate Fields, which is not known as having a bunch of Triple Crown contenders,” said McCarthy. “We’ll take all the support we can get on a big day like that. I’m sure it’s fun for the fans to know the horse had raced there and has Golden Gate Fields in his past performances. They had done a wonderful job of being able to persevere through the pandemic. Although it’s not top-class racing day in and out, it’s full fields, they got a good program, and they have a lot of good horsemen.”
Given how McCarthy hails from a branch of the Lukas coaching tree, it would be particularly fitting if Rombauer emulates Tabasco Cat and won the Belmont Stakes after having previously taken the El Camino Real and Preakness. No matter what happens in the Belmont Stakes, the 2021 El Camino photo and its storyline of Michael McCarthy continuing the El Camino-Preakness tradition certainly would make it worthy of inclusion among all of the other photos that had captivated me during my youth.
Great article. Thanks for writing it.
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