Star-Crossed Cup Unimpressive Ricks Natural Star Noses His Way Into Breeders’ Picture
One man’s wildest dream and the Breeders’ Cup’s worst nightmare arrived in darkness here at Woodbine earlier this week after traveling 2,000 miles on an eventful cross-country van trip.
The 7-year-old New Mexico-bred gelding’s name is Ricks Natural Star, who, after a lifetime of mediocrity at bush-league tracks from San Juan to Sunland Park, is rubbing fetlocks with some of the best horses in the world.
This is all because William Livingston, a 66-year-old veterinarian, bought him for $3,000 last summer and entered him in today’s $2 million Breeders’ Cup Turf - the first major stakes race for Ricks Natural Star, his first race on grass and his first at a distance beyond a mile.
The Ricks Natural Star story was bizarre enough from afar, but on Tuesday, Livingston’s first morning along the Woodbine backstretch, he greeted reporters with a kindly smile, invited two of them to sit on his horse - they accepted - and with a straight face entertained them with some of the most far-fetched palaver this side of Ruidoso Downs.
Reporters had to do something until Cigar, the heavy favorite in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, arrived from New York late Wednesday. And Breeders’ Cup officials might be smiling outwardly about the commotion Ricks Natural Star and Livingston have stirred up. But along with the Woodbine stewards, they are inwardly cringing, hoping something will happen to prevent the horse from running.
Trainers of the 13 other horses in the 1-1/2-mile Turf are not thrilled either by the prospect of messing with a sprinter who hasn’t run this year and who has won two of 23 races and purses of $6,093.
Richard Mandella, who is trying to win the Turf with Talloires, winner of the Caesars Palace Turf Championship, doesn’t approve of Ricks Natural Star, but he also doesn’t have any suggestions that might help rule him out. Ricks Natural Star was on an also-eligible list at pre-entry time a week ago, but two defections have moved him up into the body of the race. The maximum field for any Breeders’ Cup race is 14 horses.
“It’s a tough problem,” Mandella said. “And I don’t know the answer. A lot of long shots have won Breeders’ Cup races. You can’t insist that a horse runs at least one time in the year leading up to the Breeders’ Cup, because that might work against good horses coming off layoffs. Look at my horse. He won the Caesars coming off an eight-month layoff.”
In 1993 at Santa Anita, Gilded Time, who hadn’t run in more than a year, finished third in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, beaten by less than a length. But Gilded Time had won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile the previous year, completing an undefeated campaign that earned him an Eclipse Award.
If Ricks Natural Star runs today, it will be almost 14 months to the day of his last start. On Aug. 25, 1995, he ran last in a 5-1/2-furlong race for $3,500 claiming horses at Ruidoso Downs, N.M. Ricks Natural Star ran three times that month at Ruidoso, and his last race before those was Dec. 19, 1993, at Sunland Park, also in New Mexico.
Livingston’s horse hasn’t won since Oct. 27, 1993, when he beat $3,500 claimers going a mile at Sunland. He ran the first three races of his career in Puerto Rico, finishing ninth in the 1992 San Juan Derby, his only stakes start.
“I’m going to win it,” Livingston said of the Turf. “Crazy? I’m just different.”
Livingston, a graduate of Colorado State University who lives in Artesia, N.M., said he has developed three remedies - a treatment for navicular diseases in horses, a food supplement that slows aging in humans, and a medication that cures leukemia in cats.
Horse and man left Artesia for Woodbine last Thursday, stopping at Remington Park in Oklahoma City for a 6-furlong workout in 1:21 2-5. According to the Daily Racing Form, that leisurely workout was Ricks Natural Star’s first since the summer of 1995. Sally Williams, who rode the horse for his workout last week, is a Remington jockey who will ride him today. Riding in 200 races this year, Williams won 10.
Ricks Natural Star’s passage across the U.S.-Canadian border was delayed at Windsor, Ontario. Livingston, who didn’t obtain his first trainer’s license until shortly before leaving New Mexico, said there was red tape to be cleared. There were also reports he insulted a customs agent.
Consequently, Livingston and the horse spent a night at a budget motel near Detroit, the owner-trainer in a room and Ricks Natural Star in a surreptitiously constructed, roped-off pen out in back. At check-in, Livingston hadn’t bothered to ask if the motel accepted pets.
They crossed into Canada the next day and arrived at Woodbine on Monday night. Livingston met an exercise rider in a nearby bar and hired him on the spot to gallop the horse up to the race.
Ricks Natural Star looks too pooped to pop and has a conformation not unlike a camel’s. At $3,000, Livingston may have overpaid. He said he might have to borrow money from a New Mexico bank in order to raise the $20,000 entry fee due last Wednesday.
A son of Natural Star - who was by Raise A Native - and the Crimson Star mare, Malaysian Star, Ricks Natural Star was bred by Dub Rice of Lubbock, Texas.
“Are you sure you got the right horse?” Rice said when told about Livingston’s Breeders’ Cup plans. “If this horse does any good, you can just cross me off your list, because I think I would just keel over.” xxxx LOCAL ACTION The seven championship races of the Breeders’ Cup, horse racing’s premier event, will be carried today at Greyhound Park in Post Falls. The first race from Woodbine, Ontario, is the Juvenile Fillies at 10:50 a.m. The final, the Classic, is scheduled about 2:30 p.m. Local horse players will wager directly into the betting pools at Woodbine in Toronto. Parking and admission at Greyhound Park is free. Greyhound Park is not accepting reservations for tables. Gates open at 6:30 a.m. The first race at Calder (Florida) is 7:30 a.m. Past performances of Breeders’ Cup entries are available at Greyhound Park and two Valley locations, the Quick Stop at 8119 E. Sprague and the 7-Eleven on North Pines just off I-90.