from Meadowlands Media Relations
In the movie The Cincinnati Kid, Steve McQueen plays a rising poker star out to prove himself in a high stakes game against a master player.
On the racetrack, three-year-old trotter Cincinnati Kid is out to prove himself as a contender for harness racing’s highest stake, the $1.2 million Hambletonian at the Meadowlands. Eliminations for the Hambletonian will be contested on July 31, with the $1 million final to be raced on August 7.
After a successful two-year-old season, Cincinnati Kid took his first step toward the Hambletonian with a 1:55 clocking in a qualifier on Friday morning at the Meadowlands. Driven by David Miller, he finished second by a head to Adriano in the fastest trotting mile that morning.
“Originally I told David, when we discussed his status, that I was planning on two qualifiers before racing him,” trainer Anne Schlichtig said on Friday night. “It’s a rigorous campaign to the Hambletonian. He’s eligible to the Historic Cup and the Stanley Dancer. I wanted to keep him comfortable and aim for 1:56 or 1:57 this morning. David said he was feeling good and pulled him early. We’ll see how he comes out of it and whether he will qualify again before racing. He showed he is sharp enough to race at this point. After last night’s rain, the track crew did an excellent job preparing the track surface this morning, but it was still a bit inconsistent and not at its fastest. I’m anxious to see how he comes out of it.”
Cincinnati Kid was a $75,000 yearling purchase at Harrisburg by Fred Monteleone of Passaic, New Jersey. The son of Angus Hall-Desert Ivey earned an impressive $320,152 as a freshman. He landed his biggest paychecks with victory in the Campbellville at Mohawk and a runner-up finish to Cantab Hall in the Breeders Crown. However, getting the colt to the races was a yeoman’s task for his trainer.
“Training down he was a very difficult colt,” Schlichtig said.
“He had trouble with his eyes. He had trouble seeing out of his right eye and could not train in company. We rigged his bridle to draw his vision in closer to him and we were constantly preparing him for what would happen in a race. Because of his vision, he was nervous around other horses. Normally when you train two-year-olds, you train them in company. He was always more comfortable with horses inside of him. He couldn’t train a flat mile inside of a horse until well into last year’s Meadowlands meet.
“His caretaker likes to say that we bored him into submission,” she noted. “We just kept putting him in the same situation over and over again until he developed his own inner confidence. He does not have the killer competitive instinct, but fortunately for me, he was able to learn his lessons well.”
Cincinnati Kid also had a tough time fighting off colt sickness.
“He had a low immunity at the time,” she said. “He had a lack of resistance to the colt bugs that ran through the barns. If anyone was going to get sick in the barn, it was going to be him. I tried to protect him the best I could. I think it enabled him to mature and sit well. Physically, he’s virtually problem free now.”
When he was finally ready, Schlichtig schooled Cincinnati Kid in baby races at the Meadowlands before shipping him to Canada with the rest of her stable at the end of the summer. Things began to click for Cincinnati Kid in September.
“He won the Campbellville at Mohawk, which is the equivalent of [the Meadowlands’] Peter Haughton, and then won an Ontario Sire Stakes division in 1:56.1, which was a stakes record,” Schlichtig explained.
“Then he had a lull until the Breeders Crown; there weren’t any races for him. I thought he was a viable candidate for the Breeders Crown and he finished second, which we were very happy with.”
Schlichtig plans to keep Cincinnati Kid racing at the Meadowlands until the Hambletonian.
“I feel he brought his game up to another level this morning and that gives me a lot more leeway in what route we take to the Hambletonian,” she said.
Schlichtig, 50, has worked with several top trotters over the years, including two recent Hambletonian contenders. A graduate of Tulane University, Schlichtig put herself through college working with horses and gave up a possible career in medicine in favor of the equine lifestyle.
Schlichtig and trainer Tom Merriman campaigned Monte Hall, a consistent open trotter who made $834,513 before retiring at age six.
Monte Hall was a finalist in the 2000 Hambletonian. After finishing third in his elimination, he faded to eighth in the final.
“Monte suffered terribly from EPM [a neurological problem] from his two-year-old to three-year-old season,” she recalled. “He was lucky to make it to the final at all. If he hadn’t bled that day, I think that he may have picked up a good piece of it. We scoped him afterward and discovered that he had bled a little. He raced the rest of the fall on Lasix. Then we turned him out and gave him some time off.”
After knocking heads with the world’s greatest trotters, including Fool’s Goal, Varenne, Victory Tilly and Magician, Monte Hall made his last start on September 27, 2003.
“I had hoped to retire him with $1 million in earnings, but he had a heart fibrillation and that meant it was time to call it quits with him,” she said. “He’s standing in Quebec now [at Oka Valley Standardbreds] and is a popular sire.”
Schlichtig’s most recent Hambletonian hopeful was Civil Action, the 2001 Peter Haughton winner. Unfortunately, Civil Action went off stride on the first turn in his 2002 Hambletonian elimination and finished eighth. The following week, he uncorked a 1:53 victory in the Townsend Ackerman shortly after Chip Chip Hooray won the Hambletonian in 1:53.3.
“It was a twist of fate that, for some inexplicable reason, he made an uncharacteristic break in the eliminations,” she said. “He never made breaks. I trained him back myself after that, and he was fine. When he won the Townsend Ackerman he showed he was definitely the best horse that day. He was just in the wrong race.”