ELMONT, N.Y. – On the walls of his office and in areas throughout his Belmont Park barn are photographs of some of the biggest victories in the career of trainer Rick Dutrow. There are Big Brown’s tour-de-force triumphs in the 2008 Kentucky Derby and Preakness. There are winner’s circle photos of Kip Deville winning the 2007 Breeders’ Cup Mile and Benny the Bull the 2008 Dubai Golden Shaheen.
Getting back to races like that has always been the goal for Dutrow, who exactly two years ago Friday began training following a 10-year-ban handed him by the New York State Gaming (née Racing) Commission for various rules violations.
In November 2023 – just seven months after his return – Dutrow won the Breeders’ Cup Classic with White Abarrio. Saturday, Dutrow has an opportunity to secure a return to the Kentucky Derby when he starts Captain Cook as the potential favorite in the Grade 2, $750,000 Wood Memorial. A top-two finish in the race will assure Captain Cook a spot in the Derby.
Dutrow, 65, said he was confident he’d be able to return to Thoroughbred racing’s premier events.
“I knew that was probable because I didn’t do what these people accused me of, they did wrong, so somebody’s got to pay for that,” Dutrow said. “And look at me now. I knew it was going to happen.”
During his suspension, many people in the racing industry tried to help Dutrow get his penalty reduced. Among the people who wrote letters of support was Vinnie Viola, a Thoroughbred owner who had never had a horse with Dutrow before last year. Among the horses Viola has given Dutrow is Captain Cook, who is 2 for 2 with Dutrow, including an emphatic victory in the Withers Stakes at Aqueduct two months ago.
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“He tried to support me when I was out of action, he wrote letters, he tried to help me – a lot of people tried to help,” Dutrow said. “He gave me a couple of horses and then this Captain Cook appeared and he said, ‘Rick, I couldn’t imagine another person I’d want to send him to.’ ”
Viola was one of many owners involved with Always Dreaming, who won the Kentucky Derby in 2017 for trainer Todd Pletcher. Viola is part-owner of another Kentucky Derby contender, Sandman, winner of last weekend’s Arkansas Derby for Mark Casse.
Viola, who also owns the reigning Stanley Cup Champion Florida Panthers of the NHL, prefers to stay in the background. He declined to go on the record for this story aside from acknowledging that about five years ago he told Dutrow, “One day, I’m going to send you a good horse out of the blue,” Viola said.
How good Captain Cook is has yet to be determined. He was owned by John Hendrickson – the widower of Marylou Whitney – who died last August. Captain Cook made one start at Churchill Downs last October for the Whitney Estate and trainer Norm Casse, finishing sixth in a six-furlong maiden race.
In that race, Captain Cook, a son of Practical Joke, was squeezed at the start, rushed up on the backside, then lost some position going into the far turn before making a second run around the turn. He was forced five to six wide in the stretch and battled on down the lane, beaten only four lengths.
That performance caught the eye of agent Steve Young, who purchaseed the son of Practical Joke for $410,000 out of the Hendrickson dispersal in November.
“When a first-time starter comes with three different runs, that doesn’t happen every day,” Young said. “At the end of the day, he got beat four lengths with more than subtle trouble and more than one time. When he was in [the sale], he’s a blue-chip prospect you got to look at. When I went to look at him I wasn’t looking for quality, he had already announced that to us, I was looking just to see if he was sound.”
When Captain Cook first got to Dutrow, the trainer was unimpressed. The horse was not very big and he showed no personality. Dutrow even had Young call Casse, who told Young the horse is typically high energy.
Maybe Captain Cook was saving himself. On Dec. 28, over an extremely sloppy Aqueduct main track, Captain Cook made his first start for Dutrow, winning a seven-furlong maiden by 9 1/4 lengths under Manny Franco. It was what Captain Cook did after the wire that impressed Dutrow.
“What I liked about that race is how he galloped out, he was giving Manny a hard time,” Dutrow said. “I said ‘Manny, what’s up with that?’ Manny said, ‘He didn’t want to stop Rick, he just wanted to keep going.’ ”
Five weeks later, in the Withers Stakes going 1 1/8 miles over a fast track, Captain Cook, despite racing three wide throughout, drew away in the final three-sixteenths of a mile to win by 2 1/2 lengths.
“We were kind of impressed with that because we didn’t have a clue if he wanted to go two turns coming off one muddy race,” Dutrow said.
Dutrow immediately talked about waiting two months between races for the Wood. In that time, he’s seen a transformation in the horse mentally.
“When you pulled him out [of his stall] three months ago he’d walk around here as slow as you would want,” Dutrow said. “Now, he’s picked the pace up, we can notice that. Whenever you come by, he is at the front of the stall, he wants to know what’s going on. He’s eating all of his candies now, which is good. He didn’t know about it when he came, he was just skeptical of it, now he’s yelling for them.Just little things like that, not that he’s reaching out further in his training or he’s breezing fast, just little things about him himself are showing signs of a better horse.”
On Tuesday, Captain Cook completed his preparations for the Wood by working a half-mile by himself in 48.22 seconds over Belmont’s training track. Under Franco, Captain Cook appeared to be just cruising through the lane.
“He’s been looking like that for a long time. He looks very good, looks like he’s just doing it freely,” Dutrow said. “He looks good doing it, he’s been looking good doing it.”
Dutrow’s return to training coincided with the creation of a new regulatory body, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority and its anti-doping agency the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit. Dutrow has incurred one penalty, the finding of the Class C medication phenylbutazone in the system of one of his horses after a workout in January 2024. He was fined $500.
Dutrow said he has no problems abiding by whatever rules are in place. What has frustrated him, however, is the constant scratching by track veterinarians of what he believes are racing-sound horses from not only his stable but others.
“They are scratching more sound horses than they are helping us,” Dutrow said. “It’s a problem. The horsemen don’t like it. We train a horse for 45 days, everything is beautiful. They come in and wave a magic wand and he’s limping? Come on, man.
“Anybody can read a rule and know that you can’t do that, but when they come in here and they cause problems for the horses that’s ridiculous,” Dutrow added. “You report it to people, they don’t even call you back? Nobody cares.”
As he begins his third full year back in the game, Dutrow is somewhat content with how things have gone. He has won 111 races since returning – including the Grade 1 Whitney with White Abarrio on his 64th birthday. Dutrow will soon – perhaps as early as Saturday – become the 31st trainer to eclipse the $100 million mark in career purse earnings. He has 1,922 career victories.
Dutrow currently has about 55 horses between New York and Kentucky but says he would like more. He has owners, such as Faisal Al Qahtani’s FMQ Stable, owner of Masmak, entered in Saturday’s Excelsior Stakes, who are capable of putting the kind of quality horses Dutrow craves, back in his barn.
“I’m happy with what we have, we’ve got some runners, we got a couple of nice ones,” Dutrow said. “Got a good stable, got some good help, all we need now is more of it.”
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