This Star Creating Quite a Stir

One man’s wildest dream and the Breeders’ Cup’s worst nightmare arrived in darkness here at Woodbine 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 now 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 will enter him today in Saturday’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 have to do something until Cigar, the heavy favorite in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, arrives from New York, which should be late today. 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 longshots 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 Saturday, 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 who lives in Artesia, N.M., said that 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 six-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 Saturday. Riding in about 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 that 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 today.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

1996 BREEDERS’ CUP

WOODBINE RACETRACK

TORONTO, CANADA

Saturday, 10:30 a.m., Channel 4

TRACK:

Attendance capacity: 40,000

Seating capacity: 18,996

Stable capacity: 1,860 stalls

*

CLASSIC:

Purse: $4 million (includes nominator awards)

Age: 3-year-olds & up

Distance: 1 1/4 miles

*

Main track:

1-mile oval with a 7-furlong and a 1 1/4-mile chute

85 feet wide

6% banking on turns

Distance from final turn to finish: 975 feet

*

Championship runnings

Year: 1984

Track: Hollywood Park

Attendance: 64,254

* Wagering: $16,452,179

*

Year: 1985

Track: Aqueduct Racetrack, New York

Attendance: 42,568

* Wagering: $26,941,288

*

Year: 1986

Track: Santa Anita

Attendance: 69,155

* Wagering: $26,941,288

*

Year: 1987

Track: Hollywood Park

Attendance: 57,734

* Wagering: $31,864,457

*

Year: 1988

Track: Churchill Downs, Louisville, Ky.

Attendance: 71,237

* Wagering: $42,932,379

*

Year: 1989

Track: Gulfstream Park, Hallandale, Fla.

Attendance: 51,342

* Wagering: $55,345,677

*

Year: 1990

Track: Belmont Park, Elmont, N.Y.

Attendance: 51,236

* Wagering: $55,328,195

*

Year: 1991

Track: Churchill Downs, Louisville, Ky.

Attendance: 66,204

* Wagering: $67,588,113

*

Year: 1992

Track: Gulfstream Park, Hallandale, Fla.

Attendance: 45,415

* Wagering: $76,876,726

*

Year: 1993

Track: Santa Anita

Attendance: 55,130

* Wagering: $79,744,742

*

Year: 1994

Track: Churchill Downs, Louisville, Ky.

Attendance: 71,671

* Wagering: $78,224,530

*

Year: 1995

Track: Belmont Park, Elmont, N.Y.

Attendance: 37,246

* Wagering: $64,075,209

*Wagering includes on-track and simulcast handling

Classic

Past winners

*--*

Year Horse Jockey 1984 Wild Again Day 1985 Proud Truth Velasquez 1986 Skywalker Pincay 1987 Ferdinand Shoemaker 1988 Alysheba McCarron 1989 Sunday Silence McCarron 1990 Unbridled Day 1991 Black Tie Affair Bailey 1992 A.P. Indy Delahoussaye 1993 Arcangues Bailey 1994 Concern Bailey 1995 Cigar Bailey

*--*

Schedule of Races

*--*

Race Distance Purse Juvenile Fillies $1 million 1 1/6 miles Sprint $1 million 6 furlongs Distaff $1 million 1 1/8 miles Mile (turf) $1 million 1 mile Juvenile $1 million 1 1/16 miles Turf $2 million 1 1/2 miles Classic $4 million 1 1/4 miles

*--*

Championship moments

Lowest and highest odds for Breeders’ Cup winners:

Meadow Star: $2.40 (1-to-5) - 1990 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies

Arcangues: $269.20 (133-to-1) - 1993 Breeders’ Cup Classic

*

Youngest winning trainer

Phil Hauswald: (28); Epitome, 1987 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies

*

Oldest winning trainer

Charlie Whittingham: (76); Sunday Silence, 1989 Breeders’ Cup Classic

*

Youngest winning jockey

Walter Guerra (22); Oustandingly, 1984 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies

*

Oldest winning jockey

Bill Shoemaker: (56); Ferdinand, 1987 Breeders’ Cup Classic