131ST BELMONT STAKES

June 5, 1999

Laddie Dance

Carl Pascarella

Scotty Schulhofer

Jeanne Vance

LADDIE DANCE: My, what a handsome group.

JEANNE VANCE: Unbelievable. I don't think I've ridden a horse so hard in my life. Every stride we were yelling at him and we've always had confidence in him, just hoping he would prove to us and we would have a chance to prove it to others

JEANNE VANCE: You take your best shot. Had it been reversed, you know, everybody is potentially a spoiler. And if you have the best horse, you can do it.

LADDIE DANCE: I think generally, and I have had the utmost confidence in Scotty wherever he's late getting here, but all along we felt this horse was from the future on. He's developed, he's a May 28 foal, just had his birthday the other day. We decided to skip the Preakness. And we knew in the pedigree he could get the mile and a half and he did it in such a game, gutsy fashion in the stretch. I mean, it was just magnificent. This is the second Belmont that Jeanne and I have been to. We had a share in the Secretariat. I didn't see that one cause I was crying so hard, but this one was a little closer and the tears started after he crossed the line.

JEANNE VANCE: You cried harder.

LADDIE DANCE: He had to try harder.

JEANNE VANCE: No, you cried harder.

LADDIE DANCE: I cried harder. It was a wonderful day. Scotty deserves all the credit in the world and Jose and Lemon Drop

LADDIE DANCE: We haven't missed a race. Like it's at the barn almost every day. We come to New York to see him. It's kind of our favorite child at this point. By far the favorite child right now.

MR. LEE: Question about the injury to Charismatic.

LADDIE DANCE: Well, this is the first I heard of that.

LADDIE DANCE: That's the first I heard of it. I feel very, very sorry for the Lewises, if that's the case. Then let's hope it's not life-threatening. Let's hope everything will come along fine.

LADDIE DANCE: Absolutely.

LADDIE DANCE: No, when he got that huge lead, I think it was probably the greatest sports event I've ever witnessed, you know, being a horseman.

LADDIE DANCE: I think both of us --

JEANNE VANCE: Sure.

LADDIE DANCE: -- shed she had tear.

JEANNE VANCE: Why not.

JEANNE VANCE: Originally I used to show saddle horses many years. Was a horse, Lemon Drop Kid, a champion harness horse, when it came time to name this horse, he was a tough horse to name. There wasn't really anything to work on. I sent in this name, it seemed to suit him. Since that time I learned it is a Damon Runyon character. The whole thing comes together even better than I anticipated.

JEANNE VANCE: Not really. He has gone through growing stages, but nothing really that you might consider a setback or anything that -- no injuries, knock wood, and my heart really does go out to the Lewises. I did not realize that their horse had an injury and I feel very badly for them.

JEANNE VANCE: I sincerely hope so.

LADDIE VANCE: I see Billy Farish over against the wall. Lemon Drop Kid has got a full brother in the Keeneland Summer Sale. I guess we'll have to go down and take a peek at him. I'm afraid he'll fetch more than the 200,000 we gave for him.

JEANNE VANCE: I tried to ask Scotty earlier before the race. He kind of hedged a little bit. We don't know what our goal would be.

LADDIE DANCE: Lord willing he stays sound. We definitely are not going to retire him at the end of his three year old. If he's sound, wants to run, we're going to run him at four.

LADDIE DANCE: Five, six years.

JEANNE VANCE: Been a good friend for a long time.

LADDIE DANCE: I've known Scotty since he rode Jumpers. I'm considerably older than Jeanne.

JEANNE VANCE: Not much.

LADDIE DANCE: Scotty and I are kind of the same era. When Lucien used to train for us (Lauren) and then Roger, then when Roger retired, we got Scotty and called him up and he's just an absolute horseman through and through.

LADDIE DANCE: No. We're Maryland and Florida.

LADDIE DANCE: No.

JEANNE VANCE: We had a share in him when Penny Tweedy syndicated him upon her father's death. As a matter of fact, he was our first Derby that we ever went to. He was our first Preakness. We followed him throughout the whole Triple Crown racing series and he was awesome to behold. He was wonderful.

LADDIE DANCE: We'll take it.

MR. PASCARELLA: We keep trying. The thing I think is wonderful is three years in a row to have a horse that is that close to the VISA Triple Crown challenge trophy, and the five million dollars is really tremendous. And as we drive forward in this thing, we just renewed through 2005 our relationship with thoroughbred racing is the best we have. In sports we've got NFL, Olympics, several baseball teams, a number of partnerships. We're into the arts and things like that. Never have we had the cooperation with a sponsorship that we have with thoroughbred racing. You know, our heart certainly goes out to the Lewises and the folks, but that's what racing is all about. Lemon Drop Kid, Scotty, I had horses. My first horses I had back in the states, Scotty was training. So he's you know a great trainer. It's a wonderful sport. We're just very pleased to be affiliated with it. As I say, six more years really to 2005. It's been a wonderful relationship. One of these years we're going to give away that five million dollars.

LADDIE DANCE: We have a two year old, we'll hope to see you here next year.

MR. PASCARELLA: Like the company I get a piece, I keep talking to the Farishes. Could I get a piece of the horses that come out, cost maybe 200,000 or 50 or 660. Never see them come up.

LADDIE DANCE: Keep them for themselves.

MR. PASCARELLA: I think the aspirational value, the Kentucky Derby, for instance, has the Preakness and the Belmont. When you have a Triple Crown at the Belmont, I don't think there's a more exciting day in sports. When you can encapsulate that two minutes of just raw emotion and everybody working so hard, it's phenomenal to be associated with that. The aspirational aspects that association gives your brand is something that's wonderful. We use it for sweepstakes and bring a number of our clients here. It's just a win-win situation on every aspect of the relationship.

MR. PASCARELLA: I don't think so. Because what I think is that it shows that this is a true sport. If there's anything, this is the great equalizer. You see it in baseball where you can go out and you can buy a team and that team will probably have a very good chance of winning a pennant and probably a World Series. Same thing for football. But the real issue is you can have a $17,000 horse or a $60,000 horse or a half a million dollars horse, and it's the field level. None of these horses, no matter how much they've cost really --

LADDIE DANCE: How he doing, Billy?

MR. PASCARELLA: I think that's part of the game. It's part of the sport. You hate to see that. You hate to see any kind of an injury or an accident take place, but hopefully it's from what I heard at least preliminarily. It's not life-threatening. It's something you have to live with, like anything else, but I don't think that detracts in any way, shape or form from the spectacular sport that thoroughbred racing is.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: No, train them the same way. If they run a mile and a half. They'll run a mile and a half. You can't make them do it by training them.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: He came over great. He was cool, calm, collected in the paddock and as I've always told you, he's been ever since we put him in training, he's been a nice horse in training, never had a problem with him at any time. He just needed a little time to grow up and get to, you know, he's a May 28 foal. He's peaked at the right day.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: I saw it up the backside. Jose had him placed real good, looked like the two horses. The filly on the lead, Charismatic right in behind her. They hooked up. Jose had him in place when he started moving around the turn and got him into position, turned for home. He looked like he was right Jose to stick his head in front and come on.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: It's what I had visions of, but as I told Jose. Jose says to me in the paddock. He says, what you think, I should be around 4th? I said, it depends how fast it's going, who's going. That's up to you. I can't tell you. You got to use your own judgment there.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: He came back beautiful out of the race. He didn't care for the slot and Jose got off. He said he wasn't himself. He came back great, he's trained great right up to this race. You wouldn't want a horse to do any better.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: Going into -- with Colonial Affair I was very confident. I told Julie (Jockey Julie Krone), don't worry. When you get ready, wait and sit there and make your move. Into this race, I didn't think I was quite as confident yesterday as I was. Then when I got in the paddock today, I had a great feeling and I told Jose just go on out and get the job done.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: We thought about going to it. Then when we got to thinking more it's going to be a big field and Mrs.`Vance was happy to wait and come to Belmont and give him a chance and go to the Peter Pan and point for the Belmont.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: We finally got our racetrack a good, clean trip. Everything worked good. And a good rest. We didn't have much of a trip, and then the Derby, we were stuck outside of all the horses the whole way. The Peter Pan, it was a sloppy track. So today looked like things come together real good.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: He broke and the inside horse came out and shoved him and knocked him sideways, then up the backside. Johnny moved a little bit on him and he got to running. He run into a blind switch and had to snatch him up. He really had no place to go until he got inside the eighth pole by that time. He was a fairly young horse, only had the one race before that all year and he was just green and, you know, you can't do that with young horses.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: I was, but I was happy when I saw him.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: I have to quit making those statements. He was going to have to prove I'm wrong or right. Looked like today he --

LADDIE DANCE: We're all right.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: We're all right.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: He rode him beautiful and you know he loves the horse. So I think it's very appropos.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: I didn't notice what happened. I heard that he had broke a bone or something. That's only hearsay.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: Naturally you hate to see a horse get hurt or anything happen to them. But, you know, I would feel much better if it hadn't happened.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: I just feel like Scotty.

LADDIE DANCE: There was a big mutuel.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: He's moving in that direction.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: I'm very happy to win. I mean, that part is for you sports writers, not me to worry about.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: Great people. Couldn't ask for two nicer people to train for. It's just -- it's a great experience this late in life to have people like this and not trying to tell you everything every day.

LADDIE DANCE: We feel that generally and I have always felt whoever trained the horses that we're not horse trainers, they belong to Scotty from the time he gets them till they're retired and he's the boss and he tells us where to go.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: I'm sure. I'm sure we will. Certainly I hope I have them though. We got one that's coming up next year, we hope.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: When I saw --

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: I knew she could run that far with the boys. But she was on the lead and Jerry is a good rider and he had Charismatic, started pressing a little bit. I got a real good feeling. It looked like things were setting up really okay.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: Got to be an exceptional filly.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: Uh-hum. That's the way the race -- when races are set up, if you let somebody on the lead by himself just gallop along, you might be able to have enough gas left to kick in, you can't catch 'em.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: We're going to give him a nice long rest and probably see about the Jim Dandy or the Travers for sure.

JEANNE VANCE: We didn't say that.

LADDIE DANCE: At that time we had a band of brood mares and of course the syndicate dollars did not share in his earnings, but we bred to him for a long time.

LADDIE DANCE: No, no.

SCOTTY SCHULHOFER: Thank you.

LADDIE DANCE: Thank you all.

JEANNE VANCE: Thank you very much.