BREEDERS' CUP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

October 27, 2001

Michael Cooper

Lanfranco Dettori

Chris McCarron

Jay Robbins

JAY ROBBINS: He could get back to Sakhee. He's game. Very game.

CHRIS McCARRON: It was too far for my comfort. I don't know the exact margin. It was probably a neck or so. To be perfectly frank, I thought I was riding for second money when we approached the eighth pole. There was a pretty good battle going between the three of us as we straightened out. When Sakhee went by me so readily and with so much momentum I thought I was riding for second money.

CHRIS McCARRON: I don't have a good enough vocabulary to describe his resolve. He is absolutely awesome.

CHRIS McCARRON: I didn't share this with Jay before the race. My buddy Jay gets nervous enough as it is. I was more concerned with the post parade and staying on his back. I ride a bit shorter in the afternoon than I do the morning. Consequently, I drop my stirrup four or five holes. Just so that if he pulled the antics that he does in the morning, he wouldn't as easily get me off his back. He warmed up brilliantly. He balked a little bit as we made the turn for the cameras, and he stopped and he raised his head and started to go behind the pony and that was the only time he did anything. Once I felt the impulsion he was moving forward, I told the pony boy, let's go. I could feel the forward motion from that point forward. He was fantastic.

MICHAEL COOPER: Immediately, yeah. She was such a special lady and a special friend of mine and, you know, I certainly wish she had been here. I think Tiz knew in spirit she was here. The way he came back in that race and gutted it out right down the line kind of like the way she was, too. I thought about her immediately. Thanked her again.

JAY ROBBINS: I don't know. Chris would be able to tell you more about that. We've seen similar behavior. What do you think? Is he a better horse because he has those quirks?

CHRIS McCARRON: I think of the 47,000 foals born each year, maybe more than 30,000 get to the training stages. I would say there are probably several hundred horses around the country that misbehave in this fashion. But it's the good ones that get the headlines. Good ones that get the attention. Because they're so good and so accomplished, stories are written about their behavior. Nobody writes about a $10,000 claimer that wants to stand on the track and look and doesn't want to go at first. There's a lot of horses that behave this way.

CHRIS McCARRON: When I first pushed the button about the three-furlong pole, I did get a jump forward at first. I didn't get a feeling of acceleration that I'm used to with him. I didn't get any -- I didn't get any deceleration feeling, but I didn't get that typical nice burst that I got last year at Churchill Downs. Then when Sakhee got to my hip, Tiznow saw him before I did. And I felt an acceleration at that point and I said, oh, good, I got the response because when I first asked him to run, he just -- he's very strong-minded or willed, maybe wasn't ready to go yet. He's always ready to go when the competition comes out. In spite of the fact Sakhee got by him, he did accelerate when Sakhee got to him. Sakhee had a great deal of momentum and good head of steam up. Tiznow out-gamed him and you used the word before, he had more resolve.

CHRIS McCARRON: It's always nice to win. The Europeans take the worse of it coming over here. They're really to be commended for running Sakhee on dirt. They're really to be commended with each and every horse they bring to the United States.

CHRIS McCARRON: Answer that.

MICHAEL COOPER: Is there a rule against three?

CHRIS McCARRON: I was fortunate enough to win a lot of nice races for pretty handy trainers, Charlie Whittingham. He would be very proud of this guy here knowing that he pulled it off. This is a feat that very few people would be capable of. Charlie would certainly be one of them, I had a tremendous amount of pleasure and great privilege to ride for him. He's looking down at Jay right now. I know he's smiling.

JAY ROBBINS: Saying quit smoking.

CHRIS McCARRON: The only thing against Point Given is the fact that he never beat older horses. In fact, I thought going into the beginning of today that if Officer would win impressly, I could see him win being named Horse of the Year. Regardless Tiznow won and what Point Given had done through the year. I don't know. Tiznow is awfully conservative.

JAY ROBBINS: I have something to add. Is Horse of the Year based on overall accomplishment or is it based on the best horse? Who's the fastest, the best horse that is the toughest to beat when you put them on the racetrack? Obviously they never had the chance to run against each other. But I would welcome the opportunity too late now, but I think that you have to look long and hard at who they ran against and what they did rather than winning more races.

MICHAEL COOPER: He's the horse of my life. I'm not going to worry about the year.

MICHAEL COOPER: Want me to handle that?

JAY ROBBINS: It's your horse.

MICHAEL COOPER: Well, I think if Tiznow comes out of this race sound, I think we want to go for another year. I mean, he's a racehorse, and there are plenty of times to do other things. If we can keep him sound and happy, I think he'll be a racehorse for another year.

CHRIS McCARRON: I just wish that Tiznow would go, go out there and run like he did in the Santa Anita Handicap and just get down and run as fast as he possibly can from the head of lane to the wire and show the world what he's capable of doing. He wins photos, but he obviously gives us all heart failure. But he's not quite putting on 100 percent in these races. I don't know if he's -- I don't know if he's giving me 95 percent, 98 percent or 80 percent. But I know it's not 100. And I'm just longing for the day that he pulls a Secretariat and wins by 31.

ERIC WING: Apparently it was reported somewhere that you give Tiznow vodka on occasion. Is that true? And if so, did you give him vodka at some point this week and what effect --

JAY ROBBINS: I had considered giving him some money. That's an old trick giving the horse some alcohol to relax him more after he jogged on Sunday because he was pretty fractious, but liquor stores are closed on Sunday and he showed a lot of improvement on Monday morning when he galloped his behavior. So we didn't give him anything.

JAY ROBBINS: I had more confidence because Giants Causeway had to catch him last year and Sakhee got about a neck in front of him today, so I had more confidence because I didn't think he'd ever let Giants Causeway go by last year.

JAY ROBBINS: I thought that, well, he gave it another terrific try. I don't think today.

JAY ROBBINS: Well, I already admitted I thought I was running for second money at the eighth pole. Thoughts go like that through your mind. It's difficult to prevent that from happening, but that is a loss of focus and that's something we have to combat when we're out there. We have to stay zeroed in and focused on your task at hand. Occasionally you can have a thought like that and not miss a beat. Sometimes it does interfere. I don't think it interfered today, but there -- it can. It's -- Michael Jordan going up for a layup, he can easily be distracted by everything around him, but he's not because he's focused. I didn't mean to do that. I didn't mean to compare myself to Michael Jordan. Athletic endeavor is what I'm trying to say. That's it.

CHRIS McCARRON: Well, with the -- it could have been 110 percent today. But then again, I don't know for sure. All I know is that when I come back after a race on him, he has so much strength left, so much energy left and so much bounce and spring in his leg I can definitely feel when a horse is fatigued after a race when he's coming back. This horse just doesn't do that. Let me correct myself, after the Goodwood, I told Jay after the race he came back a little tired and I blamed that on myself because I didn't give him the proper warmup. I only jogged him for a little over a furlong that day. He was misbehaving. He wheeled a bunch of times and I didn't want to be unseated. I let him do what he wanted to do and I didn't give him a very good warmup. And that's counterproductive, not warming a horse up properly. It's counterproductive to go out into a strenuous exercise like this. He gallops out so strong after his races. He leaves his company behind. I always feel like there's more there.

LANFRANCO DETTORI: Are you retiring the horse next year? Well done, congratulations.

LANFRANCO DETTORI: For yours, yes, actually because one stage look it could have been off. First of all, the Maktoum family decided to go ahead and send the horses here, plus the fact they gave the prize money to the families of the September 11th disaster and it's great we picked up some money and it's all going to go to the fund and racing went on and looked ahead. We're going to beat this thing. The only thing we can do is carry on our jobs, be proud of it, and make us a better world to live in. It's been a great success. Don't you think so? It's been a great thing.

LANFRANCO DETTORI: The only reason I said early on in the week I didn't want the pair crash together, I wanted to make sure the pair were going to split and, you know, didn't matter who was going to run in the turf. They're both superstars and obviously with the likes of Galileo to the Classic, he left the turf wide open and when I was looking at the ratings this morning, Fantastic Light was ten pounds above everybody else in the field. The only way I was going to lose is fall off him. Sakhee was going to be the same thing. Godolphin split the horses and they both ran great. When you have races like that and they live up to the expectations, even if I lost. It was a great race and for a horse like Sakhee only run a few weeks ago and to take on the best American horses to the dirt and run. It must have been a great effort. In my heart he's still the winner to me, even if he lost. It's been a great race and, unfortunately, had to be a loser.

LANFRANCO DETTORI: When I did. When I went by Chris --

JAY ROBBINS: Tiznow.

LANFRANCO DETTORI: -- when I went by Chris, furlong and a half to go, a good neck up, I thought my horse stays a mile and a half. He's a very hard horse to get by, was more worried perhaps somebody coming from the outside. When I couldn't shake him off, full credit to Tiznow. He fought hard. I felt my horse the last 50 yards. He gave me everything. He had no more else to give. Tiznow just got back and got me back. It's a real shame but unfortunate to be a loser. It was great even in defeat.

LANFRANCO DETTORI: I felt I went by him. If I kept that momentum going, it would have been a foregone conclusion. Went by my neck twice, the rhythm of Tiznow. And full credit to Tiznow. He knuckled down and fought me back. I felt once I couldn't shake him off, already my petro gauge was going into empty, I knew I was there to be shot at. Tiznow's got a great reputation and a head like a dinosaur. I knew I had to get by by half a length to beat him sure.