Newsday
June 4, 1997
ELMONT, N.Y. -- Touch Gold looked nice in his new shoes. He's a nice-looking brown horse. The shoes are metallic. He gets new ones about every month, whether he needs them or not.
Sometimes David Hofmans throws his horses' old shoes out. I wanted one. Some he saves and gives to charity. These he said he would keep. "I think he's a special horse," the trainer explained. He kept the shoes Alphabet Soup wore when he beat Cigar in the Breeders' Cup Classic last year. He said he didn't have them bronzed.
THE HORSE DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING, BUT what his body was telling Hofmans was that the hoof he cracked in a courageous effort in the Preakness was cooler and drier and responding well with the fiberglass patch on it.
The way Touch Gold got up to finish fourth tells the trainer other things he wants to know. "Horse looks great," Hofmans said in the early overcast yesterday, his own smile the brightest thing among the man delivering carrots, the kitten and the rooster clucking defiance around Barn 3 at Belmont Park.
Touch Gold figures to be the first choice to intercept Silver Charm's bid to be the first Triple Crown winner since 1978. Hofman's respect for the game and the value of a Triple Crown winner when racing needs all the attention it can get makes him recoil at the concept of being a spoiler. "I'm not trying to spoil it," he said, politely but firmly.
For one thing, his horse is younger than the others and developing later. And he recalls Gary Stevens, who rides Silver Charm, winning the Lexington on Touch Gold in April and telling Hofmans the horse could run with Silver Charm or any of them. "I don't know what he thinks now," Hofmans said with a wry smile. He noticed that Stevens didn't take himself off Silver Charm to ride "us" in the Preakness.
BESIDES, HE HAS TOO MUCH RESPECT for Silver Charm, his owners and his trainer to think of himself as a spoiler. But then, he thinks his horse is right for the mile-and-a-half of the Belmont, and he endured the private moment of terror trainers know when Touch Gold stumbled coming out of the gate at Pimlico. The charts call it a stumble; actually, Touch Gold went to his knees and almost planted his nose in the track and sent Chris McCarron over the top. That was when Touch Gold's hind hoof came up and cut the forehoof.
"The horse goes down and you die," Hofmans said. "You think of things that can happen. You hope it's only a foot that's cut, not a tendon or ankle." He could merely lose the race, or lose the horse.
To him the gate is always a time of peril in the pit of his stomach, like takeoff in an airplane in a snowstorm, and this was extended for a few minutes by another horse that wanted his freedom when the starters wanted him in the gate.
"When I've got a horse in the gate, it's an eternity," Hofmans said. "There's a rattling. It's a noisy thing. I hope the horse next to him doesn't flip over. Is my horse standing right? The delay makes it worse for everybody. They have to be standing there on all four legs. The starters are moving them. Every noise, the horse thinks the gate is going to open. The longer they're in the gate, the more off balance they get. Every noise they hear, they want to break.
"Then the gate opens, the horse tries to break hard and the ground gives way." And there was Touch Gold on his knees when everybody else was off and running. Often horses that stumble at the start stay last. By the backstretch he had closed a lot of ground - "at a gallop while the others were in full run, and they're pretty nice horses," Hofmans said. Twice his route was blocked, and he finished less than two lengths behind.
WE'LL NEVER KNOW WHAT A PERFECT trip would have produced for Touch Gold. Maybe Silver Charm would have looked him in the eye and moved off. But that's impressive stuff for someone looking for a better price than Silver Charm will offer. Hofmans takes a grain of salt with his carrots. "People said we would have won by five if not for the start," he said, "I don't know. I don't think we know how good Silver Charm is. Horses come up to him but can't go by him."
He would be very happy to have Silver Charm win it - if Touch Gold doesn't. The horse that wins the Triple Crown has to earn it. "You can't let it be handed to you," he said. "That would be like a heavyweight fighter who's fighting a bunch of bums and gets handed a paper crown. If he wins, you want him in the category of Seattle Slew or Affirmed."
So he flew in from California Monday to get his first look at the horse in a week, and decided Touch Gold would work no harder than a gallop before the Belmont. Last Friday's lightning workout was quite enough, thank you. There is the continuing debate about whether a fast workout is good or bad. "The typical trainer's statement would be, `Exactly what I wanted,"' Hofmans said. "That was exactly what I didn't want."
HE BELIEVES ALL A FAST WORK PRODUCES is sore legs and anxiety, and Touch Gold always wants to do more than he's asked. "My job is to see that he doesn't," Hofmans said. "I want to save him for the afternoon he has to run."
This is, after all, the distance and the timing that seems right to him. Touch Gold turned 3 only a week ago. The Kentucky Derby was to be put out of mind immediately. The Preakness was a good thought, but that demonstrated nothing but nerve. This is the test. The trainer says modern technology has taken care of the hoof crack. What concerns him is the talent in the race.
He doesn't expect Touch Gold to sprint. "His whole way is distance," Hofmans said. "He's bred for it; he wants to do it. I think we fit with Silver Charm and Free House. Unfortunately, Captain Bodgit (retired) isn't here. He fits with them, too."
If Silver Charm gets his Triple Crown, he will have earned it.
Steve Jacobson is a sports columnist for Newsday.
Triple Crown facts and figures