Trainer Don Swick has a hard time complaining about not winning last week's Little Brown Jug with Lonestar Legend, who won his first heat in a stakes-record 1:49.3, just a fifth off the World Record set by Somebeachsomewhere in the Confederation Cup last month, and finished second to Shadow Play in the final.
"It was great, it really was," Swick said. "To say that we were disappointed not to win the final, of course, yes, you are, but I was so happy with the way he raced the first race. Then he hung in there in the second heat, he was the best of the rest, but that was OK. We've had a lot worse days a lot of places; I was thrilled to death."
Swick would have liked to seen a tighter finish, though.
"The other day, my biggest disappointment was that he couldn't even keep up finishing with Shadow Play; we got beat six lengths in the final. Maybe he was tired. He'd never been two heats and I guess he had a good reason to be tired, too."
Lonestar Legend came out of the two-heat effort "really good."
"He's been a little thin and his attitude has been great. He hasn't backed away from his feed; he's been eating real good," Swick said. "It's not that he's put a lot of weight on in four days, but he looks better now than he has coming out of some other races. That could be because it's a little cooler weather, too."
Lonestar Legend is back at his fall training home at The Red Mile in Lexington, but he'll wait until next week to race at the speedy mile track.
"We're going to skip this week," Swick said. "Let him fatten up and rest up a little and give a try in the Tattersalls (October 4). I think we may supplement him to the Windy City (at Maywood Park in Chicago on October 10) then.
"It's six days after the Tattersalls, but if we give him this week off, it probably won't be bad, so that's probably the plan now – Tattersalls and then the Windy City at Maywood," he added. "After that, it's the first of November and he has the American-National, the Breeders Crown and that would be it."
Lonestar Legend's appetite has picked up a bit with help from an American icon.
"Marita Berglund, who used to take care of Continentalvictory, always told us when we had horses that wouldn't eat good, that she liked to give them white wine early in the day to get their appetite up a little," Swick said. "One of the girls who works for me was drinking a beer in the barn one day and I told her see if he wanted any of it. She held some in her hand and he licked it up, so he got where he likes beer, right now he likes Budweiser.
"The other day after the race in Delaware, the Budweiser hitch was there and they sent two big plastic buckets of beer on ice in to the Jug Barn," he added. "I told my wife to get one for me, one for yourself, one for Lisa Cleghorn, the caretaker) and one for the colt. He guzzled that beer down, straight, right out of the bottle. He had three of them that afternoon, after the race."
A few beers are turning into a daily habit for Lonestar Legend.
"Right now, since he likes it so much, we're putting beer over bran mash at lunch time; four cans," Swick said. "This just seems to jump start him for some reason, he goes out and eats grass more than usual. For some reason, it jump starts his appetite. Dr. John Cummins (Lexington-area veterinarian) says the brewer's yeast is good for his stomach, too."
Lonestar Legend had the services of driver David Miller in winning the Jug first heat, but Miller defected to eventual winner Shadow Play for the second and final heat. Swick hopes to get Miller back for the Tattersalls at The Red Mile.
"It would help if I can get David back to drive," Swick said. "Back on the mile track, our racing style will change dramatically. He hasn't been on a mile track since we left Canada (after the North America Cup in June). We don't want any part of the front end once we get back to the big track, so we have to hope he will reprogram calmly and sit and finish."
(Harness Racing Communications)