Not so terrible two

Trainer Cindy Krasner now has the local favourite for the $125,000 Manitoba Derby on Aug. 3, with a horse nobody wanted.

The 69-year-old former Hastings Park trainer saddled Really Ralis to win the $50,000 Derby Trial on Monday, defeating previous Derby favourites Prime Suspect, who had romped through a pair of local allowance races earlier this year for trainer Steve Keplin Jr., and Elston Gunnn, who defeated Prime Suspect to win the Golden Boy Stakes for trainer Tina Birdwell.

Really Ralis went through the BC Yearling Sale with a $5,000 reserve and did not come close to meeting it. Buyers took one look at his size and passed. Krasner’s longtime client, Dennis Spence, stepped in with a number and the colt changed hands for $2,500.

“I thought, God, for $2,500 you could triple your money as a show horse if he couldn’t run,” said Krasner.

But he could run. Really Ralis won his only start at two, and now heads into the biggest race of his life as the local choice.

None of this is new for Krasner. She has been training horses for 52 years. Her father was a trainer and her mother worked in the barn. Her born-in-a-barn pedigree all but guaranteed she’d make a good trainer herself, and it was right.

“My mom was the kind of person that if we had a new horse come into the barn, she’d sit on a chair there with a book all day, just to watch that horse and see what it liked and what it didn’t,” said Krasner.

That’s where her eye for a horse comes from. She still walks her own shed row every morning and can tell how a horse is doing before she is anywhere close to touching it, which takes her feeling for the horses up another notch. It’s something Krasner says you cannot learn any other way.

“I’m very hands-on,” said Krasner. “I muck stalls and walk horses and bathe and groom. Always have.”

She runs a small operation for just that reason. It’s her, longtime assistant Tracy McNeil, groom Ashley Martin and nine horses.

Krasner arrived at Assiniboia Downs without fanfare this spring, and when I asked who she was, the answer I got was a quietly emphatic: “You’ll see.” That was the tip-off. A little research showed why.

Krasner is 3-7-0 from 15 starts here so far, good for a 20 per cent clip, but that undersells her. At least three of those seven runner-up finishes could have gone her way with better racing luck.

The horses that have passed through her barn speak for themselves. Krasner trained 2008 BC Derby (G3) winner and Horse of the Year Krazy Coffee, and Artic Son, a US$500,000 earner with a record of 13-6-5 in 34 starts between 1997 and 1999, who she calls her best horse.

“He ran until he was eight,” said Krasner. “Winning many, many stakes.”

There was also Wando Woman, who earned over US$300,000 and won numerous handicaps at Hastings, and Someday Lady, winner of the Sadie Diamond Futurity in B.C. and over US$100,000 in career earnings. The list goes on, and adds up to a career record of 504 wins, 531 seconds and 489 thirds from 3,326 starts, for purse earnings of $8,357,283.

Suffice to say Krasner knows what she’s doing, but like her newly minted Derby favourite, she is not flashy, and she prefers to stay in the barn with her horses rather than talk about herself. She did, however, have high praise for Assiniboia Downs.

“This is a great place to race, “said Krasner. “The people have been very accommodating, and they’re very rah-rah about racing. They’re out to try and make racing what it should be, and I’ve got to give them kudos for that, because there’s a lot of places that don’t. I’ve told them you’ve put a great taste in my mouth since I’ve been here. I have no qualms about shipping here.”

“My horses are running good,” continued Krasner. “They run where they’re supposed to run and when they are ready to run. It’s not just lead them over there because they can run in this race. I try to make every race count. If you’re patient and you do what’s best for the horses, they’ll repay you for that and run good for you.”

A colt nobody wanted for $5,000 is about to run for $125,000, with a trainer who has waited 52 years for her first shot at the Manitoba Derby. Krasner isn’t getting ahead of herself.

“One day at a time,” she said.