The Canadian Sportsman
Lee Way
Back To Lee WayApril 30, 2010
Bad timing, that’s all. In another place, at another time, things could have been very different for Shanghai Phil.
It’s hard for trainer/owner Dustin Jones not to think about what could have been. The horse was a star at two, battling the likes of Rocknroll Hanover and Village Jolt. When he retired after a disappointing three-year-old year, the Quebec-based Jones thought he had province’s next great stallion — a pacer to hopefully, one day, mean as much to Quebec racing as Garland Lobell did on the trotting side.
His early crops were well-supported and highly-anticipated, but soon, they would have nothing to race for and nowhere to race. The Quebec racing industry was in free fall, bringing Shanghai Phil and his offspring down with it.
“We thought he could dominate in Quebec as a stud, because we always priced the horse for the little guy. We brought him into Quebec and our idea was to keep him low to encourage people to breed to him. We tried to do everything right and then all of a sudden the bottom falls out of everything,” said Jones, sadly.
“We put him here hoping that we’d have a horse, sort of like Garland Lobell was in Quebec on the trot, but he never had a chance. Half of his horses in the first crop weren’t even trained. The ones that did race, they just raced them a couple of times and then stopped with them because there were no Sires Stakes. The horse could never prove himself with no Sires Stakes for his first three crops,” he said.
By the time he landed at Ontario’s Kendal Hills for the 2009 breeding season, there had been no precedents set by his offspring and the memory of his 2004 glory days, including winning stakes such as the Champlain, International Stallion and Bluegrass, were beginning to fade.
Buoyed by reports coming from Kendal Hills that Phil had been tearing up the hills, full of energy, Jones took the horse home to Quebec to see if he could get him back to the track.
“He didn’t grow, but he’s thicker now in his rear and his neck. Of course, he’s eight now, instead of three. We just played it by ear. At three, he wasn’t himself, not like he was as a two-year-old. Now, he’s behaving like he did back then. All the same characteristics that he had as a two-year-old are coming out,” said Jones, who is currently training 28 at his farm, among them a three-year-old son of Shanghai Phil named Dirt Road Phil who recently broke his maiden at Flamboro.
To be sure that Shanghai Phil (Blissfull Hall—Matter Of Style) was up for it, Jones trained him in :58 and schooled him three times off the gate at Mohawk before he even qualified the horse.
“We didn’t want to put him in the races unless we were sure he was going to go a good race because people had bred to the horse and I didn’t think it would be fair to them if we put him back on the track and he didn’t perform well,” said Jones, who shares ownership with Hudson Standardbred Stb. Inc. — which owns a nice-looking Shanghai Phil filly named Petite Courageuse, trained by Dave Byron and racing at Georgian Downs, with a record of 3-2-1 from eight career starts.
Despite more than four-and-a-half years away from the track, Shanghai Phil didn’t take long to re-acclimate to his surroundings. He finished second by a head in his first start back on April 6 at Georgian Downs, then won his next two starts on April 13 and April 20 with times of 1:53.2 and 1:51.3, respectively, coming within one tick of his life’s mark.
This Saturday, May 1, he’ll take another step in his comeback by returning to action at Woodbine Racetrack, where he competed at the highest level in 2004, finishing third in both the million-dollar Metro Pace (Rocknroll Hanover) and Breeders Crown (Village Jolt).
“He’s jumping up (in class) this week, so it’s hard to say. He always did compete well at Woodbine,” said Jones.
“Right now, he’s having fun. The horse is very happy with himself, jumping in the stall and eating everything. It hasn’t been stressful for him. We’ll take it week by week and see what happens.”
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