Thirty years later after trying to get Sea Hero, Reed finally has his own Kentucky Derby horse for the Grade 1, $1.25 million Runhappy Travers on Saturday
Eric Reed almost had his Kentucky Debry and Travers Stakes horse 30 years ago.
While Reed was winning races at racetracks on both sides of the Ohio River in the early 1990s, he was looking for horses that could win stakes races on the minor circuit for one of his successful owners: Bwamazon Farm.
Meanwhile, Paul Mellon started dispersing his Virginia-based Rokeby Stables in 1992. Reed thought this would be a good opportunity to contact Hall of Fame trainer Mack Miller, who played an integral part to his family. Miller helped raised his father Herbert Reed who became orphan in Versailles, KY, then he mentored him to later trained horses.
After many horses were dispersed, Mellon and Miller still had a few remining. One of the horses that caught Reed’s attention was the well-bred Sea Hero.
“When I was getting some of my big breaks early and I was training for Bwamazon Farms, the farm manager asked me to find something that could run in the smaller derbies in Ohio and Illinois,” Reed said. “I thought Sea Hero would be great for those races, which he would have been.”
However, Miller had other plans for the homebred by the 1987 Jim Dandy winner Polish Navy and the multiple stakes-winning turf mare Glowing Tribute.
“I called Mack and basically told him that I needed a horse like that and thought he had one,” Reed said. “Mack said, ‘I am going to win the Derby with that horse. I don’t think he’s the one for you.’”
It took four races for Sea Hero to win his first race in September 1991 at Belmont Park, but then he followed that with a victory in an allowance race and the Champagne Stakes. Just like with the start of this 2-year-old career, Sea Hero needed three races to eventually win his first race as a 3-year-old: the Kentucky Derby. After disappointing efforts in the Preakness, Belmont, and Jim Dandy, Sea Hero bounced back with an off-the-pace run to win the Travers by two lengths over favorite Kissin Kris.
“I don’t know what he saw in that horse, but I do know that Mack Miller was a better horseman than I was during that time,” Reed said. “Obviously, Mack knew what he was talking about.”
Reed now has his own Kentucky Derby winner for the Grade 1, $1.25 million Runhappy Travers at Saratoga Race Course on Saturday with Rick Dawson’s RED TR Racing’s Rich Strike. The 3-year-old is trying to become the first Kentucky Derby winner since Street Sense to win the Saratoga’s Midsummer Derby in 2007.
This isn’t Reed’s first trip to Saratoga. In fact, Reed has been in the Winner’s Circle twice with Spring Party and Princess Phoebe when he brought small group of horses to Saratoga in 2011. Since then, he saddled Keg Party in the 2013 Curlin Stakes and Complicit in the 2020 Glens Falls Stakes.
This time, Reed knows he is here for the biggest race of the meet with Rich Strike, who he and Dawson claimed for just $30,000 at Churchill Downs almost a year ago. The chestnut-colored colt, who pulled off an 80-1 upset in the Kentucky Derby after getting into the race when Ethereal Road scratched, is looking to surprise the Travers field just like his sire Keen Ice did when he defeated American Pharoah in 2015.
Since finishing a disappointing sixth place in the Belmont Stakes, Rich Strike has been working well at Reed’s Mercury Training Center, Churchill Downs, and Saratoga. In fact, Rich Strike had posted an eye-opening workout on Aug. 19 that went in 59.82 seconds for five furlongs.
“He worked really good, He worked faster than we thought he would, but he did it easily. I think my question on him liking the track was answered,” Reed said. “It is probably as good as he worked, even since before he did going into the [Kentucky] Derby. Everything is in good shape. All we have to do is do some paddock schooling and keep him happy and healthy.”
Going to into the Travers, as it has been for most of his four-decade training career, Reed continues to follow Miller’s advice and adage, and he hopes that carries with Rich Strike.
“You have to follow the course. That’s what Mack has always told me. Always go slow, horse first,” Reed said.
Rich Strikes comes into the Travers with the Belmont Stakes being a possible key race. While the winner Mo Donegal has been sidelined for the rest of the year with a bone bruise, runner-up Nest came back to win the Coaching Club American Oaks and the Alabama at Saratoga. The third and fourth finishers from that race were also first and second in the West Virginia Derby three weeks ago – Skippylongstocking and We the People, respectively.
In trying to complete the Kentucky Derby-Travers double, Rich Strike faces a solid group of challengers with the finishers of the Jim Dandy – winner Epicenter, runner-up Zandon and fourth-place finisher Early Voting – as well as the Haskell winner Cyberknife.
“Epicenter has been the horse to beat every race. He’s the horse to beat again. To get to the winner’s circle you have to go through him, but we need a lot of luck in the way the race is run because we come from so far back,” Reed said to Bloodhorse. “[Rich Strike] just has that running style. But I know he’ll run a much different race than what everyone saw in the Belmont because there’ll be some pace, and he’ll like that track a little better than he liked Belmont.”
As Reed and the RED TR Racing team leave the paddock and pass the Sea Hero statue, which has been a centerpiece of that area for the last 26 years, they hope that Rich Strike will become their hero in the Winner’s Circle for the Travers.
