IT’S PROBABLY FAIR to say that Jarred Cretzee and Sarrasin are both world travelers.
Cretzee, born in South Africa, has been an exercise rider and assistant trainer in Australia and Hong Kong for the last several years. Meanwhile, Sarrasin has been racing throughout Europe and Australia for the last four years.
Now, their journey has brought them together nearly 10,000 miles from Sydney, Australia to New York, in particular to Saratoga Springs, to compete in Saturday’s Grade 2, $250,000 Bowling Green Handicap for older turf horses running at 1 3/8 miles.
Sarrasin, a 6-year-old horse bred in England, has just two wins in 10 starts while competing against tough competition that includes Winx, a 7-year-old mare who has now won 25 consecutive races.
“He’s well-traveled,” Cretzee said. “He raced well in France. He’s lightly raced, but he’s a quality animal. He had couple of races in Australia and came out of them with a couple of issues. So, we gave him some time off.”
The decision in coming to North America was a quick one, according to Cretzee, who has been Richard Freedman’s assistant trainer for the past year. However, Australian Racing Stables and Freedman believed it may be the best option for the 6-year-old horse bred in England with the peak of the racing season beginning in Australia.
“It was a last-minute thing that we decided to come to America. It’s a long way to go to take a chance,” Cretzee said. “The big season is now kicking off in Australia. The races just didn’t suit him. The races here seem to fit him. I think the conditions here are suited for him to reach his full potential.”
It has been a challenging transition for Sarrasin since leaving Australia on June 23. Following a 21-hour flight, he was quarantined near the airport for two days, then brought to Belmont as the heat wave just began going into July.
“It wasn’t ideal for him because he was in isolation,” Creztee said about Sarrasin being placed in quarantine. “He couldn’t go outside. He couldn’t go for walks. I could check on him, but there had to be an officer with me all the time. That was an early hurdle in our trip so far. He then came out of Australia in the winter into a heat wave at Belmont. He took a big knock there.”
That wasn’t the only challenge for Cretzee and Sarrasin. Cretzee had found a one-mile allowance race on July 7 for the horse, whose career wins were achieved at 1½ miles. Sarassin didn’t have much of an impact for his first effort in this country as he trailed throughout the race, but Cretzee looked at the outcome as a learning experience.
“We wanted to give him a preparational run, so we put him in a mile,” Cretzee said. “We underestimated the speed in a race going a mile. In Australia, they will slow the pace down, they quicken it near the end. He has been trained not to have early speed. This was an educational run.”
Since that race, Cretzee said he has noticed some improvement in Sarrasin since bringing the horse to Barn 81, which includes other horses trained by Shug McGaughey, Christophe Clement and Horacio DePaz.
“He’s a much happier horse since coming to Saratoga,” Cretzee said. “I have been trying to keep him happy with his routine.”
However, one of the changes in Sarrasin’s routine since coming to Saratoga has been training with blinkers, a piece of equipment on a tack to prevent the horse from seeing the rear and side.
“I breezed him the other day with blinkers for the first time,” Cretzee said. “He was a lot more focused when I tried the blinkers on him. We want to get him more involved in the race rather than trailing the field. He can get distracted and start looking around.”
If Sarrasin races well in the Bowling Green, there is a chance he could come back on Travers Day on Aug. 25 to compete in the Grade 1, $1 million Sword Dancer at 1.5 miles, though Cretzee knows this will not be an easy task.
“If he doesn’t win it, we want to see him be amongst the finishers,” Cretzee said. “There’s a bit of pressure on us. We have to see how he performs as we move forward. Ideally, we would like to get into the Sword Dancer. I think he will run a better race. My only concern may be the tight turns, but he has handled it well during training. He will be a different horse.”
