Cal Cup

Unusual Heat Still Hot

ARCADIA, Calif. (Sept. 30, 2004) -- The heat, like the beat, goes on.

Unusual Heat achieved his first stakes victory as a stallion when his son Lennyfromalibu won the John C. Mabee Mile in 2003.

Lennyfromalibu, out of Style of the Year and now a 5-year-old, seeks a repeat in the $175,000 turf race in Cal Cup XV at Santa Anita on Oct. 16.

Cal Cup will be held at the Oak Tree Racing Association meet at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia. The day features 10 races for all divisions of California-breds with purses totaling $1.325 million. In addition to on-track, wagering on Cal Cup will be available at more than 30 simulcast locations throughout the state.

Cal Cup also will be televised by Television Games Network (TVG), which is carried on Dish and DirecTV satellite systems, as well as major cable providers.

The rich purses historically result in full fields and competitive betting races. Among the exotic wagers available are a $1 million guaranteed Pick 6 and a $500,000 guaranteed Pick 4. Those attending on track will also receive a promotional Cal Cup blanket.

Lennyfromalibu has earned more than $450,000 for his owner-breeder Madeline Auerbach. But Unusual Heat, who stands at Old English Rancho in Sanger, is hardly a one-horse sire.

His daughters Tucked Away and Thermal Ablasion, both out of Chemolo, soared past the $300,000 mark in earnings this year, further enhancing Unusual Heat’s unusual success story.
“That’s $1 million in earnings between those three,” Auerbach pointed out. “We never could have imagined it and nobody else could have either.”

For a horse once offered for sale in a newspaper ad, Unusual Heat at 14 continues to write his story in bold headlines.

Trainer Barry Abrams claimed him out of a winning $80,000, 1 1/16-mile race at Hollywood Park for a partnership that included Auerbach, Robert wolkoff and David Abrams, the trainer’s brother.

“I ran him in the Shoemaker Mile and he got beat four lengths,” Barry Abrams remembered. “Then I ran him for $125,000 at Hollywood Park in another mile-and-a-sixteenth race and he won again. But that was his last race.”

Auerbach, whose late husband James ran a furniture manufacturing company that she continues to run more than four years after his passing, regrets having no souvenir of Unusual Heat’s final victory at her home in Bell Canyon, in Ventura County.

“He bowed and didn’t make it back to the winner’s circle for photos,” she recalled with a tinge of sadness.

The Auerbachs bred several mares in those days but had no stallions. Unusual Heat didn’t figure to be their first.

“Because of his ongoing tendon problems, we thought we’d sell him,” Auerbach said. “We took out an ad in the Daily Racing Form offering him as a stallion for $50,000. We got one offer, but the man making the offer changed his mind.

“Then we realized how royally bred Unusual Heat is and we decided we would keep him. Obviously, we’re all thrilled that we did.”

Unusual Heat is by former French champion Nureyev. His Danish-bred dam, Rossard, was one of the finest racemares to emerge from a Scandinavian nation.

As a 3-year-old in 1983, she achieved an unprecedented quadruple sweep of the Danish Derby and Oaks and Swedish Derby and Oaks.

At 4, she made her U.S. debut in the Flower Bowl Handicap at Belmont Park, then and now one of North America’s most important grass races for distaffers. She won under Laffit Pincay.

In addition to Lennyfromalibu, Auerbach could be represented in the Cal Cup by Tucked Away and Orbits World.

Tucked Away, trained by Paddy Gallagher for owner Nico Nierenberg, ran seventh in last year’s $150,000 John Deere Distaff Handicap and is a possibility for the $150,000 TOC/CTT Matron on Oct. 16.

Orbits World is a full-brother to Lennyfromalibu trained by Abrams. He ran fourth against maidens on opening day of the Oak Tree meet.

-- Larry Bortstein