Cal-bred News

As Breeder, Abrams is Unusually Hot

OCRegister.com
ARCADIA, Calif. (Nov. 1, 2007) – Breeder/trainer/owner Barry Abrams has lost the ability to taste food.

“I eat because I have to, but I get no pleasure out of it,” he said Wednesday.

Because he is unable to produce saliva on his own. Abrams constantly has to swig water from a bottle to help him swallow.

“I drink 20 bottles a day,” he said. “I also had to have a lot of my teeth taken out and I can’t speak as clearly as I used to.”

All these are the effects of cancer of the tonsils which struck Abrams 2 ½ years ago and took him away from the track for six months. He is still battling the disease.

“The doctors tell me the radiation treatments on my jaw are working so far,” he said. “But they say it takes five years altogether before you really can say you’re over it.”

A 6-foot-3 gregarious bear of a man, Abrams, 53, weighed 325 pounds when his medical ordeal began and is down to 250.

“The weight’s leveled off,” he said. “I don’t worry about it.”

Abrams is getting a lot of help in dealing with his medical issues from a 17-year-old horse named Unusual Heat. Claimed by Abrams at Hollywood Park for $80,000 on June 10, 1996, Unusual Heat has become a powerhouse stallion—and may just be hitting his stride. An astounding 12 sons and daughters of Unusual Hat were among the 96 runners entered Wednesday for the 18th Cal Cup—10 stakes races worth $1.365 million for California- bred horses.

“I can see one of his offspring winning a Breeders’ Cup race one of these days,” said Abrams, who owns Unusual Heat in partnership with his younger brother David, 48, and Madeline Auerbach.

Abrams’ story was already unusual before Unusual Heat came into his life. He’s the only trainer in Southern California who was born in Russia, raised in Poland and Israel and grew up speaking mostly Russian and Yiddish. His parents, Lev, a sausage maker, and Rosa, a bookkeeper, brought their sons to California in the early 1960s to join other members of their extended family already in residence.

As teenagers, the Abrams brothers attended races at Hollywood Park. Though he took business and accounting classes at Cal State Los Angeles, Barry decided he wanted to work outdoors.

“Our parents knew nothing about racing and didn’t think being around horses was the right career for a nice Jewish boy,” he recalled.

Starting with harness horses at Hollywood Park in 1972, Abrams worked his way through the ranks with Roger Stein, then the leading trainer of trotters and pacers in California, and followed Stein into the thoroughbred side as his assistant in 1987. He opened his own thoroughbred stable in 1993.

The secret to Unusual Heat’s success as a stallion, Abrams said, has been his ability to “move up” the mares to which he is mated—meaning even those with nondescript or non-existent racing records produce foals that can run.

“He’s ranked third in the country among all stallions in that category,” Abrams said. “His foals can do anything, run on any surface, run long or short and they win at any age.”

Abrams trains five of the 12 Cal Cup entrants sired by Unusual Heat, one of which is Add Heat, a 4-year-old colt who will compete in the $250,000, 1 1/8-mile Classic, the richest race on the card. Add Heat won a 1 ¼-mile allowance race here Feb. 18.

“His reward for winning that race is taking on Lava Man in the Cal Cup,” Abrams said with a laugh. Despite finishing sixth in his last two races, Lava Man, winner of the Santa Anita Handicap and Hollywood Gold Cup earlier this year, is the 7-5 favorite in the Cal Cup Classic, which has 11 entrants.

“If Lava Man runs like he can, we’re all running for second or third money,” Abrams said.

Abrams also is the trainer of these Unusual Heats (Cal Cup race): Spenditallbaby (Distaff), Guts (Juvenile), Unusual Suspect (Mile), Dadsalittleunusual (Mile).
-- Larry Bortstein