When John Gaines and John Nerud brainstormed the Breeders' Cup, the idea was to create a venue for the top horses, jockeys, trainers, owners, and breeders to compete on a glittering national stage.
An inordinate amount of purse money for the time was offered and a positive response came from across the world with horses from the United States and Europe willing to compete among a gathering of the sport's best of the best.
Then, in the richest race, the $3 million Breeders' Cup Classic (G1), was captured by a little known 31-1 shot named Wild Again, who last raced at Bay Meadows and was owned by Black Chip Stable and trained by Vincent Timphony, who, according to Equibase, won 186 races in his career and never had more than 21 victories in a single year.
On a day when races were won by trainers such as American current and future Hall of Famers Frank Martin and Neil Drysdale and well-known Europeans John Gosden and Alain de Royer-Dupre and victorious horses were owned by Harbor View Farm of Affirmed fame and the Aga Khan, the biggest prize of all went to the sport's little guys.
The 40th edition of the Classic offers the same type of scenario, horse racing's best and brightest assembled on a two-day, 14-race stage and in the biggest race of them all there are two of the little guys with longshots hoping to emulate Timphony's heroics with a longshot victory.
Just call them the other Chad and the other Todd.
In the Nov. 4 $6 million Classic at Santa Anita Park, where Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher will send out two starters in grade 1 winner Bright Future and Dreamlike and future Hall of Famer Chad Brown has a grade 1 winner of his own in Zandon , you have trainers Todd Fincher and Chad Summers. Both with horses who will probably be around 30-1 or more at post time in Joe Peacock Jr.'s Senor Buscador (30-1 in the original morning line) for Fincher and RRR Racing's Clapton (20-1) for Summers. Yet in the grand scheme of things, if there turns out to be a brutal early pace, perhaps one or both horses can make their presence felt at the wire, just like Wild Again.
Stranger things have happened in the Classic, as anyone who bet on Arcangues at 133-1 in the 1993 edition can attest, and both Summers and Fincher surely have hopes as high as their odds.
"Everyone picks against you and we're kind of used to that Rodney Dangerfield treatment. I know we're a million-to-one but I wouldn't bet against us," Summers said. "They all have holes. I'm not sure if most of the field wants to go a mile and a quarter, but we will. No one will outfinish us."
One of the most compelling aspects of racing is that with the right horse a trainer with a dozen horses in his stable can beat horses conditioned by someone who oversees 20 dozen horses in a multi-million dollar race. It doesn't happen often, yet the possibility that it can fuels the drive of people like Summers, who trains about 11 horses in New York, and Fincher, who is based in New Mexico at small tracks such as Zia Park and The Downs Racetrack and Casino in Albuquerque.
"A guy like me is trying to win a maiden $30,000 claimer at Aqueduct in February just to try and pay the bills and keep the staff going," Summers said. "When you're a small stable you don't get that opportunity to have a big horse. The big guys, they start off the year with 200 horses and have the crème de la crème. You don't. It's a matter of which one makes the Breeders' Cup for them, not if we make the Breeders' Cup.
"I'm blessed to work for people like Al Gold and Gold Square and (Sheikh Rashid bin Humaid Al Nuaimi of RRR Racing). They afforded me opportunities that maybe I don't even deserve based on my record. I haven't even won 75 races. But I feel we belong here and this horse belongs here more than anything else."
Equibase puts Summers' win total at 62 since 2017 and with 65 starts in 2023, he may have helped saddle more horses than that for other trainers. Yet he did have his proverbial 15 minutes of fame with a big horse.
Summers was the owner and trainer of Mind Your Biscuits, a multiple graded stakes winner and earner of $4.2 million who brought him to the Breeders' Cup three times with a second in the 2016 Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1) at Santa Anita and a third in the 2017 edition at Del Mar. In the New York-bred's last race, he was 11th in the 2018 Classic after suffering an allergic reaction to Lasix.
Now a stallion in Japan, Mind Your Biscuits is the sire of Classic entrant Derma Sotogake.
Mind Your Biscuits was also a two-time winner of the Dubai Golden Shaheen (G1) and his success opened the eyes of Middle Eastern connections to Summers' work, leading to several opportunities to train American-based runners for them.
It was through meeting Sheikh Rashid in 2017 that eventually led to working for RRR Racing and becoming Clapton's trainer when the connections bought the 4-year-old Florida-bred Brethren colt from his owner and breeder Arindel.
He was acquired after a second in the Suburban Stakes (G2) at Belmont Park at the Classic distance of a mile and a quarter.
"Arindel made an offer they thought we wouldn't match, but we did," Summers said. "I wasn't shopping in Wal-Mart anymore."
The idea was to send Clapton, then a grade 3-winning victor in six of 22 starts, to Dubai with the Dubai World Cup (G1) as the ultimate goal. But Summers had other thoughts.
"I said there was a million-dollar race at Saratoga in the Jockey Club Gold Cup (G1). Why don't we use it to see where we are? He ran really, really good when he finished fourth and the first words out of (jockey Irad Ortiz Jr.'s) mouth when he got off the horse was this horse could win the Breeders' Cup. You watch the replay and once you see that a bird tripped the teletimer you know they were crawling on the front end. We were about 11-wide turning for home and we got beat 2 1/4 lengths by Bright Future and Proxy , who were 1-2 and were considered Breeders' Cup Classic horses. Perhaps with a little more racing luck, things could have turned out differently."
The connections plans after the JCGC was to send Clapton to Ocala and prepare for quarantine to send the son of the Afleet Alex mare Alexandra Rylee overseas. But again, Summers had a different idea.
"The first race in Dubai wasn't until January so I figured why don't we keep playing with him," Summers said.
That led to running Sept. 30 in the Lukas Classic Stakes (G2) at Churchill Downs, where Clapton rallied from seventh to win by a head.
Again, facing the prospect of paying $150,000 to enter and run in the Classic as a longshot, the connections wanted to ship the horse to Dubai. Yet Summers was more confident than ever that Clapton could hit a high note in the 10-furlong Classic. So, at the 11th hour, he hopped a flight to the United Arab Emirates with a 13-page document, to plead his case explaining why Clapton belonged in the Classic.
"I had lunch at Sheikh Rashid's palace. It was incredible. Here I am this kid from Long Island having lunch in a palace," Summers said. "I showed them how there would be plenty of speed in the race and how his races were a good measuring stick for how he stacks up against the other horses at the distance. They said, 'Go for it,' and I appreciate them having faith in our team and the horse."
On Saturday, Clapton will get his chance to validate Summers' belief in him.
"People say there's no pressure but there's plenty of pressure when you have one big horse like him in a huge race. You have a lot of time to think and you don't want to overthink because there's a huge difference between what you think and what happens," said Summers, who recently took over as the trainer for another of RRR's purchases, grade 1-placed Drew's Gold. "Everything has gone right so far. He's eating to the bottom of the barrel and he's hollering for more. The coat is beautiful. It got darker and richer. He's breezed really good and avoided trouble during one of the works. It will be very emotional Saturday. I'm flying in my father and brother because this horse has a shot."
A carnival-like life in New Mexico for Fincher
Like Summers, Fincher has been involved in the Breeders' Cup before. He sent out two moderately-bet but unplaced starters last year in Senor Buscador, who was eighth in the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile (G1) at 14-1 odds, and the New Mexico-bred Slammed, who was 12th in the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint (G1) at 14-1.
Now Senor Buscador has brought him back, this time to the electric atmosphere of the World Championships' main event.
"Considering where I train out of, it's pretty remarkable that I am here," said Fincher, who owns four wins in graded stakes.
Fincher trains on the New Mexico circuit, which he likens to a carnival life with several meets at different locales throughout the year. He has built a successful stable of 60 horses there. This year alone, he has 87 wins and his horses have earned $4.3 million. Yet winning at Ruidoso Downs is light years away from a victory at The Great Race Place in America's richest horse race that often crowns the sport's Horse of the Year.
"Coming where I come from you don't get the same opportunities as the trainers at the big tracks. The big guys are big for a reason. They have done a great job for a long time and they have great clients and they deserve it. Thankfully the Peacocks have been good to me," Fincher said. "To be a part of the Breeders' Cup is great. You can feel all of the excitement."
Fincher has molded the Kentucky homebred Senor Buscador into a multiple graded stakes winner who has captured six of his 14 starts.
"The good ones can come from anywhere. He's bred from a mare who we raced in New Mexico and from a sire with a (2024) $10,000 fee. We have a remarkable story with this horse," Fincher said.
Winner of the Ack Ack Stakes (G3) in 2022, a victory in the July 29 San Diego Handicap (G2) at Del Mar, put the Classic on Fincher's radar and a subsequent fourth in the Pacific Classic Stakes (G1) behind Classic morning-line favorite Arabian Knight and most recently a third in the Awesome Again Stakes (G1) sealed the deal.
"We want to show the world how good this horse is," Fincher said about the 5-year-old son of Mineshaft out of the Desert God mare Rose's Desert. "He belongs here. I hope we have him peaking the right time and he's ready to run his best race Saturday. That's been the plan the whole year. He's put himself behind the eight ball a few times by giving up way too many lengths early but he's definitely shown he can run with these horses. Hopefully everything goes his way and he can get the job done."
training Oct. 28 at Santa Anita Park
Fincher excels at getting the job done. Through 6,075 starts since 1998, he has won at a 24% clip with 1,428 wins and earnings of $42.1 million. If he wanted, he could probably be a mainstay at the major Southern California tracks, Santa Anita and Del Mar.
Yet as much as horse racing and caring for his horses is a passion for Fincher, there's much more to his life than his work at the barn. As much as he might be more successful on a financial basis in California, his bond with his sons in New Mexico outweighs that.
"I have two twin boys who are 11 and I'm divorced from their mother so I don't get to see them that much as it is. So, if I move to California, I would never get to see them. Possibly one day I might move, but I want to be around them as much as I can. That plays a big role in it," Fincher said. "You have to work all of it together. One day maybe I'll be in California, but I am happy in New Mexico. I am heavily involved in the New Mexico breeding program and have great clients and I'm not going to leave them dangling. It's a tough decision and one I will not be making any time soon."
So for now, Saturday's time spent in California will be brief and no doubt memorable, regardless of whether Senor Buscador wins or finishes off the board.
"To be in the Breeders' Cup Classic, it's special for anyone. Everyone wants to showcase the best horses in the world and it's a longshot for anyone to win it. We're here with a horse that has a shot and we're happy to be here," Fincher said.
Yes, Chad Summers and Todd Fincher are indeed at the Classic. The other Chad and Todd. And maybe, if racing luck shines on them, they just might serve up an encore of the very first Breeders' Cup by posting a win for the little guys in the land of racing's giants.
