Track Talk: Negligee at the Breeders' Cup

ARCADIA, Calif. --- I am walking around Santa Anita Park today wearing a navy blue baseball cap with the word "Negligee" on it in bright yellow script.

No, the California sun and smog hasn't turned me into some kind of weirdo. I don't know what people's reaction to me would be in the "real" world, but here at the race track on the eve of the Breeders' Cup, everybody understands it. Some people even stop and say "good luck."

I received the cap this morning as a gift of George DiPiano and his wife, Libby, of West Seneca. George owns 2 percent of the 2-year-old filly named "Negligee" who is 6-1 on the morning line (she wears No. 10) in the $2 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies race, which goes to the post at about 4:45 p.m. Friday (ESPN2).

"Years ago, I was grooming horses and walking hots. And now I'm the owner of a Breeders' Cup horse. It doesn't get much better than that, does it?" George said while we watched the busy human and equine scene on the morning before racing's richest weekend.

The DiPianos got stuck in freeway traffic and didn't get to the track in time to watch Negligee gallop around the track. But I have seen her for the past two mornings and, in my opinion, she looks terrific. She's a compact, muscular bay who looks like a million bucks. But then, most of the 166 Breeders' Cup horses (they race in 14 events spread over Friday and Saturday) look great.

But it's not just me. Other people agree.

"The young filly gets the nod for workout of the day (Nov. 1) because of the manner in which she handled herself in her first serious move over the Pro-Ride [synthetic track surface] in preparation for the Juvenile Fillies," wrote Mike Welsch in the Daily Racing Form after he caught her half-mile workout in a zippy 47.12 seconds (while the official clockers timed it in 46.80 seconds.)

This will be the fourth career race for Negligee, a daughter of sire Northern Afleet and dam Naughty Notions.

The Kentucky-bred filly originally sold for $52,000 as a yearling and was trained at Woodbine in Toronto by top Canadian trainer Mark Casse, who is best known around the Buffalo area as the trainer of Gallant, the by-a-whisker winner of the 2009 Prince of Wales Stakes at Fort Erie Race Track.

After winning her career debut (you could have claimed her for $62,500) and finishing second in the $156,000 Ontario Debutante Stakes at Woodbine on Aug. 15, she was sold to her present owner, a 26-member syndicate (of which DiPiano is one member) known as Sovereign Stable, a client of New York-based trainer John Terranova.

In her first start for Sovereign, she won the Grade 1 Alcibiades Stakes at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky. in an eye-popping fashion described by Racing Form handicapper Byron King thusly: "She won ... despite being boxed in for much of the race and getting clear with less than a furlong remaining. Her finish once turned loose [by jockey Rajiv Maragh] was outstanding, and she ran down the previously unbeaten She Be Wild, who had opened a clear lead and seemed home free."

Even though he owns only 2 percent, DiPiano --- a retired U.S. Airways supervisor --- is having as much fun as if he owned her all. Negligee already has won $348,007 and 2 percent of Friday's $1,080,000 first-place purse is $21,600, which --- this is just my guess --- he probably will use to buy an interest in another horse.

But that's up in the air. Right now, the 65-year-old native of Queens (home of Aqueduct Race Track) has just one thing on his mind.

As he put it, "All I can think about is Negligee."

--- Bob Summers