In the third instalment of an acclaimed new series recalling his personal favorites, Jay Hovdey recalls the hugely popular Cal-bred filly who didn’t let an infamous Breeders’ Cup DQ derail a glittering career
You had to be there. Saturday, Nov. 10, 1984. Hollywood Park, located in the fair city of Inglewood, Calif., just down Century Boulevard from Los Angeles International Airport. Elizabeth Taylor was there. So was Cary Grant, along with Angel Cordero, Laffit Pincay, Bill Shoemaker, and a robust cohort of walking, talking legends of the Thoroughbred game.
The inaugural presentation of the Breeders’ Cup was more than a watershed moment in the history of the sport. It was also a day of outrageously vigorous competition played out in seven heated innings, packed into a nationally televised NBC program.
Those seven races went by in a hurry, beginning with a Breeders’ Cup Juvenile that came down to a three-horse cluster comprised of Chief’s Crown, Tank’s Prospect, and Spend A Buck. All they did in the following year was win the Travers, the Preakness and the Kentucky Derby.
By the end of a dizzy day that included Princess Rooney’s seven-length romp in the Distaff, Royal Heroine’s course record in the Mile, and the narrow victory of longshot Wild Again in a rough-and-tumble Breeders’ Cup Classic, there was hardly room left in the memory banks for the astounding result of the Juvenile Fillies, in which for the first time in the history of the sport a horse had been disqualified from victory in a million-dollar race.
Her name was Fran’s Valentine.
Boasting a measly little stakes win at the LA County Fair for trainer Joe Manzi, Fran’s Valentine wove her way from the middle of the 14-filly field, threw a shoulder to an opponent at the top of the stretch for racing room, then powered home to finish first by half a length over Harbor View Farm’s Outstandingly at the end of the one-turn mile.
Those of us who were supposed to be possessed of local knowledge stood gape-mouthed at the winner’s odds of nearly 75-1, then found our eyes blinking in time with the numbers on the board when the three track stewards immediately launched an inquiry into the play.
It was a fairly easy call. Pirate’s Glow, the offended party, was firmly bumped and turned askew by Fran’s Valentine, stumbling badly enough that her veteran jockey, Fernando Toro, essentially eased his filly in fear she might have injured something.
Patrick Valenzuela, 22 at the time, insisted he had to force his way out from behind horses, otherwise he would have clipped heels. His other alternative was to tap the brakes on Fran’s Valentine – which, over the course of a tempestuous career, is something Valenzuela rarely considered.
‘Let’s cut to a commercial’
So Fran’s Valentine was disqualified and placed behind Pirate’s Glow, while Outstandingly, a ripe 22-1 shot, was elevated to the victory. The NBC commentators, among them racecaller Dave Johnson and the distinguished anchor Dick Enberg, were a bit flabbergasted at the outcome but pressed on, and then went to commercial.
The commercial was for Earl Scheib Auto Painting, featuring owner Earl Scheib himself, touting his bargain-basement paint jobs at $99.95 – “No ups! No extras!” – with a happy growl and a salesman’s beguiling smile. The same Earl Scheib who bred and owned Fran’s Valentine.
“I had people ask me how I could look so cheery in the commercial after what happened,” Scheib would say later. “I guess they didn’t know that commercials were pre-taped.”
Scheib founded his company in Los Angeles in 1937 and by the 1980s the enterprise had gone international. He had also been a fixture at California racetracks not only as an owner and breeder, but also an enthusiastic horseplayer.
Scheib’s first good one was Bicker, a son of Round Table who threw a scare into Derby/Preakness winner Riva Ridge in the 1972 Hollywood Derby and later won the Malibu and San Fernando Stakes at Santa Anita Park. He landed Bicker in a private purchase from Claiborne Farm, along with a pedigree that included a female family spiced with such stakes winners as Judger, Honorable Miss and Bailjumper.
Scheib later acquired Del Mar stakes winner Countess Market, who brought the blood of Triple Crown winner Count Fleet and the very quick To Market into the picture. The daughter of Bicker and Countess Market hit the ground on Feb. 14, 1976, and was promptly dubbed Iza Valentine.
European import
Along the way, Scheib established Green Thumb Farm in Chino, a distant agricultural relative of the sprawling LA basin known primarily in the racing world as the home of the once powerful Rex Ellsworth Thoroughbred empire. Expanding his reach, Scheib imported the British-bred horse Saros, a son of Sassafras who carried the well-known colors of Dr. Carlo Vittadini while racing for champion trainer Peter Walwyn. The colt was four-length runner-up to The Minstrel in the 1976 Dewhurst Stakes, Britain’s two-year-old championship event, and second (to Be My Guest) in Epsom’s Blue Riband Derby Trial the following season.
After joining the Scheib team in the US, Saros was campaigned ambitiously but without much success before heading to stud. In 1982, Fran’s Valentine, a dark brown daughter of Iza Valentine named for Scheib’s wife, was from the second Saros crop of just six named foals.
She turned out to be dark brown lass with a long, entertaining blaze that complemented the lines of her graceful, feminine framework. ‘Franny’, as she came to be called, won her maiden race in her second start at Del Mar on Sept. 2, 1984, on the same afternoon that her Manzi stablemate, Full O Wisdom, took down a division of the Del Mar Debutante.
Hopes for her were high for Fran’s Valentine but not outlandish, as would befit most winners of the Bustles and Bows Stakes and Black Swan Stakes around the five-furlong merry-go-round at the county fair in the town of Pomona.
But that is where the game was played between major Southern California race meets for decades. The occasional gem would emerge from the rollercoaster and the midway.
In the days following the heartbreak of the Breeders’ Cup, Manzi’s barn was draped, figuratively, in black crepe. But then the page turned and it was back to business. Fran’s Valentine reappeared three weeks after the Breeders’ Cup in the $500,000 Hollywood Starlet Stakes at a mile and one-sixteenth, against a field that included Outstandingly, Pirate’s Glow and a new shooter from the east named Mom’s Command. Loyal to a fault, Scheib and Manzi kept Valenzuela in the saddle.
A hot pace ensued in the Starlet, setting up another rousing chase through the stretch as the front-runners stalled, similar to the Juvenile Fillies. (Pirate’s Glow also had another tough trip, but Fran’s Valentine was not to blame.) This time around, Outstandingly got the jump on Fran’s Valentine and won by nearly three lengths, and with it the Eclipse Award for the division.
The trainer with the ‘Why me, Lord?’ vibe
The story could have ended there. Fran’s Valentine could have gone through the motions and faded away, forever to be known as the filly who lost a million-dollar race on a DQ. For his part, Manzi was acquiring a ‘Why me, Lord?’ vibe among marquee trainers. Roving Boy, his two-year-old male champion of 1982, had sustained a minor injury in early 1983 that kept him out of the Kentucky Derby. Then, later that same year, Roving Boy’s victorious return to stakes competition in the Alibhai Handicap at Santa Anita turned horrifyingly tragic when the son of Olden Times fatally fractured both hind ankles just past the finish line. His remains were buried in a plot at the top of the stretch.
The 1985 campaign of Fran’s Valentine danced to a brighter tune. Coming out as a three-year-old in the Las Virgenes Stakes at Santa Anita, she made short work of the two-turn mile, winning in hand, then came right back to repeat that form over a sixteenth further in the Santa Susana Stakes, later rebranded the Santa Anita Oaks.
“I’ve never had a filly good enough to run in the Kentucky Oaks before,” Manzi said afterwards. “That’s where we’re going.”
Manzi was a native New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn. His father was a failed jockey, a family fact that inspired young Joseph to jump the fence at Belmont Park and find work at the first stable that would take him. That stable belonged to Charlie Whittingham.
After a successful run as assistant to the flamboyant Horatio Luro, Whittingham was cultivating the horses of Elizabeth Whitney Tippett when Manzi, just 14, showed up and asked for a job. Whittingham sent the kid to Tippett’s Llangollen Farm in Virginia to learn the ropes.
In due course, Manzi became a jockey long enough to ride six winners one day at Agua Caliente in Tijuana, Mexico, after which he served a hitch in US Army and returned to civilian life too heavy to continue his career. He was not too big, however, to work for Whittingham as a valued morning rider, which helped establish his name in New York and California before turning to training on his own, in 1961.
Based on the California circuit, Manzi became an adept horseman who enjoyed decent but unspectacular success. His fortunes rose in the mid-1970s when the horses of Texas oil man Robert Hibbert, the owner of Roving Boy, and Earl Scheib put the trainer squarely on the map.
Walking bundle of stress
Through it all, Manzi was known for his playful sense of New York humor and social generosity which endeared him to owners, fellow trainers, and the racing press. He was also a walking bundle of stress who underwent triple bypass heart surgery at the age 35.
Other than her disqualification in the Juvenile Fillies, which was certainly not her fault, Fran’s Valentine gave Manzi no reason for inordinate worry. Beginning with her first race in August of 1984, she trained and raced without anything more than a few brief fresheners until she retired nearly three years later.
Once her Santa Anita races of early 1985 were in the books, Manzi set his sights on a bluegrass two-step: the Ashland Stakes and the Kentucky Oaks. The Ashland was a bust – she was fifth to longshot Koluctoo’s Girl – but Manzi wrote it off to the fact that local stalwart Don Brumfield had to be a last-minute substitute for Valenzuela, who banged up a shoulder back in California the day before the race.
Breeders’ Cup nightmare forgotten
It was a different story at Churchill Downs for the 111th running of the Kentucky Oaks. Valenzuela was back aboard, and Fran’s Valentine was on the engine from the start, cruising along in second behind the pace of fellow Californian Rascal Lass. At the end of the nine-furlong trip, longshot Foxy Deen came running, but too late to catch Fran’s Valentine. The winning margin was three-quarters of a length, and for a glorious moment, as Manzi, Scheib, and Valenzuela celebrated with their filly in the Churchill Downs winner’s circle, the waking nightmare of the 1984 Breeders’ Cup was forgotten.
The 52,865 in attendance also were able to share a moment like no other. For the first time in the recorded history of the Kentucky Oaks, the winner was a filly bred in California, despite the fact that the Golden State had produced a cavalcade of fine young fillies, beginning with Honeymoon and on down through Curious Clover, June Darling, Modus Vivendi, B. Thoughtful, and Princess Karenda. No Cal-bred filly has won the Oaks since.
Fran’s Valentine returned home a hero to win both the Princess Stakes and Hollywood Oaks at Hollywood Park. By then, Valenzuela was sidelined again, which put Chris McCarron firmly in the saddle.
“I rode a lot for Joe Manzi at that time,” McCarron said recently. “He was an old-school trainer who worked his horses pretty hard. He had that filly tuned perfectly for most of her career.
“Fran’s Valentine was very slight,” McCarron continued. “She didn’t carry any extra flesh. She clearly was talented, and she was very generous with that talent. She went out there every time with run on her mind and seemed to be very happy in her work.”
With California thoroughly conquered and the Kentucky Oaks achieved, Manzi went looking for a national championship. To get one he had to beat Mom’s Command, who had spent the first half of the 1985 season sweeping the Acorn, Mother Goose and Coaching Club American Oaks at Belmont Park.
The showdown occurred on Aug. 10 at Saratoga in a five-filly rendition of the Alabama Stakes at a mile and a quarter. Mom’s Command made her own pace and stole away with the race, leaving Fran’s Valentine four lengths behind at the finish.
Manzi lingered in New York in hopes of a rematch with Mom’s Command, or at least to acquire some East Coast cred. To that end, Fran’s Valentine tried the Gazelle Handicap at Belmont Park, but once again she was frustrated behind a lone pacesetter, this one named Kamikaze Rick, and had to settle for third. It was time to regroup.
In early October, news came that Mom’s Command had been retired with an ankle injury. Any thoughts of a championship for the California filly went up in smoke but there was still the Breeders’ Cup to run for at Aqueduct in early November.
A freshened Fran’s Valentine, now reunited with Valenzuela, flexed for the trip by beating older males in the Yankee Valor Handicap at Santa Anita. Unfortunately, the Breeders’ Cup Distaff proved a bridge too far. Fran’s Valentine gave futile chase early to Lady’s Secret, then succumbed with the rest of the field to the powerful finishing kick of Life’s Magic.
Everybody’s little sister
From the start, among those of us who knew her then, there was something of the little sister to Fran’s Valentine. Although she was far from helpless, her fans were protective, and rarely critical. After 19 starts at two and three and her collection of major prizes, she really had nothing more to prove, and yet she continued to try so darn hard.
As a four-year-old she peaked at Del Mar to win the Chula Vista Handicap (now the G1 Clement Hirsch) and carried that form to a second-place finish to Horse of the Year Lady’s Secret in the 1986 Breeders’ Cup Distaff. As a five-year-old Fran’s Valentine handled G1 winners North Sider and Infinidad in the Santa Maria Handicap.
Then we said farewell. Fran’s Valentine ran for the last time in May of 1987, her 34th start. Two years later, Manzi died in his sleep from a massive coronary. He was a month shy of 54. In addition to Fran’s Valentine and Roving Boy, Manzi’s legacy includes assistant trainers Bill Spawr, who went on to train champion sprinter Amazombie, and Juan ‘Paco’ Gonzalez, who trained major stakes winners Free House and Came Home.
Scheib gave Fran’s Valentine every chance as a broodmare, sending her to Alydar in 1988 and to Risen Star in 1989. Scheib’s death in February 1990 prompted her private sale to George Strawbridge and eventual relocation to Pennsylvania, where, in 1995, Fran’s Valentine foaled a gray colt to the cover of the In Reality stallion Relaunch, a major stakes winner on California turf and dirt.
Named With Anticipation and flying the colors of Strawbridge’s Augustin Stable, the son of Fran’s Valentine became a five-time G1 stakes winner of more than $2.6m under the guidance of Jonathan Sheppard. As it turned out, in final retirement mother and son were never far apart. With Anticipation enjoyed his later years at Sheppard’s farm near West Grove, Pa., while Fran’s Valentine was pensioned just up the road at Derry Meeting Farm, near the town of Cochranville, until her death in 2007.
“As a pensioner she was just a very nice mare, easy to be around,” said Robert Goodyear, Jr., son of long-time Derry Meeting manager Robert Goodyear, Sr. “She kept her dark brown coat all her life, and I’ll always remember that big white blaze, coming straight at you.”
It was the only way Fran’s Valentine knew how to play the game.
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