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HORSE RACINGJulie Krone was atop Lite The Fuse while capturing the De Francis Dash last weekend.Dutrow one of a kindDickie Dutrow never saw Citation, but he sensed him He experienced him, and never got over it .And right now he’s very, very giadDutrow was II years and 35 days old on April 12. 1948, that muddy day when Saggy beat Citation by a length in the race that would have given Cigar a 24 race winning streak to shoot at Dickie was home in Hagerstown. 80 miles from Havre de Grace He was still 65 miles away when his beau ideal galloped m the Preakness at 110, odds on for the 11th of 30 straight timesCitation made me aware of rac mg. Dutrow said “I knew what 1 wanted to do He was standing before Lite the Fuse’s stall, adoring his horse, nine hours to post time of the $300,000 De Francis Dash, which Dutrow’s creation, his life’s culmination, would win for the second straight year.A man named C Evert Brining let Dickie walk horses when he was 11 At 13, as soon as he could get away with it, Dutrow quit school and went to the track full time.A week ago yesterday Dickie basked in a crowd of his extended family and old Maryland friends in the Laurel winner’s circle richest sprint there is, short of the Breeders Cup, and talked quietly about winning that one tooIt is not quite an eon from the bull ring in Chester to Breeders Cup XIII at Woodbine, but it is an evolution, and there is. a link Her name is Annie’s Dream, a dark-haired 16-year-old She is the mother of Lite the Fuse. She came into being when Dutrow, after record-breaking success as a trainer in Maryland, paid the considerable fee to breed his mare, Talk About Me, to the eminent John M Schiffs multiple stakes-winning Droll Role.(Droll Role, for the record, won the Washington D € International and many other things in four states and Canada in 1992, but not the vote for turf champion of theHORSE RACINGBy JACK MANNyear, which went to Cougar II. which never left California)It would be a good enough story (for everybody but Dutrow’s wife, Vicki) if Dickie had named his filiy for a dark-haired, 16-year-old Annie who was his first prom date But the first time Dickie encountered that Annie he was too young to go to a prom, even if he’d still be in school.He was, in fact, 13%. Annie’s Dream, a chestnut mare, (Gino-Confidence, by Wise Counsellor), won her last race at Wheeling Downs on Sept. 9, 1950. She was nine She was in front for all of the six and a half furlongs, but it was getting a little late for her by the time she reached the wire in 1:22. Late or not, that Annie’s Dream kept trying, winning only two of her 24 races that year, but finishing in the money in 11.Maybe that’s what made her a part of Dickie’s Dream, which has now come true. He is the breeder, owner and trainer of 5-year-o!d Lite the Fuse, who has won nine of 1? races, finished in the money in all but one of them and earned $981,076After Lite the Fuse's victory by a few inches over Monster Meadow, Dutrow did not declare his horse the best sprinter on the continent. The differences are small, he pointed out, in a six-fur!ong race that goes in 1:08%, Lite the Fuse’swinning time m this year's Dash and last year's. But he is ready again to pursue that proposition to the Breeder's Cup, putting up the necessary $120,000 supplemental fee Dutrow wsa ready last year, but Lite the Fuse, by October, wasn’tDickie will, of course, have help with the supplementary money this time, having sold a half-interest in Lite the Fuse as a stallion to Vinery, the Kentucky breeding farm, for a lot of money.So Dutrow is touching the top of the game again, and the bottom, as he has done before, but not simultaneously. In 1975 in Maryland he saddled 352 winners in a year, a record it took the far-flung calvary of Jack Van Berg to break. His big winner was Guy, a gelding Dutrow bred who raced 165 times and won 45 small pots, adding up to $281,085.Prosperity moved Dickie to try New York, where he was successful particularly with King's Swan, a gelding who ran on and on after Dutrow claimed him, winning stakes, earning almost $2 million.Then success spoiled Dickie Dutrow, He switched his emphasis from claimers to a better product and the world didn’t beat a path. The guy who used to have two barns full in Maryland has been down to a dozen horses for the past three years. But for the past two years one of them has been Lite the Fuse.Lite the Fuse is Florida-bred, by the same reasoning that makes Cigar Maryland-bred: he was born there. But his name is as Maryland-bred as Dickie’s dream. Light the Fuse, by Bald Eagle, out of a Counterpoint mare, never was what Mrs. Richard C, duPont had in mind when she bred him in 1964. He won one overnight stake out of 121 starts.But he kept trying. From 2 to o7, before he ran out of gas, Light the Fuse won 20 of 93 starts and was in the money half the time. Dickie Dutrow remembered him.
Newspaper Details
Capital Gazette
Annapolis, Maryland, US
Sun, Jul 28, 1996
Page 15
Full Page
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Anonymous
MD, USA 29 Apr 2024
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