Columnist Ralph Siraco: Fate played role in Tiznow’s emotional triumph

Ralph Siraco

Monday, Nov. 13, 2000 | 10:37 a.m.

Ralph Siraco's horse racing column appears Monday, and his Southern California selections run Tuesday through Friday. Reach him c/o Las Vegas Sun, 800 S. Valley View Blvd., Las Vegas, NV 89107.

With this year's Breeders' Cup getting smaller in the rear-view mirror, here are some final postscripts:

When Tiznow crossed the finish line at Churchill Downs inches in front of European superstar Giant's Causeway to win the Breeders' Cup Classic, there was more than jockey Chris McCarron pushing the Jay Robbins trainee to victory.

Fate would play the deciding role in the California-bred's triumph.

The courageous win by the leading candidate for Horse of the Year honors provided a most satisfying victory for his owner and breeder Cecilia Straub-Rubens, who died Tuesday at 83.

Diagnosed 16 months ago with lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph system, Straub-Rubens died of a heart attack while undergoing emergency surgery on her spleen. She lived long enough to see her pride and joy become the first California-bred to win a Breeders' Cup event.

Owned in partnership with Mike Cooper, Tiznow reeled off victories in the Super Derby at Louisiana Downs and the Goodwood Handicap at Oak Tree at Santa Anita. Cooper said it was shortly after the Goodwood win that they decided to supplement Tiznow to the Breeders' Cup Classic for $360,000.

"I had a premonition that if we didn't do it this year, she wouldn't be there next year," Cooper said.

He also commented about Straub-Rubens' lifelong involvement in racing.

"She was optimistic (about Tiznow's Breeders' Cup chances) and tremendously passionate about everything (in racing). She went out in style," he said.

Tiznow is a full brother to another Straub-Rubens homebred, Budroyale, who finished second to Cat Thief in last year's Breeders' Cup Classic at Gulfstream Park. Straub-Rubens was honored as California Breeder of the Year in 1999 based on the accomplishments of Budroyale. Tiznow is expected to race next year for Cooper and two of Straub-Rubens' children, Pamela Ziebarth and Kevin Cochrane.

McCarron joined fellow standout jockeys Jerry Bailey and Pat Day as the only four-time winners of the Classic with his victory on Tiznow. He previously won the richest Breeders' Cup race with Alphabet Soup in 1996, Sunday Silence in 1989 and his first with Alysheba in 1988. ...

Churchill Downs is fast becoming a track European jockeys would rather forget. The "over-the-pond" racing fans were still reeling from Swain's defeat in the 1998 Breeders' Cup Classic at the famed Louisville track that had jockey Lanfranco Dettori stymied until his redemption ride on Daylami, who won the Breeders' Cup Turf last year at Gulfstream Park. Swain raced extremely wide while finishing a length behind Awesome Again and Silver Charm in what many Euro fans thought was a blunder-filled ride by Dettori.

Now comes another blunder. Jockey Michael Kinane is in the European racing hot seat for his ride on Giant's Causeway in this year's Classic. It seems Kinane lost the reins in the heat of the battle with Tiznow in the final stages of the Classic while trying to switch his whip from the left to right hand. Although Kinane was noncommital immediately after the race, he later admitted he might have blown it.

"The whip just got caught in the rein," he said.

He seemed to lose control and with the dangling reins, Giant's Causeway may have eased up at a critical time in the race. With the close finish, the European media have laid direct blame for another Breeders' Cup Classic loss on the shoulders of the rider. Even trainer Aiden O'Brien believes that Kinane will come to accept that he should have won the race. ...

Breeders' Cup Distaff favorite Riboletta, who finished an uncharacteristic seventh, suffered a career-ending injury in the race.

Riboletta came out of the race with a filling in her left foreleg. A nuclear scan conducted Tuesday morning revealed damage to a left front outside suspensory ligament. She retires with 13 victories and career earnings of $1,534,953. Riboletta won seven of 11 starts this year including graded stakes wins at Santa Anita, Hollywood Park, Del Mar and Belmont Park to earn more than $1.3 million of her bankroll while emerging as the dominant female horse in the country. Although she lost the Distaff, she is all but assured the Eclipse Award as Best Older Filly or Mare of 2000.