by Brisnet.com
Was Saint Leon’s roundabout journey into the hands of the owner-trainer team
Perhaps a little of both for the Arlington Sprint winner and his human
“It’s just amazing to me that Saint Leon was able to win a stakes race like
That kind of dedicated bond between horses and people goes back to the
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It was only four years ago that Burlingham first got her feet wet as an
owner, owning 2 percent of three Thoroughbreds in a partnership group. One of
them was Saint Leon.
“Saint Leon started his career right here at Arlington in 2008 and finished
fifth a couple of times,” Burlingham said. “After the Arlington season ended he
went to Kentucky and ran fifth and fourth in two starts at Keeneland and sixth
at Churchill one time after that.
“The decision was made to send him to Mountaineer to give him the chance to
learn how to win, and he won two races in a row,” Burlingham said, “but after a
few more he developed a stress fracture and had to be laid up for about six
months to give him time to recover. But then the decision was made to put him in
a $5,000 claiming race. I was against that but I was assured no one would claim
him, but of course that’s just what happened.
“I was heartbroken,” Burlingham admitted. “He needed to be in caring hands
because of his injury, and I wasn’t sure he was. Then I met Michele Boyce
through Gail Vacca. Gail had given me Maggi Moss’s phone number, who had some
horses with a trainer at Mountaineer. I told Michele, ‘I’ve got to get that
horse back, even if he can never run again.’
“Sure enough, the trainer who had him ran him back too quick and put him in
another $5,000 claimer three weeks later,” Burlingham said. “It was the worst
three weeks of my life, but right after the race, I got a phone call from Maggi.
She said, ‘You got him. We had to win a shake for him, but you got him back.’
“Saint Leon had re-injured his leg in that race, much worse than the first
time,” Burlingham said. “It took us about a week to get him back to Illinois and
when we did the poor horse didn’t know which way was up. The veterinarian knew
the horse’s medical history, and he wasn’t too optimistic about his recovery,
but Michele sends her layups to Gail, and after about a month the horse looked
like he was in seventh heaven. It was amazing.
“Saint Leon was off for about a year,” Burlingham continued. “When we first
got him back, we did so with the expectation that he might never run again, but
then Michele put him back in training. He took to training very nicely — he
really enjoyed it — so Michele got him ready for a comeback. I had told her, ‘I
don’t care if he never runs again, but if he does, I don’t ever want him to run
in a claiming race again.
“As it happened, Michele found a starter race for him here at Arlington. He
won that race and then he won four more right in a row. One of those wins was in
Arlington’s jockey challenge race two years ago. Inez Karlsson rode him to
victory in that race, and Earlie Fires finished second. That race was a lot of
fun for us.
“We give him the winters off now,” Burlingham concluded, “and he doesn’t seem
to care for Hawthorne at all, but when we got him back to Arlington this year he
ran two very good races for us, so Michele decided to give him a chance in the
Arlington Sprint.”
Asked about that decision, Boyce accentuated the positive.
“In every one of his races he comes to win every time,” she said. “He’s just
a hard-trying little horse, very professional. Very classy little guy. When he
goes into a race, he gets a certain look in his eye. He has eyes like Seattle
Slew.”
Immediately following Saint Leon’s Arlington Sprint win, in which he defeated
two former winners of the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, owner Burlingham was
ecstatic.
“He just wants to win and he knows how to do it,” Burlingham said. “Right
now, I am just over the moon.”
How did Burlingham celebrate Saint Leon’s win Saturday night? Was dinner at a
fancy restaurant?
“Actually, as it turned out, I ended up having dinner in the track kitchen,”
Burlingham said Sunday morning. “That was fine with me. I’m always happiest when
I’m on the backstretch, anyway.”
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