Sise taking one step at a time with Prospect Park
Cliff Sise Jr. couldn’t be blamed for being smitten with Derby Fever after
Prospect Park (Tapit) aired to a 5 1/4-length victory in a one-mile overnight
race at Santa Anita on Friday.
It wasn’t just the margin of victory that impressed not only Sise, but
hard-core race trackers. The Marty and Pam Wygod homebred barely took a deep
breath as Kent Desormeaux had the Kentucky-bred colt in hand the final
sixteenth. It was the second straight win from five starts for Prospect Park,
who does his training at San Luis Rey Downs where the 63-year-old Sise has some
30 horses in training, including some promising youngsters.
“Marty always wanted me to break his babies,” Sise said. “Marty was nice
enough last year to send all the two-year-olds to me. I didn’t know if I was
going to get them ready for other trainers, or what.
“But he came out one day and we had a little celebration at the barn and told
me he was going to let me run Prospect Park, so as of right now, everything’s
good.
“I loved the horse on Friday. He changed so much from the race before (a neck
victory in a maiden allowance route at Santa Anita on December 27). He ran good
that day but he got sick two nights before with a little colic. We don’t know
how much that took out of him.
“He was OK the morning of the race so we ran him and he won. After that race
he came back and trained like a different horse. He was stronger, and
everything’s going good at the right time now.”
Asked if he had a race in mind, Sise said, “Not really. I’ll leave that up to
Marty Wygod. We’ll try to find the easiest spot for him.”
Sise, who at 20 was the youngest to get a trainer’s license at that time when
he started his career, has never run a horse in the Kentucky Derby (G1), but
that doesn’t stop him from dreaming.
“I had a couple I hoped would run there,” he said, “but something always
happened.”
Sise recently returned to training a year after another endeavor.
“I stopped as a trainer to run Rancho Paseana for Jenny Craig for two years,”
Sise said. “That was enjoyable, but when San Luis Rey reopened, I came back to
training in January of last year.”
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