Agua Caliente’s Return to Glory? : $225,000 Clasico del Caribe Will Try to Give It a Touch of the Derby

TIJUANA —  Cerveza replaces mint juleps as the toast of this fiesta. There will be mariachis, not jazz combos.

The language is Spanish, not American South. Senioritas will grace the Turf Club instead of Southern Belles. And folks will hum along to “Himno Nacional de Mexico” instead of “My Old Kentucky Home.”

Welcome to the 19th Clasico del Caribe, Latin America’s version of the Kentucky Derby.

“Because the Clasico is for 3-year-old colts and fillies and draws the best horses from several countries,” said Caliente track director Jorge Hank Rhon, “it is thought of as the Kentucky Derby of Latin America. It’s the biggest race for Caribbean countries.”

This year’s $225,000 Clasico del Caribe, featuring 14 of the top 3-year-olds from seven Caribbean countries, will be run Sunday afternoon at Agua Caliente.

Agua Caliente?

Caliente had its heyday during the 1930s and ‘40s but lost fans, jockeys and prestige when the California tracks opened in Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar.

“It was a very good place back then,” said retired jockey Johnny Longden, who will be the guest of honor at Caliente Sunday. “There used to be big crowds, good purses and good races.”

This was where the great New Zealand-bred gelding Phar Lap won the Agua Caliente Handicap March 20, 1932. Longden rode in that race.

“I was in front to the half-mile,” Longden remembers. “Phar Lap went by me and kept going. I was on the inside. Phar Lap ran down the middle of the track, always 35 feet off the rail. He was a great horse, the greatest I’d ever seen to that point.”

Recently, Agua Caliente has gained most of its publicity for drawing 24,000 people to the Miss Mexico competition last May 11. Hank Rhon said the beauty contest had the potential to reach a cable and satellite television audience of 200 million.

Hank Rhon said Sunday’s Caribe, scheduled for the fifth race instead of the traditional ninth because of television, will have a viewing potential of 100 million on Spanish International Network in the United States and on satellite in the nine Caribbean countries.

“These are horses, not girls, so we’re saying 100 million,” Hank Rhon said.

Under the leadership of Hank Rhon--the wealthy 30-year-old son of the former governor of the state of Mexico and mayor of Mexico City--Caliente has undergone a transformation in the past year.

This is the first time the prestigious Caribe has been held at Caliente. The way Hank Rhon negotiated for rights to get the Caribe and the way the horses were transported to the track is full of international intrigue.

The Negotiations

Jamaica had been awarded the rights to the 1986 Clasico del Caribe. But that didn’t stop Hank Rhon from going to last year’s race in Venezuela determined to somehow bring it to Caliente.

First, just a little more background on Hank Rhon. He formerly owned exotic birds, ran dolphin shows at three marine parks in Mexico City, owned pet shops and began breeding thoroughbreds in 1983.

It shouldn’t come as a shock that Hank Rhon has 15 snakes in glass cases in his plush office overlooking the track at Caliente.

Filled with confidence, Hank Rhon headed to Venezuela last December.

“Because of the altitude, Mexico City couldn’t host the race,” Hank Rhon said. “So I asked if I could be the representative for Mexico.”

Mexico has won eight of the 18 Caribe races and six of its victories have come at altitudes of 7,434 feet in Mexico City and 3,136 feet in Caracas.

Hank Rhon was appointed to represent Mexico. The wheeling and dealing began.

“The truth is that I pointed out that California is the richest state in the U.S. with a lot of tracks and horse people,” Hank Rhon said. “This was an opportunity to open up a market for your horses in the States.”

Caliente’s proximity to the United States and the condition of its track were selling points. After agreeing to fix up the jockey club and make general improvements around the track, which it has done, Caliente gained approval to host the Caribe.

“I thought we had a very big chance,” Hank Rhon said. “They like Mexicans.”

But Tijuana was three hours from the closest place the horses would be flown from.

“That was a very big inconvenience,” Hank Rhon said.

Therefore, Hank Rhon chartered a plane that would pick up horses in Santa Domingo, travel to Panama to pick up more horses and then fly directly to the airport in Tijuana.

The Arrival

At midnight Nov. 27, after a 6 1/2-hour trip, 12 horses (eight for the Caribe and four for the $50,000 Clasico Confraternidad for 4-year olds to be held Saturday) departed a chartered plane at Tijuana airport.

“The media was there to greet the horses, trainers and jockeys,” said Alberto Paz Rodriguez, secretary of the Confederation Clasico del Caribe and trainer of Sinfonico, which is entered in the Caribe.

Horses from Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic were driven from the airport to a specially built quarantine tent located on the track.

The huge blue and white tent--with “Villa Caribena” and nine flags painted on the outside--can house as many as 32 horses. Except for daily workouts at 10 a.m., which is about the only time of the day when the Caribbean horses can bear the cold of Mexico, the horses have to be kept in quarantine until the race. They are carefully watched and their temperature and blood samples are taken on a regular basis.

Hank Rhon said the conditions of the tent had to meet American health standards, the track had to install screens around the tent and spray the track four times a day to kill mosquitoes. In addition, it took three weeks to put a special drainage system in the tent.

Last Monday, when the tent was swaying because of strong winds, Hank Rhon said that “people joked that the tent flying away would be the best promotion. The sign of ‘Villa Caribena’ would be flying around.”

Race Day:

The flags of nine Caribbean countries, the race track and the sponsoring cigarette company will adorn the track Sunday. And the national anthems of nine Caribbean countries will be played. Well, sort of.

“We cut them so we’re playing one minute from each,” Hank Rhon said.

A crowd of 10,000 is expected to attend the Caribe, compared with the Sunday average of about 3,000. The track can seat 10,000 and has the capacity to hold 20,000. Hank Rhon said Caliente has sold out its jockey club (600 seats), turf club (400), top of the turf club (800) and clubhouse (300).

The Carribean countries involved are expected to bring 1,000 people--fans, owners, jockeys and media--whose celebration began Thursday and will continue through Sunday.

Hank Rhon is pleased with the pre-race ticket sales but said he doesn’t expect the Caribe to be received in Tijuana in the same way it is glorified in, say, Venezuela.

“Here in Tijuana we like the Padres and the Chargers, but in Venezuela the biggest event is horse racing,” Hank Rhon said. “Tracks are owned by the government. When we got to Venezuela last year, everyone was talking about horses. Not everyone knows about it in Tijuana.”

In pesos, the purse is more than $200 million, and Hank Rhon said this is the richest race to ever be run in Mexico. That tops the purse of $70 million pesos for the Mexican equivalent of the Breeders Cup, held in Mexico City last weekend.

The countries of the horses entered pay the entrance fees, but the owners win the purses. The winner of the Caribe will earn $155,000--American dollars--and his country will get to keep a cup for the next year.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the cup was being repaired. Surprised?

Despite the lucrativeness of the race, Hank Rhon does not expect Caliente to make money on the race. He expects a handle of about $750,000 for the day but would need $2 million to break even.

“I hope I’m wrong about us not making money on the race,” Hank Rhon said, “but I don’t think I am. We’re hoping this race will help us a lot in terms of attendance in the future.”

The Horses

The consensus is that horses racing in the Caribe are of a much lesser quality than those regularly running at Del Mar and Santa Anita.

“There are better caliber horses in America than the ones in the Caribbean,” said jockey Angel Cordero Jr., who will ride one of the favorites, Passer II. “Caribbean breeding has been better and improved in the past five or six years, but in general American horses are better bred. The U.S. is still ahead of them.”

Case in point: Passer II finished out of the money in two allowance races at Hollywood Park last spring.

Cordero has never ridden Passer II, nor has he ever ridden at Caliente. He is riding Passer II because it was trained by Laz Barrera, who is very close to Cordero.

There has been almost as much attention paid to the horses that won’t be competing in the Caribe as to the ones that will.

“This race seems to have some bad luck,” Hank Rhon said.

El Santo of Mexico, the country’s juvenile champion last year and a five-length winner over Passer in a race at Caliente Nov. 9, broke his leg in a workout last week and was put to sleep. The top horse from the Dominican Republic was recently hurt and will not compete. One of Venezeula’s best horses was injured right before last year’s race.

If there aren’t 18 horses entered in the race (two from each of the nine Carribean countries), the host country can have as many as four entries. Thus, Mexico has four entries--Passer II, Sueno, Danila and Motivos.

Along with Passer II, the other favorites in the Caribe include Indio Facista of Colombia, Ferpier of Puerto Rico and Sinfonico of Panama.

“Every Caribbean trainer and owner’s aspiration is to win the Caribe,” said Paz Rodriguez, who trains Sinfonico.