Heart Of Honor, The “Lazy” Horse With A Fighter’s Courage
When the going gets tough, the Osbornes’ quirky stable star usually gets going, but will it be enough to make the Saudi Cup dream a reality?
HEART OF HONOR was about 55 seconds into the nine and a half-furlong Listed race at Meydan on December 19 when Saffie Osborne’s arms started working with force, urging her mount to increase his moderate output.
“I’m not going to lie, going down the back, I thought I was going to finish last,” Osborne told Idol Horse. “I thought it was going to end up being a bit embarrassing, to be honest.”
The gelding was second-last after his customary slow break from the starting gate. Seven rivals were ahead and only one other jockey was working up a sweat; the rest were playing it cool and still. A few seconds later, Osborne gave a flick with her whip and Heart Of Honor began to expend more energy.
Swinging off the final turn, the sand-blasted galloper now had five behind him, another rival at his jowl, and the two leaders two and a half lengths ahead. With Osborne driving in rhythm, Heart Of Honor kept on finding; his momentum was relentless over the sandy dirt as he pursued and passed.
A minute and five seconds after the arms started working, Osborne was relaxed, hands low on her horse’s neck as they passed the winning post a length and a half clear of the field.
“He’s not a lazy man’s ride: I’d have been no good on him!” said Heart Of Honor’s trainer Jamie Osborne, who closed his career as a top-class jump jockey 27 years ago, three years before his daughter Saffie was born.
The dream now is that Heart Of Honor will convince the G1 Saudi Cup organisers to give the horse a shot at the massive US$20 million prize pot in Riyadh on February 14.
“He’s not quite there yet, he’s not invited, but we’re in talks and it would depend entirely really what happens on Friday,” the trainer told Idol Horse. “Our whole winter campaign will pivot on this next race.”
Friday’s litmus test is the G1 Al Maktoum Challenge at Meydan. Heart Of Honor will face the second and third from his December victory, Walk Of Stars and Artorius, both from the powerful Bhupat Seemar stable.
The trainer calls Heart Of Honor “lazy”, the jockey calls him “laidback”. Both do so with great affection for the stable flagbearer who has raced seven times at Meydan for four wins and three seconds, including a narrow loss to Admire Daytona in last year’s G2 UAE Derby. The horse also took Jamie, Saffie and owners Jim and Claire Bryce on a rare adventure to the US last summer to contest two legs of the American Triple Crown.
That didn’t go as hoped. Still a colt at the time, Heart Of Honor was slowly away and raced back in the field – as has become his pattern – and kept on plainly to finish fifth in the G1 Preakness Stakes and sixth in the G1 Belmont Stakes.
But he is a different proposition at Meydan where his slow start, lethargic manner, then that charging, battling late run style is already endearing him to race fans with a two from two return this term. He is becoming a favourite at the Dubai track, even though he races out of the international stables, not a local barn.
“He walks around at home with his head on the floor, he’s one of the most chilled out characters” you’re ever likely to encounter, Saffie Osborne said, noting that Heart Of Honor is “a very easy horse” to have anything to do with.
“He’s got his little quirks like all these horses do, especially the good ones. But as a whole you couldn’t get a much easier horse to deal with. Everything you do with him, he’s just very laidback, even when you watch him swimming in the pool, he’s only doing as much as he has to do to keep himself afloat.”
Yet, at the same time, to call Heart Of Honor “lazy” or “laidback” and leave it at that doesn’t give the full picture of what the four-year-old is all about.
“He’s actually a funny character and he keeps us all on our toes,” Saffie said. “You’d imagine a horse like that would be fairly lazy in his gallops, but he’s very clued-on when he’s galloping, he’s very generous in his work, like his work he did last week was pretty phenomenal; he just is lazy in his races and I don’t think that’s ever going to change.
“Even though he’s very laidback, when he goes to the races, it’s like his switch turns a little before the race and he goes to post early to try and keep him relaxed. He does just get a little bit worked up in the stalls.”
“We’ve tried to do everything to change it and it’s near impossible to change it, because when you put him in the stalls in the mornings, he stands there like a lamb. I don’t think he’s ever going to jump quick. I don’t think he’s ever going to stand beautifully in the stalls, he likes to rear up and I think that’s just going to be him, he’s done it since the first day he went racing at Southwell.”
When the stalls open, though, Heart Of Honor reverts to his natural, sleepy manner – at least for the first three-quarters of his races.
“We tried a stalls rug on him last time and it almost just got a little bit stuck and it just made him even slower so he’s not having that on this week,” the jockey continued.
“He makes me work pretty hard but when you really get stuck into him, he just finds. It’s like he finds another leg, he has an unbelievable finish and I think that’s just him. I think if you try to force him any earlier in the race, you’d probably take that away from him.
Jamie Osborne said he believes the horse’s “fundamentally lazy” manner is in his favour.
“He’s definitely not going to over-race,” he said. “He’s going to burn his fuel in a sort of economical way, which means that through that last quarter of a race, when things are really slowing down, he potentially doesn’t slow down as much as the opposition. That’s kind of why it works for him.”
The trainer also believes Heart Of Honor will need all that economy if he is to defeat last year’s Maktoum Challenge winner Walk Of Stars and Artorius again this time around, given that he received weight-for-age as a three-year-old back in December, and also Walk Of Stars’ Group 1 penalty. This time all weights are level.
“He needs to run a bigger number than he’s run so far, really. And if he does, I think there’s a chance he’ll get into the Saudi Cup,” he said.
“That was also Walk Of Stars’ first run of the year. But do we have to beat him to get the invitation to Saudi? I think if we were just beaten by him and it looked a strong race and Walk Of Stars has run up to his 116 (rating), well, we might still get invited. That’s what I would be hoping.”
There is also the hope that Heart Of Honor is still improving as he matures into his four-year-old season.
“I think that last run was probably a lifetime best; you’d argue it, but I think it probably was. So, I’m hopeful he can step forward again,” the trainer stated.
His daughter was on the same page: “I think the last day was the first day that I got a proper feeling off of him because as soon as I started really getting after him, he just came alive underneath me. He’s getting better at his lead changes and he’s very sharp on them now and he gives you the feel of a really class horse in the last few furlongs.
“The first few furlongs you have your sort of panic, some alarm bells going off, but knowing him as well as we all do now, that’s just him and hopefully we know that he’s going to always be doing his best work late on.”
There is no doubt Saffie Osborne will be earning every dirham of her riding fee on Friday: the pattern is well-established now. But Heart Of Honor is also tough, he has the fighting heart all good dirt track runners need.
“The horse’s attitude has to just be exceptional to compete on the dirt,” Jamie Osborne said. “If they’re going to compete at a high level and keep competing, keep wanting to go back for more, they’ve just got to have amazing brains because it’s tough. It’s a war of attrition, there’s no such thing as a horse ever getting an easy race on the dirt.
“Every time they step on it, they know they’re going into a gunfight and it’s probably going to hurt, so, I don’t think you can ever take the courage for granted, but I think you have to be aware of that.”
If Heart Of Honor displays that spirit again in the Maktoum Challenge, the Saudi Cup dream might well remain alive, even if he’s not going to be putting on a dazzling display.
“I suppose winning ugly is always going to be his style,” the trainer added. “It’s never going to be smooth and it’s never going to be pretty.” ∎
