Casners Back For More In Dubai
By Michele MacDonald
Bill and Susan Casner have tasted victory from some of racing’s most sumptuous platters, including the GI Kentucky Derby with Super Saver (Maria’s Mon), the GI Belmont S. with Drosselmeyer (Distorted Humor) and the GI Travers S. with Colonel John (Tiznow).
Nothing has come close, however, to the exhilaration of winning the world’s richest race, the now $10 million G1 Dubai World Cup, which they captured in 2009 with their homebred Well Armed (Tiznow).
“That was absolutely the highest mountain top that Susan and I have ever stood on,” Casner said while standing at the rail at Meydan Racecourse watching morning workouts this week. “We’ve been waiting for a horse good enough to bring us back here, and now we have one. We’re excited about being back in Dubai.”
The Casners have traveled from their Texas ranch– where, in storybook fashion, Well Armed now lives with them and a fellow Dubai racing veteran, Bet Me Best (Barberstown), who finished third in the 2000 G1 Dubai Golden Shaheen–to cheer on their homebred My Johnny Be Good (Colonel John) in the $2 million G2 UAE Derby.
Trainer Eoin Harty, who conditioned Well Armed and Colonel John, has pointed My Johnny Be Good to the UAE Derby, which offers points for the Kentucky Derby as well as its copious purse and will be run over 1900 meters. Harty and the Casners both were enthusiastic about My Johnny Be Good’s workout at Meydan Mar. 24, in which the colt breezed a half-mile in :47 and change. “That’s the best piece of work I’ve seen him put in,” Harty declared.
Whereas the task is not an easy one for My Johnny Be Good, who finished third in the GIII Sam F. Davis S. at Tampa Bay Downs before checking in eighth after pressing the pace in the GII Tampa Bay Derby won by Carpe Diem (Giant’s Causeway), his connections are not faint of heart.
After all, Casner brought Well Armed back from near death to win the Dubai World Cup, so he knows that anything can be possible in racing.
When Well Armed was three, he won a race in Dubai while trained by Clive Brittain and seemed like a possible UAE Derby candidate himself. However, a knee chip sent him back to the U.S., where, while recovering from surgery in his stall, he fractured the point of his hip. Casner recalled that Well Armed was in so much pain after incurring the fracture that it was not certain the gelding would survive. Then Casner–who for many years was a trainer long before he co-founded WinStar Farm with friend Kenny Troutt–spent about a year working to rehabilitate Well Armed, with long sessions of swimming to build up atrophied muscles followed by riding with a Western saddle.
When Well Armed was physically ready, Casner sent him to Harty. And the rest is history.
“‘From Cigar to Well Armed’–I believe that was the call that night [of the 2009 Dubai World Cup],” Casner said, reliving the moment Well Armed ran away with a record-breaking 14-length victory in the final race ever run at Nad Al Sheba, where Cigar had prevailed in the inaugural World Cup in 1996. “That memory is burned in my mind.”
But the story is not over. My Johnny Be Good has the chance to add more memories to the Casners’ Dubai collection, which began in 1998 when they accompanied Art Preston to watch his Belmont S. winner Victory Gallop (Cryptoclearance) finish third in the Dubai World Cup for then-trainer Elliott Walden. The Casners’ saga in the desert continued when they raced Bet Me Best in the 2000 Golden Shaheen.
Prior to his landmark Dubai World Cup victory, Well Armed also competed in the 2008 edition of the race, in which he was third behind Horse of the Year Curlin (Smart Strike).
Fittingly for a horse that took them on the ride of their lives, Well Armed leads a happy life with the Casners at their Flower Mound, Texas, ranch.
“He still gets ridden and gets his turnout time,” said Casner, pulling up a photo of 12-year-old Well Armed grazing in a paddock while standing with 19-year-old Bet Me Best.
“He still thinks he’s a racehorse,” added Susan Casner.