Dude Steps up For Smith

by Jessica Martini
Green Smith, Jr. and his wife Kathy have only been involved in horse racing for four years, but the Texas-based couple have already enjoyed remarkable success. The Smiths campaigned 2012 GIII Affirmed H. winner Nonios (Pleasantly Perfect) and are co-owners of 2013 GIII Providencia S. winner Scarlet Strike (Smart Strike). They added another graded stakes winner Sunday when Wild Dude (Wildcat Heir) upset GI Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner Secret Circle (Eddington) to win the GII Palos Verdes S. at Santa Anita. 
Green Smith, who is president and principal owner of the engineering and construction firm S-Con, Inc., wasn’t able to make it to California Sunday, but admitted he was anxiously watching the race from home. 
“I live in Texas, so I wasn’t able to make it up there on Super Bowl weekend,” Smith explained. “So we stayed home and I was watching on T.V.” 
Wild Dude was briefly blocked in deep stretch of yesterday’s Palos Verdes, but was able to drive between foes and quickened impressively to overtake Secret Circle in the dying strides of the six-furlong contest. Watching from Texas, Smith said he wasn’t sure the bay colt was going to find the running room. 
“We’ve had several races recently that worked out with horses in that same spot and they couldn’t get through,” Smith commented. “So I was certainly concerned about it and afraid he wasn’t going to get there. I started thinking a third or a second sure would be nice and a win would be unbelievable. It was pretty exciting.” 
The Smiths have been involved with breeding and racing greyhounds for nearly two decades and decided in 2010 it was time to try a different form of racing. 
“I’d always liked to watch the Breeders’ Cup and all the Triple Crown races,” Smith recalled. “We’d never owned horses before, but we’re pretty heavy into greyhound racing–we’re in that type of a sport, so it wasn’t much of stretch to go from greyhounds to horses.” 
“I just decided about four years ago, my wife and I decided to go down to Ocala and maybe buy a couple of racehorses,” he continued. “We thought that might be fun to do. So that’s what we did. We went down there and we met [bloodstock agent] Christina Jelm and we hit it off and she put us on several pretty nice horses.” 
Jelm also introduced the couple to Hall of Famer Jerry Hollendorfer, who trains all of Smiths’ horses and is co-owner on many of them, including Wild Dude. 
Wild Dude, who was making his stakes debut in the Palos Verdes, was a $42,000 purchase at the 2012 OBS April sale. 
“That was a very good deal,” Smith admitted Sunday. “I don’t remember what number we had him–Christina and Jerry they rate a horse and they come up with a number and 90% of the time we’ll go a little higher than that number, but that one we got a pretty good deal on.” 
The Smiths currently have three horses in training, as well as several younger horses. 
“We’d like to have seven to 10, but we’d also like to have somebody who is making some money, somebody paying the bills,” Smith explained. “We owned a really nice horse named Nonios and we own half of Scarlet Strike, so we were doing quite well. But the last couple of months it was kind of a one way street to the negative. We were certainly looking for some other stakes horse to step up and it looks like Dude might have done it today.” 
While Nonios, Scarlet Strike and Wild Dude were all 2-year-old purchases, Smith is open to any opportunity to add quality stock his stable. 
“Christina finds horses that are on the track–I’ve bought some that were already racing that had two or three starts and I’ve been bought yearlings and I’ve bought 2-year-olds,” he said. “I kind of like the 2-year-olds just because, so far, we’ve had better luck with the 2-year-olds. But we also have some young horses coming up and the jury is still out on those.” 
Smith said his goals in racing have shifted slightly since he became involved in the sport four years ago. 
“When we got into this, we were hoping we would go to the Kentucky Derby and watch our horse run,” he said. “Since I’ve been in it four years, I’ve kind of soured on that a little bit because of what it takes out of a 2-year-old to get to the Derby. I think it kind of hurts them a little bit to get pushed that hard. So now I’m really on to the Breeders’ Cup–that’s a pretty exciting day and just as prestigious. Now I’ll just be happy if we can win a Breeders’ Cup race.” 
They may have taken a step closer to that goal with Wild Dude Sunday. 
“Kathy and I wanted Jerry to put Dude in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint this last year,” Smith admitted. “He said he just wasn’t ready for it. But maybe this year.” 
As for more immediate plans, Smith said, “I’m sure Jerry will start looking at the book and the stakes schedule and he’ll find another stakes for him.”