Need a loan? Ask Jody Petty for money.

He’s rolling in dough after winning both the $200,000 Breeder’s Cup Steeplechase and the $100,000 Foxbrook Supreme novice hurdle at the Far Hills Race Meeting, Far Hills, N.J., Oct. 22. Add to that, a win the next day at the Oak Ridge meet (Va.) pushed Petty’s share of his mount’s earnings for the weekend just past $20,000.

“It’s unbelievable. I only made a little over $18,000 for all of 2004,” said Petty.

Petty also made the history books as the jockey who rode McDynamo to his third consecutive Breeders’ Cup win-he only horse to do so—and in the process, halted a four-race losing streak for the former Eclipse Award-winning chaser. McDynamo took advantage of the scratch of likely pacesetter Preemptive Strike and went wire-to-wire in the 25€8-mile race over 14 fences.

When the overnights came out, the Breeders’ Cup race looked like it could be billed as the “Return of the Titans” race. Preemptive Strike had just beaten McDynamo at the Meadowlands (N.J.), a grade II race. Hirapour had ceased his own losing streak by capturing the New York Turf Writers grade I stakes (N.Y.) in August and he, McDynamo, and Preemptive Strike had traded off wins and losses throughout the 2004 racing season.

But a hoof abscess took Preemptive Strike out of the Breeders’ Cup. Despite the best efforts of trainer Paul Rowland, the horse wasn’t sound by Friday and officially scratched that afternoon. That just left five entries, with Hirapour (Matt McCarron) billed as the heavy favorite.

Despite having won this race two years in a row and winning every other race he’s ever run over the Far Hills turf, McDy-namo was regarded with healthy suspicion because of his four straight losses.

But the horse had been second three times and third once in those losses, so it’s not as if he wasn’t trying at all. Still, he hadn’t shown the same flair and dominant running style this year, and naysayers were calling him ungenuine.

Ride To Win
It was Petty’s first time riding Michael Moran’s bay gelding in a race, although, since he works for McDynamo’s trainer, Sanna Hendriks, he’d schooled and galloped the horse many times. Ridden to no avail twice this year by Craig Thornton and then twice by Robert Massey, Hendriks switched jockeys and gave Petty a chance to do more than just school her charge.

“I really just got lucky. I got on the horse at the right time,” said Petty. “Sanna didn’t even tell me I was named on him until Tuesday evening [after the entries came out.] She called me around 5 p.m. and said, ‘Jody, I didn’t want you to be the last to know, but you’re riding McDynamo.’ “

With Preemptive Strike’s scratch, Petty and Hendriks agreed there would be no real pace in the race. Added to their strategizing was the knowledge that the course, drenched with rain from the storm blanketing the East Coast, was going to be very soft and tiring.

Petty said that McDynamo’s strength is his relentless gallop.

“He has no real speed, but he’ll gallop along at a very steady, honest pace forever,” he said. “In most of the races he’s won, you’ll see him make the lead with anywhere from five to two fences from home, and then he just drags the field behind him and says, ‘Catch me if you can.’ “

Without pace to settle in behind, Hendriks told herjockey to control the pace and wear his competitors out.

“She told me, ‘Jody, this isn’t your race to lose, this is your race to win. I want to see you ride to win,’ ” said Petty. “In fact, it was the least pressured ride I’ve had in a long time considering what a big deal it was.

“Both the Morans [McDynamo’s owners] and Sanna told me, ‘He’s been beaten all year. Go out there and have fun. There’s no pressure. You know what you’re doing, so go out there and do it.’ All they said and all they wanted me to do was to ride aggressively and give their horse a chance,” added Petty.

Despite Preemptive Strike’s scratch, Petty never once thought he had the race in the bag. “I’m scared of every horse in any race I ride until I cross the finish line first,” he said with a grin.

According to Petty, when the flag dropped, “no one wanted to take the lead; I did, and so I went. But we started out so slowly I really think McDynamo didn’t know we were in a race. He was completely off the bridle, and we popped the first fence like it was a timber fence. Until we jumped the third fence, where they had caught up with me and he felt them behind him, he was a perfect gentleman, like he was out for a hack,” he said with a grin.

But “caught up” is a relative term. McDynamo was always ahead by 2 or more lengths. Hirapour poached his pace until he faded to third in the stretch, giving way to a late run by Three Carat (Danielle Hodsdon). Under-stood stalked the leaders and then tired for fourth, and Mon Villez (Chip Miller) was always going to be fifth.

Leapin’ Lizards
Petty’s novice ride, Augustin Stables’ Move West, also used his jumping ability to power his way to the winner’s circle. Like McDynamo, Move West made the most of the soft going.

“He’s a big-footed plodder, and while I wouldn’t say he absolutely loved the soft going, he tolerated it. Because he jumped well, we were never mired down at the jumps,” said Petty. “When horses make mistakes at the hurdles in soft going it’s just that much harder for them to get back their momentum. My horse jumped like a stag.”

The Foxbrook was the third race on a seven-race card, and by then the ground was chewed up. “I broke mid-pack and raced along, kinda trapped on the inside,” said Petty. “The ground on the inside track was not great, so going down the backside I switched to the outside, so I was jumping the right side of the middle. I was fairly wide and giving up ground, but the going was easier on the horse.”

Petty made his way to the front by the final turn for home. And said he went so wide “you could have fit 12 horses on my inside, but I had a ton of horse left, and he was hitting good ground and just galloping on.”

Briefly challenged by Good Night Shirt (Xavier Aizpuru) in the turn, who ended up fourth, Move West just powered his way to the last fence and won easily by 10 lengths.

For Petty, this Far Hills meeting had a lot of significance. The novice race, run before the Breeders’ Cup, was the first race Petty, 33, had ever won at the New Jersey course and was his first novice stakes win. He’d also never won a Breeders’ Cup before, making it the biggest win in his 12-year career. The last time the jockey won a race of similar significance was when he rode Rusty Carrier’s Clearance Code to the Royal Chase (Ky.) winner’s circle in 1998.

 “You’ve just got to get on the right horse at the right time. Someone just has to give you a chance,” he said.

Just A Chance
Zach Miller can attest to that sentiment. The young apprentice jockey went to work for trainer Doug Fout in September and was given the opportunity to ride some races for the Virginia-based trainer. So when he drove Erin Go Bragh home the winner in the $50,000 Appleton grade III hurdle stakes, his first win for Fout, he was especially pleased. Whitewood Farm’s Mauritania (Aizpuru) was second.

“I was really glad just to win a race for Doug, but even more so because it was such a significant race,” he said.

The New Zealand-bred gelding is not the easiest horse to make win either. Those who’ve ridden him before know that the bay has a tendency to shut down if he makes the lead too soon. Miller knew he had to “massage” the horse’s ego to get him to the wire.

“He’s a little tricky, for sure. Doug had told me that I absolutely had to leave my run for as late as possible or he might not run for me. But I knew I would have to combat Mauritania’s stretch run. Having ridden Mauritania before, I know how deadly he is when he gets going and how tenacious he is when he looks another horse in the eye,” he said.

Mauritania set the pace under a well-handled ride by Aizpuru. Miller kept Erin Go Bragh mid-pack in the 10-horse field until the eighth fence, where he started to creep forward.

“I was fourth on the inside coming around the final turn, boxed in a little,” he said. “I saw daylight and went for it. At that moment ‘Erin’ felt like he thought about this not being his day. It was a tricky moment. If I got after him, he might have chucked it in even sooner, or if I didn’t get after him, he might think he didn’t have to run. But he made up his mind that he’d go, that today was his day.”

Miller and Erin Go Bragh just beat Mauritania by a head. Miller hopes it was a watershed moment for the bay gelding.

“I honestly think he may have worked things out in his head finally,” he said. “Doug has been working on getting this horse to want to win, and whatever he did is working because he ran on like a horse who cared.”

A Porsche Over Hurdles
“He’s the most unbelievable jumper I’ve ever sat on because of his sheer power,” enthused jockey Jody Petty about McDynamo, winner of three consecutive Breeders’ Cup Steeplechases.

“With some hurdle horses you don’t really feel them leave the ground because they jump using just their momentum to clear the hurdle. But with McDynamo, you feel him tap the ground and push off.

“It’s like driving a Porsche up a hill versus a VW Bug. He doesn’t glide, he powers over the hurdle, and in soft going that’s a really good feeling,” said Petty, who drives a VWBug he won in a raffle at another race meet several years ago.