Morstachy’s, a real long shot, is entered in King’s Plate

Renico Lafond arrives at Woodbine Racetrack in the northwest corner of Toronto in early morning. He feeds his eight horses, trains them, rides them, grooms them and mucks out their stalls. Before he leaves for home late at night, he feeds them again and tucks them in.

”I really do most everything by myself,” Lafond says.

In a sport dominated by racing syndicates with deep pockets, he is a very small-time operator. Until quite recently, the thoroughbreds he worked with were passed on to him by people who had given up hope.

”All of them were free,” he says.

With a handful he had success, but in the dozen years since Lafond earned his trainer’s licence, all of the horses he trained won a combined average of about $20,000 a year. Not exactly a pot of gold.

”A lot of people told me my horses wouldn’t make it, but I am patient,” he says. “They are like my kids. I love them. I know what they need. They are spoiled. They are living the sweet life.”

Last year Lafond began working for owner Kris Manohar. On July 23, Lafond claimed a horse on his behalf for $40,000. On Sunday that bay gelding, Morstachy’s, will race in the 164th edition of the King’s Plate, North America’s oldest continually run stakes race.

The race is named in honour of Canada’s reigning monarch and thus, after 70 years of the Queen’s Plate, it is now called the the King’s Plate, following the accession of King Charles.

The winner of the race gets $600,000 of the $1-million purse and a prize from the monarchy first described as, “a plate to the value of 50 guineas.”

To date, Morstachy’s has earned $56,303 in prize money.

”He is exactly the same as what we are,” Manohar says of Morstachy’s. “Renico and I are small-time guys and he is a small-time horse.”

Manohar has owned race horses for five years. He owns four. He is not E.P. Taylor with an operation like Windfields Farm. He owns and operates a transmission shop in the suburbs north of Toronto.

”It is a dream to have a horse in the Kings Plate,” Manohar says. His family is from Guyana but he was born in Toronto and is a former national-team-level cricket player. “You think you would never get there and then opportunity comes knocking.”

Lafond grew up in Barbados and came to Canada with his family at eight years old. His father, Nicholas, was a trainer in the West Indies as well as a trainer and a racing official in Ontario.

Lafond started hot-walking horses for his dad at 11, went on to become an exercise rider and did all of the back-breaking jobs in-between. He is 36; Manohar is 34.

“We are so similar in age and have so many other similarities that when we talked for the first time we clicked,” Manohar says. “It has just been a great relationship.”

He and Lafond had kept an eye on Morstachy’s since last year. They acquired him three weeks ago after he ran fifth in a 6 1/2-furlong race. He had run in two previous claiming races but nobody took a leap of faith.

Manohar and Lafond would have taken him sooner but didn’t have the $40,000 to do so. They had to wait until enough money was saved. Then they had to come up with the King’s Plate entry fee of about $12,500.

In Sunday’s 10th race he will compete against horses that were purchased as yearlings for as much as $330,000. The 1 1/4-mile King’s Plate is his first stakes race. In two years he has won once in 11 lesser outings, with three seconds and two thirds.

The race for three-year-olds bred in Canada is the first leg in the Canadian Triple Crown. The second leg is the Prince of Wales Stakes at Fort Erie Race Track on Sept. 12 and the third is the Breeders’ Stakes back at Woodbine on Oct. 1.

Morstachy’s (whose sire was Mor Spirit and whose dam was Wekiva Mist) races out of post position five on Sunday. It is likely to break from the starting gate as the longest of long shots in the field of 17 horses. All carry 126 pounds and Morstachy’s will be ridden for the first time by Brazilian jockey Leo Salles.

The favourites include Kalik (3 to 1), Stanley House (4 to 1), Kaukokaipuu (6 to 1), Elysian Field (8 to 1) and Paramount Prince (10 to 1), but there is no clear runaway winner. In early odds, Morstachy’s was listed at 50 to 1. The biggest underdog to win in the history of the race is TJ’s Lucky Moon, which won the 2002 Queen’s Plate and paid $166 on a $2 win ticket.

“I’m not scared,” Lafond says. “I don’t get intimidated. A horse’s price doesn’t make the horse. It all comes down to how you train and prepare them. A lot of people want to train each horse the same way but you can’t. Every horse is different.

“Morstachy’s has a huge heart. He likes to close.”

After Morstachy’s was claimed, Lafond took him to his stall and was surprised to find that the muscle-bound 1,000-pound thoroughbred was very shy.

“He was very spooky and nervous and not comfortable with people,” the trainer says. “He stayed at the back of the stall and wouldn’t come to the door. It took me two weeks to calm him down and I wish I had more time with him, but now he is bold and confident and happy, the way a horse is supposed to be.”

Salles has climbed aboard Morstachy’s several times for training runs. The first did not go so well, the second was breeze.

“He flew out of the gate like a rocket,” Lafond says. ”I almost didn’t know it was him. To have a horse in the King’s Plate is mind-boggling. It is a dream not many people get to experience. A long time ago I told my wife I wanted to have a horse in the Queen’s Plate by the time I reached 40.

“I got there four years ahead of time.”

Manohar bought his first race horse eight years ago and it was such a bad experience that he gave it up for three years.

“I didn’t know much about the game and had a bad run,” he says. He has an uncle who is an assistant trainer. “Now I enjoy it. You have to go through struggles to reach the point where I am.”

He says he is not so worried about the outcome of Sunday’s race. He sees it, hopefully, as a stepping stone for him and Lafond. And he is sure the crowd at Woodbine will be in their corner in the $1-million race. Most everyone loves an underdog.

“To everyone in the grandstand, we are living their dream,” Manohar says.