Jerry Hollendorfer Quotations

When I bought him, he worked an eighth of a mile in 102/5. That was the criteria my owner wanted: a well-bred horse that worked in 10 and change and didn't cost a couple hundred thousand. We would have given a lot more for him.

When the horse made his exciting finishes and was running on late very strong, we thought the horse might have some potential.

We're going back with the idea of trying to win it; we're not going just to run in the race. If we get back there, and he doesn't like the track and doesn't train well, we won't run.

Neither of the owners wants to run in the Derby if he doesn't have a chance.

I don't think we've seen the best of him yet. He seems to be improving.

He hasn't missed any time at all since his last race. If he does well on Saturday, I'd guess the Illinois Derby could be next but, believe me, we're not looking past the California Derby.

He is in Hawaii and listened to the race on the cell phone. I'm sure he can be persuaded to consider going for the Derby after such a good win.

He got sick, got better and then relapsed. That was a good race for him.

He's been very steady for us, and we always expect a big race from him, and he always gives it.

He was a good-looking little colt who had a nice pedigree and he worked fast. We got lucky on the price because he was in the sale with no reserve. I liked him a whole lot more than $30,000, that's for sure.

That could very well change. I'm sure he could be persuaded one way or another. The kind of people who rate horses had him at 20-to-1 (in the Kentucky Derby Future Pool).

I think he showed a lot of guts today because they came to him, and he had every excuse to chuck it in. He went 1:11.05 (for 6 furlongs) and picked it up to 1:34.81 (for 1 mile) and finished really well.

We need races in between what your ultimate goal is. If he can win on Saturday, it makes the ultimate goal worth pursuing.

That was just an experiment that worked out. We sure weren't thinking about any million-dollar race for him.

While we were disappointed, we're not down on our horse. There are a lot of different ways of looking at things. You could say he didn't run well enough to go to the Kentucky Derby. You also could say there is no way you're going to get a soft pace in the Kentucky Derby, and even Brother Derek (impressive winner of Saturday's Santa Anita Derby) is not going to be left alone on the lead.

We entered him, and he got kicked by the stable pony the next day. He had to have stitches in his hock.

We'll let things settle out and see if we can make an intelligent decision on what we should do. I'm not going to say either way because I didn't like how the pace came up today. It was a deeper track, too, and the winner was used to that kind of track, but if you go to the Kentucky Derby, you have to overcome obstacles like that. Opportunities don't come very often to be in America's race. We'd like to be in it, but if we determine that there are too many things against us, we won't do it.

Whether it's 2,000 or 2,500, it must be some kind of record for a jockey-trainer team.

There are questions about him because he's from Northern California, but this is a Grade 3 race, and a lot of horses have come out of it to do great things.

We don't think there was enough pace to set the race up for us.

I use Beyer Figures as a tool, but I don't need them to build my confidence up. I think I've got a horse that does what he has to do to win and not a lot more. From what I've seen of the races this year, Cause to Believe is in the hunt. He has shown as much or more than a lot of horses that are being considered.

The winner is very impressive and a very great-looking horse that we thought would win if we didn't. I didn't expect to run third, but he did gallop out well after the race and came back to the barn in very good shape.

Absolutely nothing bothers him, and that's a pretty rare thing. He reminds me a lot of Lost in the Fog; he has the same kind of temperament.

I told him many times that I think this is a pretty good colt, but he is the kind of guy who doesn't get excited. He said, 'We'll see, we'll see.' He has told me repeatedly that he doesn't want to run in the Derby unless he has an absolute chance to win it.

It looked like Shadow Raider was going easy. I thought Shadow Raider was going to win it, but 'Dream came running.

They've only had a three-horse dead-heat once, so you can't hope for that. I just want all of the horses to have their own chance to win.

I'm not taking anything away from any horse. What I don't like to do is run two really fast horses in the same race. Each horse should have his own chance, or you shouldn't run him.

I thought she was going to win it, she just got out-bobbed at the wire.

He's never been a good work horse. It's been very frustrating, but that's him. Fortunately, in the afternoon he's never run a bad race.

This horse is good right now, and hopefully he'll stay good for the Sunshine Millions. I don't think he needs the lead, and today would indicate that. He probably won't get the lead in the Sunshine Millions, but today would indicate that he could punch it in from anywhere.

The Derby, on the road to this thing, there are many fallen warriors. I'm not the only one.