Frugal Doc Ambitious, Successful

When trainer Scott Posey entered Frugal Doc in the $200,000 Maryland Million Classic, he recognized that he was being awfully ambitious. At age 9, Frugal Doc is better suited to claiming races than stakes competition. “Winning today would be a stretch,� the trainer acknowledged before the race. “But I know this: he’ll be scrapping.�

This was a safe prediction, for Frugal Doc has been scrapping through a remarkable career. Going into Saturday’s race at Laurel he had made 108 starts, won 28 times, competed in five previous Maryland Millions and earned more than $650,000. And he had earned the respect of the racing community for being such an intrepid competitor.

But his admirers couldn’t have imagined what he was going to do Saturday. Dismissed by the Laurel crowd at odds of 35 to 1, he went to the front, set a slow pace and turned into the stretch with a clear lead. But then the field converged on him, and the favorites, Oliver’s Twist and Brilliant Patriot, both passed him in mid-stretch. Frugal Doc’s owner and trainer surely would have been elated with a third-place finish, but the gelding wasn’t about to settle for an honorable defeat. He fought back tenaciously against Oliver’s Twist-runner-up in the 1995 Preakness-and his nose hit the finish line first.

Frugal Doc will be an appropriate poster boy for the Maryland Million, which was conceived to showcase the state’s stallions and breeding industry. Maryland doesn’t produce thoroughbreds for sheikhs and tycoons; the most expensive stallion in the state has a stud fee of $12,500 and most cost considerably less. Their progeny are designed for people who want affordable horses who are productive even if they’re not fashionable.

Baederwood, the sire of Frugal Doc, is decidedly unchic; even when the thoroughbred market was booming in the mid-80s, his stud fee was $3,500. Yet many of his offspring are the tough, durable types that racetrack people talk about as “hard-knocking.� Frugal Doc embodies the description.

Foaled in New Jersey, Frugal Doc launched his racing career in 1989, and finished fourth that year in the Maryland Million race for 2-year-olds. But he was essentially a claiming horse, and when trainer Louis Jolin ran him for a $25,000 price tag in 1991, trainer Francis Campitelli took him. It was a profitable purchase: Frugal Doc won stakes and narrowly lost the 1992 Maryland Million Classic in an excruciating three-horse photo finish.

But by the time he was 7, his form appeared to be declining, and when Campitelli dropped him into an $18,500 claimer, Posey took a chance on the old-timer and bought him for owner Edward Wilson of Annapolis. The gelding continued to be productive at an age when most horses have been long-retired.

“For a horse his age he’s relatively free of physical problems,� Posey said. “I think he’s kept going so long because his got very good conformation. He’s not really an attractive horse, but he’s an athlete-an absolute athlete.

“He has had some trouble with his (suspensory ligaments), and there have been times when I’ve said, “This is it.’ But for some bizarre reason he keeps coming back. He just heals himself. And, in fact, he never trained better than he has in the last month and a half.�

Saturday morning, Posey was asked what Frugal Doc would do after the Million, and he said, realistically, that the gelding would go back into claiming company. If he won the race--an improbable thought--Posey said the gelding might be retired, but then he immediately reconsidered: “I don’t think this horse would be happy being retired.�

But whatever he does after this crowning moment of his career, Frugal Doc won’t suffer the sad fate of some old horses who descend to the bottom of the claiming ladder and then to oblivion. The gelding’s owner treats him like a pet, and Posey said many other people around the track have expressed an interested in adopting him as a pony. When his racing days are finished, Frugal Doc can look forward to a comfortable retirement. And he will have earned it.