Trainer Blusiewicz Chases Big Payoff

Leon Blusiewicz’s career as a thoroughbred trainer hit its low point in mid-1997. When he went to Saratoga that summer, he didn’t have a single horse in his care, and he had to work as a self-described “go-fer” for trainer Nick Zito.

Desperate to locate new clients, he bought an advertisement in Maryland Horse magazine that read: “Looking to get into the business the right way? With over 25 years in breeding, buying, training and consulting, Leon Blusiewicz is your answer.” The ad cited the many stakes winners he had developed -- Willa on the Move, Snow Plow, Lejoli, Skipat, Isella, etc. He didn’t get a single phone call.

Yet Blusiewicz retained his customary optimism and self-confidence when he went to the yearling sales at Keeneland that fall and bought three moderately priced horses. A lifelong friend, Clayton Peters, took a minority interest in each, but Blusiewicz could find no other clients to invest in the yearlings. So Blusiewicz wound up doing what he has done for most of his life in the sport: He put up his own money and took his own risks.

One of the three yearlings was a colt named Millions, who cost $34,000 and developed into one of the top 2-year-olds of 1998. Millions was considered a leading Kentucky Derby contender until he was soundly beaten in his 3-year-old debut last month. He will try to redeem himself Saturday when he runs in the $200,000 Federico Tesio Stakes at Pimlico, and his trainer is confident he will do so. In any event, Millions has already accomplished what the trainer wanted most of all. He’s put Blusiewicz back in action.

Nobody relishes the action and the gambling more than Blusiewicz. In contrast to the many members of his profession who have the prudence and demeanor of bankers, Blusiewicz is unabashedly ebullient and outspoken. If you have even a nodding acquaintance with “Blue” and ask him what he thinks of a horse he has entered, he’s apt to exclaim: “My horse can’t lose! Can’t lose! Bet all you want!”

Blusiewicz grew up in Baltimore, and the passion of his youth was the sea rather than horses. When he was 16, he got a job on a vessel bound for South America. After spending several years as a seaman, he worked at a variety of other jobs before he went to the Maryland tracks, started grooming and hot-walking horses and fell in love with the sport. As soon as he amassed a modest bankroll, he bought a horse for $5,000, promptly cashed a bet on him and launched his career as a horse trainer.

Blusiewicz is an avid student of pedigrees, and over the years he has been successful in picking out bargains at yearling sales. But he never cultivated the type of clients who would give him a blank check (or even a large check) to buy horses, and he has always operated a stable of modest scope. His business dwindled in the 1990s, and in 1996 and 1997 he won a total of two races. So when he bought Millions and the two other yearlings, he was gambling on his own future.

Blusiewicz liked Millions’ pedigree and was able to buy him cheap because the son of Dehere was skinny and immature. The trainer sent him to a farm in South Carolina, and when he saw him 90 days later he barely recognized the colt.

“He’d put on 150 pounds and he was a gorgeous horse,” Blusiewicz said. “I called Clayton and said, ‘This is the best-moving horse I’ve seen in my life since Seattle Slew. He’ll be worth millions.’ ” The colt got his name from this characteristic burst of Blusiewicz hyperbole.

After losing his debut at Saratoga, Millions won three straight races, including the Laurel Futurity, by big margins. His opposition was weak and his speed figures unimpressive, but Millions was nevertheless getting significant hype as a contender for the 1999 Kentucky Derby. Just before the colt’s final 2-year-old race in the Remsen Stakes at Aqueduct, Blusiewicz said, trainer Wayne Lukas made an offer to buy him for $3 million, or $5 million if he won the Remsen, contingent on a physical inspection. Blusiewicz was on the brink of his greatest score.

But when Lukas looked at Millions, he didn’t like the colt’s conformation and nixed the deal. “Sure, I was sick,” Blusiewicz said. And he was angered that “Lukas put the bad-mouth on the horse throughout the industry,” killing any chance of selling Millions to a buyer seeking a Derby contender. After Millions lost the Remsen by a nose, in a solid effort, Blusiewicz took him to South Carolina to prepare him for the classics. The Daily Racing Form ranked him among its top 10 Derby contenders.

But when Millions came to Laurel last month, his mystique was shattered. In a public workout he bore out badly on the turn -- often a sign that a horse is bothered by a physical problem. When he ran in the Private Terms Stakes as the 1-to-5 favorite, he faded badly and lost by 13 lengths. Was something wrong with the horse? Was he undertrained?

Blusiewicz insisted: “There’s nothing bothering the horse. I had him fit enough. When we checked him after the race, we found his lungs were full of mucus and inflammation.” The trainer gave up his Derby dreams, but said the colt has been training well again, and declared, “If Millions runs in the Tesio like I think he’ll run, then we’ll go in the Preakness.”

After all the vicissitudes he has experienced in the racing business, one defeat isn’t going to turn him into a pessimist.