Jul 31, 2015 4 min read

Because of his success as a longshot winner in one of the Adios elimination races last Saturday, Cooperstown is getting a lot of attention.

But it would be foolish to overlook two other horses when the $400,000 Delvin Miller Adios final gets under way today in Race No. 12 at The Meadows Racetrack.

Lost For Words, trained by Brian Brown and stabled in Delaware, Ohio; and My Hero Ron, one of three horses from the Burke Racing Stables; have a strong chance to win the Pace For The Orchids for 3-year-olds.

Lost For Words, purchased for $50,000 at a yearling sale in Lexington, Ky., opened on the early line at 5-1, and My Hero Ron, which like Cooperstown and National Seelster was an elimination winner, came out at 3-1. Neither drew particularly good post positions for the final, but interestingly, will start side by side: My Hero Ron from No. 7 and Lost For Words from No. 6.

Though he didn’t win his Adios elimination race, Dude’s The Man is the 5-2 favorite. With Corey Callahan in the sulky, Dude’s The Man finished second in the Meadowlands Pace July 18 and will start from Post No. 2.

Lost For Words, a product of Well Said and Thou Shall Not, won three straight Pennsylvania Sire Stakes races and has four victories in seven starts this season. And his success might be from the shoes.

“He has bad feet,” said Brown. “We had trouble with his (horseshoes). We glued them on and he didn’t race that good. He didn’t like them, so we took them off. It’s much better now and he’s raced better.”

Lost For Words was posting times in the mid-1:50s for one-mile tracks before the shoe problem was corrected. Since then, his times have fallen to the low 1:50s then 1:49.3 for a stake race in Philadelphia and 1:49.1 in the Hempt at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs July 4.

In the Adios eliminations, Lost For Words, sporting padded shoes, raced well, closing on Cooperstown down the stretch. But he ran out of track and finished second by a neck.

“I was very satisfied to see him race like that,” said Brown. “Right up to that race, I felt he was getting better and better. He was just sore. He might have had gravel foot but I think we have it fixed.”

Lost For Words is unusual in another way: the colt has a masseuse.

“It’s a friend of the family,” Brown said. “We had a chiropractor come in and work on him. It doesn’t happen a lot, I know, but it’s easy for a horse to throw his back out.”

So far, the sessions produced better times and, more important, victories.

“I imagine Dude’s The Man is the horse to beat (in the Adios),” said Brown. “My Hero Ron has been racing well since Ron got him and Cooperstown will be tough to deal with if he’s racing well.”

Yannick Gingras, who drove Sunfire Blue Chip to the Adios victory in 2013 for Jimmy Takter, will drive My Hero Ron.

“My Hero Ron is a lazy horse and Yannick tends to get more out of lazy horses than anybody,” said Burke, who also has Cooperstown and Yankee Bounty in the final. “Yannick is known for being a very aggressive driver. He makes horses try. (My Hero Ron) is not pouty; he’s lazy. He’s not sour and doesn’t want to do his work. He’s just not going to do it without being asked.”

Burke purchased the gelding at a sale he attended just two months ago.

“Mark Weaver called and asked me what I thought about the horse because I was there,” Burke said. “I told him I liked him and we were discussing what to pay. Mark said just keep bidding until we get him. If Mark’s that confident – and his name is Ron – I thought what the heck, we’ll give it a shot. We paid enough for him but it turns out we got a bargain.”

Also on today’s card are five Grand Circuit stakes, the $50,000 Adios Consolation, the $50,000 Roy D. Davis Invitational for 4-year-olds and four multirace wagers with a combined $45,000 in total-pool guarantees. First post is 12:20 p.m., with the Adios set for approximately 4 p.m.