ELMONT, N.Y., Oct. 28 (UPI) -- It's not easy to win a Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championships race and still be in a bad mood, but trainer Bobby Frankel managed to do just that.
Frankel had six horses on Saturday's eight-race championship card at Belmont Park, including favorites in the first two contests.
"I was in a bad mood right away," Frankel said Sunday during a recap of the previous day's action. In the 18th running of the series, the California-based Brooklyn native extended his Breeders' Cup drought to 38 straight losers before Squirtle Squirt squirted between the two leaders, Xtra Heat and Caller One, to win the 6-furlong Sprint.
Squirtle Squirt perhaps was the least likely of Frankel's charges to make it to the winner's circle, coming up against the likes of Kona Gold, Caller One and El Corredor.
The win came after Flute finished a disappointing seventh in the Distaff and You ended in fourth in the Juvenile Fillies.
Frankel blamed Flute's performance on the Belmont track.
"On a normal track, she should have been sent to the lead," he said, noting the horse was fighting jockey Jerry Bailey all the way.
Then there was You.
"I couldn't understand why You didn't run well. ... Then this morning we found she was running a temperature of 102. You don't run well when you don't feel good. She's as good as any 2-year-old filly," he said.
Frankel's next disappointment was the Filly & Mare Turf.
"Starine ran good," Frankel said of her 10th place finish in the 12-horse field. "She just couldn't tuck in."
He had little to say about Timboroa's third place finish in the Turf and of Aptitude's eighth-place finish in the Classic, he said: "He got hung up wide all the way....Jerry couldn't do nothing so I was in a bad mood again. What can I tell you?"
So, Frankel had what for most trainers would be a good day and still was out of sorts.
"I was really in a bad mood for the parties," he said.
