'Goggles' a great name for a talented horse

By BY HANK WESCH, UNION-TRIBUNE

Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 6:32 p.m.

DEL MAR — Goggles McCoy. It’s a catchy name for an unbeaten horse.
And the story of the man that the horse Goggles McCoy, a 3-year-old gelding seeking his fifth win in as many career starts in this afternoon’s El Cajon Stakes here, was named after is an interesting one.
Google "Goggles McCoy," sift through the more recent references to the horse and you come to this excerpt from the book “The History of Race Riding and the Jockeys’ Guild” (Turner Publishing Co.):
“(In 1945) James N. McCoy was the first jockey to wear goggles while racing. Enduring the good-natured abuse of his fellows, McCoy made lasting improvement to the safety of racing through the use of eye protection and earned himself ever-lasting fame as “Goggles” McCoy … Only sometime in the mid-1950s did the Guild manage to get the rest of the world to catch up with “Goggles” McCoy by having the use of eye protection become mandatory.”
Even a veteran horseman like trainer Art Sherman, 73, wasn’t familiar with the background story to the name for Goggles McCoy, a California-bred son of In Excess. So what chance did Sherman’s son Steve, who trains Goggles McCoy, have of knowing before he heard it from Tom Shapiro?
Shapiro, who along with his wife bred and owns Goggles McCoy, is the grandson of L.K. Shapiro, who bred and owned Native Diver, a champion in the 1960s and one of the greatest California-bred horses of all time.
“(Tom Shapiro) heard the story of Goggles McCoy a long time ago and thought it would be a good name for a horse,” Steve Sherman said. “He picked a good horse for the name.”
The racing career of Goggles McCoy began May 15 at Golden Gate Fields in Albany with a 6½-length victory and continued with scores at Golden Gate in June, the Pleasanton Fair in July and in the Real Good Deal Stakes here on Aug. 14. Goggles has never trailed at any milepost winning at distances from 5½ to 7 furlongs and on both synthetic surfaces and dirt.
The combined margin of victory in four starts, which have totaled earnings of $120,160, is 15½ lengths.
“He’s just a naturally fast horse,” jockey Russell Baze, racing’s career win leader with over 11,000 wins, said after the Real Good Deal. “He doesn’t need the lead, but he’s so quick he gets it. He’d almost have to break slow to not be in front of horses.
“And yet he’s relaxed when he does it. I think he could go on with it - go for some distance.”
The one mile of today’s $100,000 El Cajon will be the longest test of Goggles McCoy’s young career.
John Bucalo was minding his business as manager of the Barona Casino satellite wagering facility in May when he heard the track announcer’s call of Goggles McCoy. Bucalo, a former jockey from a family of riders, was quickly attentive.
“I’d heard the story years ago, and when my uncle and my dad told me the story they were laughing because at that time everybody thought this guy (McCoy) was out of his mind,” Bucalo recalled. “Wearing these things to ride. It turned out that instead of being out of his mind, he got to where he could see everything in a race and everybody caught on that he was on to something and everybody started using them.”
Bucalo was at Arlington Park in Chicago, learning to gallop horses in the mid-60s, and went to meet the man he had heard about. McCoy ran a tack shop there, Bucalo said.
“I just wanted to go over there out of curiosity,” Bucalo said. “I just went over there to say hello and meet him. I probably bought something from him. I probably bought a set of goggles.
“I was talking to a trainer friend of mine in Chicago recently and he said that Goggles McCoy had passed away some years ago.”
Suspension pileup
On Wednesday, stewards assessed jockey Christian Santiago Reyes a 10-day suspension for causing interference in the stretch and disqualification aboard Free Range in the third race on Sunday. It was the third offense of a similar nature and Santiago Reyes has a total of 28 days to serve pending the outcome of appeals.
Closers
Rafael Bejarano had two wins Thursday to one for Joel Rosario, leaving Rosario with a 46-44 lead in the rider standings with five racing days remaining … Trainer John Sadler, with his 18th win of the meeting remains eight behind Doug O’Neill … There were no perfect Pick Six tickets, creating a two-day carryover to today’s pool of $488,667