Mike Mareina first came to Belmont
Park for a few months in
the fall of 1980 as an assistant to trainer Loren Rettele, saddling Golden Act
to a third-place finish in the Grade 1 Man o’ War. It took him 32 years
to return, but the wait so far has been worthwhile.
With a string of 15 horses for owners Ernie Kuehne, Chris Baccari and
Charles Arlington, Mareina has been winning at a nearly 36 percent clip, with
five victories from 14 starters along with a second and two thirds.
His first winner was Onthekisser,
who took a maiden claimer on May 6 and has since returned to finish third and
fourth, and his most recent was Won Kool Kid,
who broke his maiden going seven furlongs on Saturday. Mareina also visited the
winner’s circle with Heir to Dare,
Alternative and Divine Music, who posted a lifetime best
103 Beyer Speed Figure in taking a 5 ½-furlong optional claimer in 1:01.51 on
June 6.
“I love it here,” said Mareina, who has competed up and
down the coast of California, as well as in the Midwest, Washington state,
Louisiana, Florida and Canada. “Every horse I work is working well. I
can’t say enough about how well the tracks are maintained, and with the
nice one-mile training track, it affords you all the opportunities to get a
horse in a good atmosphere and a good training situation.”
Mareina has had chances to come to New York before, both as an
assistant to late Hall of Famer Bobby Frankel and trainer Phil Hauswald, and on
his own, but it wasn’t until this year that he felt the timing was right.
“I felt I had the right kind of stock to be competitive,”
said Mareina. “I was talking with [Allen] Jerkens at Gulfstream Park,
and I told him I was thinking of taking a bite out of the Big Apple. He said,
‘Come on up, there’s plenty of room’ and assured me I would
do just fine.”
Mareina, who trained Game On Dude prior to his being sold and
transferred to Bob Baffert in the spring of 2010, currently has eight promising
2-year-olds at Belmont and will add another four
or five when racing moves upstate to Saratoga
Springs on July 20. Although he has two stalls in
Jerkens’ barn at the Spa, Mareina plans to spend most of his time at
Belmont getting ready for the return of racing in September with horses such as
the 2-year-old filly Work N Flirt,
a half-sister to multiple stakes winner Zavata, and the recently acquired Little Drama, half-brother to 2010 Sprint
champion Big Drama.
“We’re concentrating now on quality instead of
quantity,” said Mareina. “I selected horses that I thought would do
nicely at Belmont
Park, such as Divine
Music. You have to have luck, of course, and you have to have horses that like
the track. I’m super pleased with how well my horses have adapted and
I’m looking forward to the fall.”