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2909-02-08

The backstretch at Hawthorne Race Course is hardly abuzz in the late morning of this frigid December Thursday. Training hours are over and not one horse is visible on the drive from the West gate to barn K-2. I'm sitting in the passenger seat of local trainer Paul Darjean's pickup truck, and though we've never met, he was expecting me. He also knows that I'm here to spend some time with his 0-for-53 runner, and I have no clue how he might respond to a young reporter's interest in one of the game's scions of ineptitude.



Her name may have been a tip-off: Ottos Lotto. She's been toiling in the maiden ranks, without a break for an astounding 41 months: a span that dates back to May 2005. Over that period, she's raced at four different tracks under 21 different riders from open special weight events down to $10,000 Illinois-bred maiden claimers. She's sprinted, gone turns, tried turf; found slop, and sleet and sealed and snow, with nary a victory on her slate. She's managed to hit the board just ten times during that stretch: made even more remarkable by a hot streak in early 2008 in which she lit the tote in five consecutive tries. Her other 48 races have been markedly less productive.



Darjean is currently tending to Ottos Lotto even though her trainer of record is Shana Schiemann. I spoke with Schiemann for the first time just a week prior to my visit, and was momentarily worried that my pitch for a story would be laughed off. Yes, it was true. I wanted to write an interest feature about her 0-for-53 homebred. Immediately after I introduced myself over the phone and explained my intentions, Schiemann indeed did start laughing. "Oh my," she said, "what do you want to know? I explained my fascination with her runner, and my date to meet the mare was planned.



Schiemann bred Ottos Lotto on her farm, through a mating of two horses she owns. Even a pedigree novice could take one look at the recent branches of her family tree and see that this foal was bred to fit snugly into bottom level Illinois maiden claiming races. She is the only foal to race by the stallion Anxious Otto, himself a 2-for-80 underachiever whose only successes came in dirt route races. She is out of the 1-for-19 mare Cherry Very, whose lone score came sprinting on the dirt. Cherry Very's first three foals were all winners, but combined for an eye-popping 5-for-119 record.



Ottos Lotto was in no rush to improve her dam?s production numbers when she started her career, as she was beaten a total of 105 lengths in her first six starts. Such is the fragile nature of the thoroughbred pedigree, a testament to the difficulty involved in finding the right pairing. One need only look back a few generations through Ottos Lotto's meager Illinois lineage to find it littered with notable runners including a trio of Belmont Stakes winners in Damascus, Stage Door Johnny, and Gallant Man.



Ottos Lotto's record is probably as much a result of her running style and bad luck as it is any apparent lack of talent. For speed figure types, she has the ability to Beyer in the mid-50s and on a good day can tally a 14 on Thorograph's scale. While those numbers won?t send most handicappers rushing to the windows, a quick look at most Chicago basement claimers, especially those in the heart of a brutal Hawthorne winter meet, makes it clear that she?s actually more than fast enough to have tallied a score by now.



It may also seem like having such an eyesore of a career record would keep riders away, but Darjean makes it clear that he never has any trouble getting a jockey for the winless wonder. "She gives you her best every time she runs, and her riders know it," he says. "She just won't quit, but she comes from so far back that she has to steady all the time. There have been a few races where she would have won if she could have just gotten out and had a straight path."



It seems that those jockeys who have accepted the challenge would agree. Trey Agilar became as close as she's ever had to a regular rider earlier this year, and has ridden her to half of her career on-the-board finishes. A heartbreaking loss in an Arlington special weight race on the grass June 22 was just another missed opportunity for Ottos Lotto. That day, Agilar struggled to find room in the stretch before switching outside and closing with a rush late to be fifth. He and the mare were beaten less than two lengths. It would be hard to deny that she was most deserving of a win that afternoon, and it remains closest she?s ever come to glory.



On closing day at Arlington, Darjean managed to lure E.T. Baird to the saddle for the day's nightcap, and he came back enthused about her abilities after a sixth-place finish in a salty special weight event on the lilting Heights lawn. Darjean smiles slightly and speaks like a proud father when he tells me about their post-race conversation. "He came right back and told me that if he could have ever straightened her out and let her run, he was absolutely sure it was her race," said Darjean. "He's ridden enough good horses to know when he?s sitting on one that should have won. He actually wanted to ride her back when she went again at Hawthorne, but he left to ride in Kentucky before we got her in."



I pepper Darjean with more questions about her demeanor, her training habits, and whether or not he and Schiemann ever become frustrated with her or her record. He is surprisingly unwavering in his support of her talent. "I don't get frustrated about it because I know that she is better than she looks on paper," he says. "We have tried to put a little speed in her to keep her closer in route races, but she doesn't like it. She can't finish like that. We just realized that we have to let her run the way she wants to run, and that means she's going to do her own thing and then give you a really good, really strong three-eighths of a mile run at the end."



He also has a proud smile reserved for speaking about the mare's soundness. She's been led to post over once a month for nearly the last four years and she?s never had a major setback. "At least she's sound," he says. "Look at the mares she's run against.. some of them have been done racing for years now, and she's still going. Sure, they may have won once or twice, but she?s still around. Where are they now?"



Fifty minutes to first post that day, I phone Schiemann again and we talk about the field Ottos Lotto will face in a $10,000 maiden claiming sprint the next day. If it?' at all possible for a 53: 0-3-7 runner with $27,000 in earnings to look like a standout on paper, Ottos Lotto is that runner. The winless mare towers over most of her opponents from a speed figure perspective, and it seems that unless either of the two first-time starters fire right out of the box, tomorrow should be the day.



Schiemann admits to being skeptical about her chances the following day, but also knows that this is as good a chance as she's going to get. "Obviously, this is the easiest race she's come into in a long time -- maybe ever -- but I try not to get my hopes up," she timidly suggests. "It would be great if she won ? it would make my year if she won. But I've seen her have enough chances that I still stay skeptical about it."



"It would make my year if she won," she repeats.



I ask the obvious questions about whether or not a win is the biggest thing for Schiemann right now, and if so, why she has never shipped her to an off-the-path track where she could easily cruise around two bends against basement maiden claimers. Schiemann is hesitant to even take that idea seriously. "I've thought about it, maybe Fairmount, but you know, you?re still never sure what?s going to happen," she says. "You're dealing with new riders, a new track, and what if she hates the track? You would think she could win easily, but I tried that with a few other horses, and it?s never quite as easy as it sounds."



Schiemann isn?t at all unrealistic about what kind of mare she has. She doesn?t sugarcoat Ottos Lotto?s record, but remains incredibly upbeat and positive when discussing her. She tells me that she won't run her when the mare shows she doesn't want to anymore. If she can't manage a win sometime soon, she?ll take her back to her farm in Harvard, IL and breed her next year. If the horse manages to win a race, Schiemann says she?d be inclined to give her a few more chances.



Just a few minutes talking to Schiemann makes it clear that this is a racehorse she loves, and this is a sport she loves, even when the successes are few, or in the case of Ottos Lotto, non-existent. As we end our conversation, she interrupts me saying in a matter-of-factly tone, "You know, my husband keeps telling me to just sell her, but I can't. He says I should just let someone else deal with her, but I won't. Ive been around her so long, it's like she's family, and I'm going to keep her around."



Her attitude is remarkable, but every word spoken about the mare is tinged with a sense of humor: something Schiemann has down to a science when it comes to caring about Ottos Lotto. If Schiemann follows through on her plan to breed Ottos Lotto, the Chicago racing circuit may just be seeing the beginning of this saga. Ottos Lotto will never reach the folklore status of racing?s most lovable loser, Zippy Chippy, because she'll never get the chance. Schiemann insists that she won't let her go much further down this seemingly futile road.



In her own right, Ottos Lotto should be a local legend because it's going to be a long time before a horse this talented manages to lose 53 consecutive races. Make that 54. The race that Schiemann, Darjean, and I all agreed was the easiest she?d ever seen was added to Ottos Lotto's "perfect" record. The mare that hasn't caught a break in four years went back out to the gate against an incredibly forgettable bunch, and as if to join in the laugh with us, beat just one horse.



Laughing about it is all you can do.. just ask Shana Schiemann. Laugh, and look forward to the next start.



BRIAN W. SPENCER is a musician, part-time race writer and handicapper for Arlington Park. He can be reached at: brianwspencer@hotmail.com