"Hard Not to Like trained slowly and K.C. and I are watch-
ing these workouts and I'm muttering to myself, like, 'Je-
sus,'" Fluor said. "We go to Tampa and [Fluor's daughter]
Lacey and her husband Matt are with us, John's there, my
wife Ann, Marette was there. Hard Not to Like wins the
race, so we all go down to the winner's circle. The inquiry
sign goes up, they show the replay and I saw Hard Not to
Like move out. I said, 'Not good.' Then they switched the
numbers. Here we are, our first race, our heads go down
and the other people are coming into the winner's circle.
You kind of go, through gritted teeth, 'Congratulations.' It
was a slow start."
Two outings later, though, Hard Not to Like won the GI
Gamely Stakes at Santa Anita, taking a big step toward jus-
tifying Speedway's investment and imparting some senti-
mentality on Fluor in the process.
"To win your first Grade I race after being in business for
about six months, that kind of validated what we were
Leigh Court
