Because of the brevity of the equine career, racing has a curious way of circling back on itself. Sometimes, as in the last couple of weeks, that circling shows, in a smile-bringing way, the value of that most old-fashioned of virtues, persistence.
On Arlington Million day, John Gosden, conditioner of Debussy, did his part to earn “toast of the town” honors, as his charge exploded through the stretch to catch the seemingly home-and-dry Gio Ponti with an eye-popping move to annex Arlington’s richest race. The victory punctuated Gosden’s 28 years of trying to take down the Million.
Debussy rewarded, among others, those who played the French Composer hunch. A horse named Eclair de Lune — a name inspired, in part, by one of Debussy’s most popular compositions — took down the Beverly D., for fillies and mares. A generous wave of applause swept over the grandstand for Eclair’s sweet victory, as owner Richard Duchossois made his way to the winner’s circle. There were more than a few tears there, as Duchossois, who had owned Arlington before merging it with Churchill Downs, accepted the trophy for the track’s most important distaff event.
He himself had created the race more than 20 years earlier, to honor his late wife. Once a minor blip on the racing calendar, the Beverly D. has earned Grade I status, befitting its $750,000 purse. Duchossois had never previously won the race, and a few weeks before this most recent running, that streak seemed likely to remain intact. But then presumptive favorite Tuscan Evening suffered a fatal heart attack, morning line favorite Rainbow View scratched out, and the prize was there for the taking. And now the circle completes itself, the trophy for winning the Beverly D. heading home, truly home, with Dick Duchossois.
Yesterday at Saratoga, the wheel turned again and left long-time observers smiling bemusedly. The aptly named Persistently, a filly of no particular distinction who had taken 13 races to win three, ran down defending Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra to win the Grade I Personal Ensign by a solid length. While the headlines screamed Rachel’s defeat, the result rewarded one of racing’s long-time first families, the Phipps clan, and their old-fashioned, breed-to-race approach. Moreover, Persistently’s triumph enabled the Phipps to score a win in the race named for one of their own all-time great horses: the undefeated Personal Ensign, a hall of fame member and 1988 champion older female.
And what of Rachel?
It’s safe to assume that we won’t see her in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. She shortened stride dramatically in the last eighth of a mile yesterday and needed fully 27 seconds to navigate the last quarter mile; the race was run in a very slow 2:04 and change. She gave a game effort, but nothing in it indicated that she really wants the 10-furlong classic distance.
Though much has been made, in some quarters, of what Life at Ten’s rider, John Velasquez, termed a “speed duel,” the truth is that the fractions, while solid enough, were certainly manageable for Grade I horses. Life at Ten clearly was no match for Rachel; Calvin Borel, aboard Rachel, claimed that he “had everything my way” in the race. Were she to press on to the Classic, she would almost certainly face an even faster and more grueling pace; every Classic this decade has had a faster front end than yesterday’s Personal Ensign.
She’s not quite the horse she was a year ago. While theories vary as to why this might be, the most logical seems to me simply that her body has grown and changed over the last year; she is literally physically not the same horse. And while for most horses, that growth makes them better, there is certainly no shortage of examples of horses who did their best running at three.
That said, nothing that happens this year should take away from what she accomplished last. She was a superstar a year ago, and if she’s not quite that today, she is nevertheless a first-rate horse with genuine star power. For her humans, the future apparently entails an exsitential crisis; they’ll be evaluating “who we are and who she is,” trainer Steve Asmussen said, whatever that means. For Rachel herself, the long-term future lies in the breeding shed. For my part — and I sure don’t get a vote — I hope the shorter term future holds another race or two, at distances that suit her better.
Persistently, meanwhile, has just used up her “three other than” condition, but I don’t suppose any of her connections is complaining. She may be a tough filly to find races for in the future, but as a nicely bred, four year-old Grade I winner, she, like Rachel, may find her way to the breeding shed sooner rather than later. Each of her offspring, after all, will hold the possibility of bringing the wheel full circle once again.
That’s Amore runner Joy Train is poised to make her racing debut tomorrow at Delaware Park. Until tomorrow, she’s an unraced two year-old. And as the old racing saw goes, no one ever died with an unraced two year-old in the barn. Why is that?
Herewith, the top 10 reasons to love an unraced two year-old:
10. No jockey has ever been called a pinhead because of his ride on the horse.
9. That new horse smell.
8. No opposing jock has been cussed because of his aggressive/careless/stupid ride that cost you the money.
7. You’ve never not gotten the money in a race.
6. No opposing trainer has ever been cussed for entering an unprepared/unsuited/untalented/freakishly talented horse in your horse’s race that cost you the money.
5. Your trainer has never made an excuse for the horse.
4. Or for himself.
3. Your horse has been training great and looks like he’s got some talent.
2. Unless he’s been training poorly, in which case, many horses train poorly in the morning and still run well in the afternoon.
And the number one reason to love an unraced two year-old…
1. Until proven otherwise, all two year-olds are good enough to dream about.
On good days, the racetrack is full of interesting, Runyonesque characters.
But you know it, and I know it - there are some characters you’re best served avoiding, if not because of any particular danger they pose then because being near them will probably ruin your otherwise good day. Herewith, the comprehensive guide to characters to avoid at the races:
- Snapping Guy — you know, that guy who stands near the rail and snaps when the horses round the turn for home. Snapping? Really? What does that accomplish? Just… just stop it, dude.
- Obscure Breeding Guy — You’re alive in, say, the Pick-Six. This guy has nothing going, hasn’t even wagered, but has noticed that he saw the third dam of a horse you haven’t covered win over the jumps at Shawan Downs 22 years ago. When your horse and Mr. Obscure Breeding’s horse hit the stretch together, suddenly he’s cheering as if he owns the nag, and you watch in mounting frustration as your big score goes up in flames. Do not, under any circumstances, resort to violence, even if Obscure Breeding Guy deserves it plenty.
- Talking to Himself Guy — He sits high in the stands and proclaims in a very loud voice, as if he is engaged in conversation. “I can’t believe that… how could you have picked that horse? It’s crazy!” It, of course, is not the only crazy thing.
- Six Horses in the Race Guy — Featured at every track, Six Horses in the Race Guy has covered more or less the entire field in every race. His cheering goes something like this: “Come with the six, come with the six. Go two! Go two! Drive the seven, c’mon.” Well, of course you won, fella; you had every freakin’ horse.
- Taking Candy from a Baby Guy — Another habitue of racetracks everywhere, this guy is a close relative of Six Horses in the Race Guy. This fellow declaims, after he wins a race, how easy it was, how only complete morons failed to see it, and how winning at the races is like taking candy from a baby. Of course, he never admits being wrong; you’ll have to take his silences for that.
- Knows Everything Guy — you think he’s harmless, but then, you can’t shut him up. Ever. He goes on and on, and at some point you realize you are not conversing, you are being lectured. And then you realize you cannot discern individual words in his speech, just an annoying buzzing sound that reminds you he hasn’t gone away. And then that race that you’d waited all day to bet goes off and you didn’t get in to bet… because he was “educating” you. Sigh. In this case, all you can do is hope for Obscure Breeding Guy’s horse to win, so missing out is less painful.
- Doesn’t Know How to Bet Guy — no matter whether you play the machines or with live tellers, big days in particular bring this character out of the woodwork. He arrives at the window with no idea what he’s going to do, while carrying approximately 973 pages of data that he can’t make sense of, then shuffles through all of it to figure out where he’d written his bets down. What’s that? A one-dollar exacta box with two horses? And two to win on the favorite? And it took you five minutes at the window to make that bet?
See, racing’s easy: avoid these characters, cash a couple of tickets, have a good time. In fact, it’s like taking candy… wait, never mind.
Did I miss any?
As she returned to the winner’s circle after recording her 17th consecutive victory in yesterday’s Grade I Vanity Handicap at Hollywood, Zenyatta paused for a moment before the stands. The 12,000-plus in attendance rose as one to greet her, and in that moment, she looked like nothing so much as a queen regarding her adoring subjects.
This, then, is what racing perfection looks like: a towering, sleekly muscled mare who does nothing but win. And yesterday, she etched her name anew in the racing pantheon, recording her 17th consecutive victory and surpassing all-timers Cigar and Citation. Of those wins, 15 have come in Grade I or Grade II company, the last seven straight at the highest level.
If love means never having to say you’re sorry, 17 means never having to employ an excuse.
It means that unfavorable pace scenarios don’t matter. It means that ill-timed rides are shrugged off, difficult trips ignored. It means overcoming sluggish works and rare off days. It means toting 129 pounds when your rivals carry much less and still defeating them.
Seventeen means winning the Apple Blossom by four-plus under wraps. It also means recording a stunning final eighth of 11 and 2/5 seconds to nip St. Trinians in the Vanity. It means overcoming a world of trouble to win the Santa Margarita, just getting up to win the Hirsch, and clocking a sub-48 second last half-mile to beat some of the best horses in training in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Some few benighted critics have remained unmoved. They dismiss the competition, or her times, or her speed figures; they miss the point.
In the long run, petty grievances won’t matter. What does matter is what has always mattered in racing. As the great Tesio put it, the selective breeding that has created the modern Thoroughbred depends “not on experts, technicians, or zoologists, but on a piece of wood: the winning post of the Epsom Derby.” And while we in the United States may not be moved by Epsom, the elusive dream of breeding a winner continues to drive the game; the winning post is racing’s raison d’etre.
The list of horses which have not win 17 consecutive races outside of state-bred company is long and varied: it is the history of the American Thoroughbred.
Zenyatta and her winning streak, on the other hand, now comprise a list of one.
And so the queen paused to regard her subjects, then moved towards the winner’s circle itself. Track announcer Vic Stauffer intoned that Hollywood Park is her home, but that is true only in a narrow, technical sense.
She paused again at the entrance to the circle and looked around. She knew exactly where she was, and it was where she wanted to be, where she belonged. For Zenyatta, home is not a racetrack. Home is a wood post, arrived at before the others; home is a circle, filled with happy people. Home is a spot in front of the crowd, showering her with adulation.
And now home is a spot, alone, in the racing history books.
If you want to get racing folks unhinged, whisper a criticism of either Rachel Alexandra or Zenyatta, or their respective connections.
Over at the Blood-Horse Jason Shandler has a blog and, apparently, a propensity for tickling the sleeping bear to see what will happen. A few weeks ago, team Zenyatta got the treatment for having the temerity to race in the Vanity; this week, it’s team Rachel’s turn for choosing the Fleur de Lis over the Foster.
And, once again, the blowback is a laugh riot — not so much because there are defenders of both teams, which obviously there are, but because the criticism of Rachel (in this case) immediately causes the rejoinder, “But Zenyatta didn’t….” Which causes Zenyatta’s fans to pounce: “Neither did Rachel, and moreover…”
Or, in Animal House terms: Food fight!
First things first: to my mind, criticizing Jess Jackson and Steve Asmussen for entering Rachel in the Fleur de Lis is, to quote Mel Brooks, N-V-T-S nuts.
Yes, this is the defending horse of the year, who won the Preakness, beat older males in the Woodward and raced exclusively in Grade I company in the latter part of last year. That horse — perhaps — ought to look for higher mountains to climb.
But this Rachel Alexandra is winless in two tries against fillies and mares this year, winless against fields that she should have thrashed, and winless at odds of 1-20 and 1-5. The old Rachel had a high cruising speed and a stunning extra gear that she used to separate herself from her pursuers in her great wins; this Rachel still has the high cruising speed but appears (so far) to be lacking the extra oomph.
There’s nothing particularly wrong with her efforts to date, but there’s also nothing in those efforts that suggests she’s ready to take on tougher competition. A basic premise of owning racehorses is that you make them earn their way into tougher competition; when a horse shows you less than you expected, instead of shrugging it off and moving up the ladder, you fix it and try again. Thus, another shot in a manageable field to see if the horse really is moving forward makes abundant sense — a lot more sense, in fact, than moving her up to take on competition notably better than the horses that have already bested her this year.
There’s a larger perspective here, though, too.
The truth of the matter is that Jess Jackson and Jerry Moss have, in bringing Rachel and Zenyatta back this season, given racing fans a tremendous gift. The conventional wisdom tells them to retire the horses; the financial advisors tell them to retire the horses. Yet at a time when every three year-old who can win a first-level allowance race is whisked off the track with a dubious injury so they can breed more precocious and unsound animals, Jackson and Moss have chosen to share these horses with us for another year.
I guess that, as fans, we can complain and criticize all we want. As the man said, you pays your money and you takes your cherce. Maybe that’s part of the fun.
But, to quote yet another movie, so, too, is, recognizing, the magnitude of our good fortune.
A few years ago, the Pimlico spring meet would gradually wind down after the Preakness. These days it skids to a halt like a cartoon character trying not to go over a cliff. Three more racing days — today, Friday, and Saturday — and Old Hilltop is gone for another year…
Where is the chorus of mea culpas from the schoolmarms-at-heart who screeched that the MJC’s “Get Your Preak On” ad campaign was the downfall of civilization and would lead to all sorts of debauchery on Preakness day? How does attendance up by 20,000 and not a single arrest sound?
In fact, attendance for the two days was up over 20 percent, with Black-Eyed Susan day drawing more than 27,000…
Good to see That’s Amore pal Geno from Equispace on Preakness day, even if he does need a little bit of racetrack geography help. But, hey, anyone who calls me dapper (in addition to needing glasses) is OK with me….
Few things are more satisfying than picking a winner and hearing the guys behind you declaiming that it simply could not have been picked based on the past performances. Uh, fellas… actually, yup, it was picked on that…
Every year at this time, D. Wayne Lukas leads the chorus of people calling for changes to the Triple Crown: too hard, too far, too close together, they say. Not sure I’m buying it; just this decade, in addition to the four well-publicized Derby-Preakness winners who failed in the Belmont, we’ve also had two horses lose the Derby and then sweep the Preakness and Belmont (Afleet Alex, Point Given). Sure, it’s hard — it’s supposed to be hard. All it requires is a great horse and great good fortune, and certainly the last couple of years have been light on great horses…
The other issue that you’d face in changing the Triple is that if you stretch out the time between races, someone will inevitably schedule a race in the middle and blow the series up completely. If, say, Monmouth — with its gigantic purse structure this year — scheduled a two-million dollar race at nine furlongs for three year-olds sometime between now and Belmont day, the Belmont Stakes starting gate would be the loneliest place in the sport. Think it can’t happen? Look up the story of Spend A Buck and the Jersey Derby…
Speaking of Monmouth, opening day for the experimental meet is Saturday, with a grueling 13-race card featuring two stakes. Lots of big fields, drawn by the spectacular purse structure, but oddly enough, both stakes are going with modest seven-horse fields…
The Alibi Breakfast, on the Thursday before the Preakness, is one of the great traditions in our sport, though very little alibiing actually goes on anymore. D. Wayne Lukas turns out to be a somewhat salty but hilarious character, while Todd Pletcher appears to be, well, Todd Pletcher. Listening to him is eerily reminiscent of the scene in Bull Durham where Kevin Costner — the not-quite grizzled veteran — teaches hot-prospect Tim Robbins the cliches he’ll need to know in the major leagues. Pletcher’s got ‘em all…
You’ll look a long time before you find someone in the industry to say something good about Churchill Downs…
Racing is now on to Belmont. But in New York, what happens after the Belmont is anybody’s guess, which I guess isn’t too different from where the sport as a whole is…
Billboards and radio spots around the region are urging us to get our Preak on.
This mildly suggestive ad has caused much hand-wringing and hair-pulling from the just-this-side-of-dead-in-spirit demographic. Kevin Cowherd, in the Baltimore Sun, opined that the ads are “pathetic” and “desperate.” The New York Post’s Ray Kerrison shouted, “The morons came up with Get Your Preak On, reducing a great, historic thoroughbred horse race to an event with sleazy overtones.” Check out the Paulick Report for a sampling.
Right.
And there aren’t nine million coeds around Louisville wearing shirts that say, “Talk Derby to me.” Oooooh. So offensive.
After years of mounting concerns about the drunken morass of an infield, Pimlico reacted — over-reacted — last year by prohibiting folks from bringing in their own booze. Faced with the prospect of over-paying for watery beer, tens of thousands of would-be revelers voted with their feet and stayed home. Result: attendance down to the lowest point in more than two decades.
So, this year, Pimlico has decided to try to fight back, with a “bottomless mug” of beer for $20, a couple of popular bands, and a variety of contests. Oh, and these ads — all meant to appeal to the post-college set who traditionally had populated the infield. The point is to get people, especially younger people, talking about the Preakness and to show them that Old Hilltop has made a clean break with last year — that the party is back. (I’m not sure that, from a legal perspective, the bottomless mug is a great idea, but on the other hand, I imagine real lawyers have considered the issue. Me, I just play one on TV).
Some in the know-nothing contingent will sniff about how “we” don’t want “those people” coming to the track because they don’t bet enough and they drink too much and so forth and so on. To which we say: get over yourselves.
Putting an additional 30,000 people at Pimlico will — of course — goose betting (on-track handle was down last year, although overall handle was up) and fill the track’s coffers with admissions money and concessions money. Those are good things, not bad. Moreover, for the rest of us — the 40,000 or so who aren’t in the infield — the infield is like Vegas; what goes on there stays there. I’ve been to every Preakness but one since 1994 and sat everywhere you can sit except in the infield and never once had a problem (except once with a well-known jockey’s gigantically fat and obnoxious agent, but that’s a tale for a different day).
The ads don’t speak to me — but then again, I’m not the target audience. And if they offend you, well, then it must be hard for you to go through life these days, because virtually everything must be offensive.
We talk and talk and talk in horse racing about the importance of reaching out to younger people — and then we condemn those who try it. Maybe the ads will help; maybe they won’t. But I give the Maryland Jockey Club credit for trying something new.
Come Saturday, you’ll find me in the grandstand, handicapping and enjoying the races with friends and family. Meanwhile — I hope — tens of thousands of younger folks will have a giant party in the infield. Turns out there are many ways to get your Preak on.
As all racing eyes turn to Maryland and as those of us here prepare to “get our Preak on” (more about that another day), it’s time for racing to right a wrong. It’s time to put King Leatherbury in the Hall of Fame.
Leatherbury, now a spry 77, has been a horse trainer for more than a half-century. In that time, he’s amassed nearly 6,300 winners — third best all-time.
That in itself should be argument enough in his favor. In baseball, for example — the sport perhaps most like racing in the breadth of its history — being among the top three in any offensive category is a virtual free pass to the Hall. Indeed, the player who is third all-time in each the nine major offensive categories — batting average, hits, doubles, triples, home runs, steals, runs scored, runs batted in, and slugging percentage — is in the Hall of Fame.
But gross numbers alone don’t tell the Leatherbury story. He’s known as an innovator and, in fact, is slated to receive the University of Louisville’s Galbreath Award, recognizing “Outstanding Entrepreneurship in the Equine Industry.” He and a handful of other trainers essentially created the modern claiming game in Maryland, and no one has played it better than Leatherbury. Among his claims are a half-dozen or so that he transformed into stakes winners, including the aptly named Taking Risks. Plucked for $20,000 in late 1993, Taking Risks won seven of his nine starts over the next year, including a pair of graded stakes, one of which, the Iselin Handicap at Monmouth, was a grade one. His earnings in that period topped $400,000. In American racing history, you can probably count the claims that became grade one winners on your two hands, with fingers to spare.
Leatherbury was also among the first of the modern CEO-type trainers. After leading the nation in wins in 1977 and 1978, his stable grew to some 80 horses. With stall space tight, he had to split the horses between Laurel and Pimlico. That led him, of necessity, to depend more on his assistant trainers and exercise riders and to spend more of his time examining potential claims, placing his horses, and handicapping races — a skill at which he is legendarily proficient.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Leatherbury, along with Bud Delp, John Tammaro, Jr., and Dick Dutrow comprised the Big Four of Maryland trainers — the leaders who revolutionized the game in Maryland while dominating the win photos. Delp, trainer of all-time great Spectacular Bid, is the only one of the four currently in the Hall; Leatherbury, the last man standing after Delp’s death in 2006, is by far the leading winner of the group.
The current star of Leatherbury’s much scaled-down stable is Ah Day — a homebred son of Malibu Moon out of the Thirty Eight Paces mare Endette. The seven year-old, who has earned just shy of $900,000, is a multiple graded stakes winner, including this year’s grade three Toboggan at Aqueduct. As a three year-old, Ah Day blitzed the field in the Federico Tesio Stakes at Pimlico — at that time, the local prep for the Preakness, these days mysteriously plopped on the racing calendar on Derby day. In contrast to many trainers, who would have gone straight to the Preakness without a second thought, Leatherbury analyzed the possibilities, decided it wasn’t the right spot for his horse, and passed. There’s a lesson that more than a few trainers these days could learn.
Leatherbury doesn’t fit the racing fan’s preconceived notion of what a trainer should be. He doesn’t wax rhapsodic about the glories of the horse or stare blankly across the track during morning works trying to detect stride changes from three hundred yards away. Like a good CEO, he prefers to put smart people in his barns and on his horses and allow them to do their jobs, while he manages the stable and places the horses.
It may not be the way everyone has done it, but few have been as innovative in their approach to racing; and there’s never been a better claiming trainer than King Leatherbury.
He’s an original Maryland character, a long-time stalwart on the local racing scene, and, if racing sees the light, he’ll one day enter the Hall of Fame.
NOTE: For a highly entertaining looks at another group of original Maryland characters — Pimlico linemaker Frank Carulli and the other guys who help him make the Preakness week lines — check out John Scheinman’s blog post at the Preakness website (here)… Many of the facts in this post came from Vinnie Perrone’s excellent article in the May issue of Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred… Though he’s been a finalist before, Leatherbury is not one this year.
This past week brought a happy return and two happy endings.
Happy Return
There’s unlucky. There’s star-crossed. And then there’s Homefire.
The four year-old daughter of Domestic Dispute has experienced the roller-coaster of racing life: the lows, and the really lows.
She made her debut in September of her two year-old season. That day, she chased the pace set by a filly named Huge before backing out. Huge wired the field and has since become a stakes-winner.
Then, some this-n-that physical problems took her out of training for a time. She didn’t race again until April of her three year-old season. This time she made the early lead before getting passed by a filly named Sarah Cataldo, who went on to win while Homefire ran out of gas and finished up the track. Yup, Sarah Cataldo went on to become a stakes-winner, too.
In Homefire’s next start, she dueled, led, and hung on gamely to finish third, beaten less than two lengths. The race had been split into two divisions; Homefire’s was six lengths faster than the other division.
Perhaps in protest, she then had everything in the world go wrong with her. Vet bills and time: plenty of both were what the doctor ordered.
Eventually, she returned to training, and every day we — including our very patient partners in this horse — held our breath.
Finally, we entered her in a race yesterday.
Our little equine raincloud continued her career-long trend of finding trouble. Jockey Horacio Karamanos steered her from the eight-hole down to the rail, only to have one horse back up directly into him while another pinned him in. She bulled her way out to find running room only to have an inviting hole slammed shut as a horse lugged in across the track. Karamanos steered her outside, and by the time she leveled off, she was six wide.
And then, a funny thing happened. She kicked into gear. Two of the horses in front of her fell away like they were standing still. She skimmed across the grass, chopping into the winner’s lead (though never threatening her). When all was said and done, she’d earned second place, less than two behind the winner — and more than three ahead of any other horse.
Which, to a relieved group of partners and me and our trainer, was a pretty good outcome after a 378-day layoff.
Oh, and by the way, yesterday’s race was also split in divisions. And of course, Homefire’s was the faster. On the other hand, it was less than a length faster, so perhaps she’s turned the corner; maybe she can simply be “star-crossed” now, or just plain unlucky. Or even, knock on wood, a tiny little bit lucky. After all, the racing gods probably owe her one.
Happy Endings
Much as we try to turn racing into a numbers game — speed figures and Tomlinsons and internal fractions and pace numbers and, heaven help us, even a dosage index — it’s really not a spreadsheet but a narrative.
Not always, unfortunately, one with a happy ending: think Exceller or Ferdinand or Barbaro.
In fact, it’s the sad endings that stick in our minds. They are the ones that speak to the risks inherent in the sport and to the responsibilities we all bear, or fail to.
In 2008, I’d posted a story about onetime local stalwart Irish Colony, an earner of more than $450,000 who’d found his way down to nickel claiming company. Through 2009 and the early part of this year, his form had tailed off more or less completely; he was no real threat to win even at the bottom level.
Irish Colony’s lengthy and varied career made him a perfect example of the transitory nature of responsibility in racing and — to me — demonstrated why we need an industry-wide “social security” style of insurance for horses. He’d been claimed numerous times, had made lots of money for an owner or two, had lost lots of money for an owner or two.
That day, some two years ago, I wrote, “The journey continues [for Irish Colony]. The question now is where it will end.”
Last week, reader Dan provided the answer. Dan, it seems, has taken Irish Colony off the track and is turning him into his riding horse. He reports that Irish Colony has a “great disposition” and “will have what every Thoroughbred deserves, a good home.”
Right on, Dan.
It so happens that another old warrior found a new home last week, as well. Six year-old Steelix, a That’s Amore runner we’d chosen to retire, found a soft place to land after a search that caused That’s Amore friend Jane to remark, “You just can’t believe what people expect when they’re getting a free horse.” Apparently, many folks don’t realize that a free horse probably won’t be, say, Secretariat in his prime.
Regardless, Jane soldiered on and, eventually, found him a new owner, who emailed me to say, “I am so happy to have found him and have already decided he is my new boyfriend!”
So, stakes-placed Steelix and stakes-winner Irish Colony move on to new, less stressful careers with people who will love them. Enjoy your retirement, boys. You’ve earned it.
I don’t usually handicap races in advance on my blog, mostly because well, hell, your hot air and ill-considered opinions are worth more or less exactly the same as mine.
Put another way, any moron can look at tomorrow’s Derby and say something like “Lookin’ at Lucky blah blah blah.”
But it takes a special kind of moron — namely, me — to go on fishing expedition. So, without further ado, my pre-Derby post-Derby awards, or, handicapping without really handicapping the race.
The Brian Boru Award, presented to the horse whose victory is less likely than the discovery of leprechauns at Churchill goes to Paddy O’Prado. Step this way for your souvenir pot of gold.
The Misnomer Award, presented to the horse whose name is least likely to comport with his performance in the Derby goes to Stately Victor, who will more likely be a slop-covered tail-ender. Your book on Spoonerisms will be mailed to you.
The In a PInch Cup, presented to the horse who really shouldn’t be good enough to win this race but just might be goes to Awesome Act, who couldn’t have reached Eskendereya in a taxi in the Wood but goes to post tomorrow with a shot. Your case of near-beer is over at the bar.
The Too Easy Trophy, presnted to the horse whose name is a joke waiting to be made goes to Make Music for Me. Our trumpeter will sound the retreat for you at the close of the ceremony.
The Undertaker Award, presented to the horse whose chances have been killed because my friend, The Kiss of Death, is on him goes to Awesome Act — an unprecedented two awards on the night. We’ll put the case of near-beer in your novelty casket.
The “Oops, I did it again” Award, presented to the longish shot that I will end up convincing myself to bet on goes to Mission Impazible, whose Louisiana Derby effort in the face of adversity, improving speed figs, and generous odds will prove my undoing. Your pile of losing tote tickets is right here.
And, finally, the Mine That Bird Award, presented to the horse who really has no chance to win but on the other hand could if all sorts of weird things occur goes to Backtalk, a multiple graded stakes winner at two, stakes winner at three, but saddled with low Beyers and a distant loss in his last start, in which various factors, including a slooowwww pace, compromised him. Wear your black cowboy hat with pride.
Enjoy the Derby!
