Posted on 06/05/2004 6:28:23 AM PDT by Types_with_Fist
Agreed. He didn't make the shortest trip possible either. Too far out all the way. That was not the case in the first two races, as Elliot moved Smarty inward toward the rail in both of the first. If he had done so this time, waited a bit longer before taking the lead, Smarty would have likely won a close one.
The thing is this this: Smarty IS a great horse. It's tough to even place in these three races. Smarty came in at 1st-1st-2nd. That's not bad.
The Belmont constituted the very first time that Smarty had even been passed in a race. So, the extra quarter hurt him too. In coming in 2nd, Smarty still has out-performed his pedigree. It's just heartbreaking that he couldn't pull off the sweep.
All the "what ifs" aside, great horses-Triple Crown winners won't be denied. There will be another Triple Crown winner someday. I just don't think I'll live to see it it. I hate the Belmont.
They put a picture of President Reagan, with an American flag and a black border, up on the large matrix boards; and I knew. This was followed shortly by an annoucement over the public address system which concluded by requesting that everyone rise for a minute of silence. Though it did get pretty quiet, there never was complete silence but you could hear quite a few people shushing during the minute. I watched the flag for a short time to see whether it would be lowered immediately, but it was not. My group of six began to speak a bit about President Reagan. One of my daugther's friends observed that Reagan was President when she was born and her parents have a congratulatory note from him to them regarding her birth. The next time I noticed the flag, it was at half-staff.
ML/NJ
That's what they said before Secretariat won, in the 70's. The last horse to win before him was Citation, in 1948. That was like ancient history, even way back then. Then we had a bunch of winners in a row.
It was awful. The movie too. :)
Here's some more for anyone interested.
Dark Horses
In horse racing, a $15 billion industry where cheating’s as common as stale cigar smoke, only suckers play by the rules.
Maxim, May 2002
By Alex Straus
Horse racing will never become an Olympic sport. Who would you bribe? There are no judges. No referees. Almost no opportunity for human error. The starting gate is controlled by a computer and tracks are monitored by overlapping cameras. It appears, to the casual fan, to be the purest sport imaginable.
But scratch an inch or two below the surface and you’ll find the most corrupt game this side of a Don King?run three-card monty table. Little surprise: Horse racing is a $15 billion-a-year industry populated by every crook on two legs. “The only decent people I ever saw at the racecourse,” James Joyce once said, “were horses.”
And the past 10 years may be the sport’s most scandalous. Thoroughbred racing has seen murders, cover-ups, and more bribery than an IOC luncheon—just about everything, in fact, except convictions.
And so, to kick off this year’s Triple Crown—beginning on May 4 with the Kentucky Derby—we boil down the four biggest scandals of the past decade. Our prediction for the next decade: more of the same. You can bet on it.
A jockey bites the dust
Chris Antley was one of the greatest and best known jockeys in the world. By December 2000, he had 3,480 career wins, including two Kentucky Derby victories, and a child on the way.
But the 34-year-old Antley was also a recovering drug addict. He was arrested twice in 2000, and his houseguest, Timothy Tyler, a man he’d met in rehab and often fought with over money, told police Antley had threatened to kill his own wife.
On December 2, 2000, police found Antley dead in his California apartment; his bedroom door was kicked in from the outside, and blood covered the walls. His death was ruled a homicide, and Tyler was questioned. Then things got weird.
In their investigation, police found that prior to his death, Antley had deteriorated into a fog of alcohol and drugs. He hadn’t spoken to his wife, living in New York, in days and had become a complete shut-in.
Then, just as his friends and family were learning the depths to which he’d sunk, the police changed the official cause of death to “accidental.” Tyler was a free man.
“This is an absolute cover-up,” said jockey Vladimir Cerin. “Somebody [murdered] Chris.”
Cathy Park, Antley’s closest friend and the woman who found his body, told police she saw Tyler wielding a crowbar outside Antley’s house around the time of his death. But police refused to reopen the homicide investigation.
The final autopsy revealed substantial wounds on Antley’s neck, head, and arms. But on January 11, 2001, his death was ruled the result of an overdose.
Just hours later Antley’s first child, Violet Grace, was born.
Murder by maiming
Who killed Alydar? That’s the question nobody’s been asking since 1990.
On November 13, just two weeks before a multimillion-dollar insurance policy was set to expire, Alydar was found alone in his stall, his right hind leg cracked in half, a shaft of bone jutting out through his skin. Two days later the horse was euthanized. Now, after 12 years, the feds are slowly removing their heads from their as—er, getting on with the investigation.
Alydar, best remembered for finishing second to Affirmed in all three 1978 Triple Crown races, was horse racing’s golden goose. By the time his son Alysheba won the 1987 Kentucky Derby, he was the richest sire in history and Calumet Farm, the legendary Kentucky stable, was sending him to the breeding shed more than 200 times a year—at $250,000 a pop. But Calumet Farms was also hemorrhaging money—inexplicably $100 million in debt by 1990.
Their most prized possession, with $36.5 million worth of insurance policies on his head: Alydar.
“That horse didn’t slip on a bar of soap,” Assistant U.S. Attorney James Powers now says. “All the evidence says his death was no accident.”
A former employee’s wife testified that Calumet’s president, J.T. Lundy, while discussing the debts, said, “There are ways to get rid of that horse.” The stable boy assigned to watch Alydar says a Lundy associate instructed him to “take the night of November 13 off.” And the head of the Racetrack Safety Committee, after investigating the scene, concluded Alydar’s leg was broken using a rope tied to a pickup truck.
But here’s the best evidence that Lundy (now in jail on a separate fraud conviction) is dirty: Former first brother Roger Clinton reportedly included him on his pardon list.
Stay tuned…
Richie Fingers fingers himself
In 1997, Richard Sklar, a.k.a. Richie Fingers, admitted fixing 1,000 professional thoroughbred races. Where is he now? The 49-year-old former track rat, petty thief, and two-bit pickpocket is today living the good life in Southern California.
His misadventures with authorities began in mid-’97, when jockey Richard Pfau was implicated in a race-fixing scandal. Pfau told police he’d taken $2,100 from Sklar for slowing his horse in a race at the Los Alamitos Racetrack. When police confronted Sklar, he cracked like a rotten egg. He immediately confessed to fixing scores of races in California from 1983 to 1995.
He even named top jockey Ron Hansen, whose decomposed body turned up under a bridge in San Mateo, California, as one of his clients. “Ronnie and I did a lot of business together,” Sklar says.
But the California Horse Racing Board, fearful of any scandal that could scare away bettors, maintained skepticism. “Five hundred races, 5,000 races…He could pick out any figure, couldn’t he?” Roy Wood, executive director of the CHRB, said at a press conference. “All I can say is we’re continuing to protect the integrity of the sport.”
Finally, the CHRB had Sklar charged with fixing just three races. After betting records were checked, Sklar was ordered to pay a whopping $5,000 in fines.
To this day an unrepentant Sklar characterizes race fixing as widespread—and simple to pull off. “I’d get drivers to go dead (hold back their horses) all the time,” he says. “It was easy. The average purse in California is $3,000, but the winning driver only gets a lousy 75 bucks. I’d offer ’em $500 to lose, and they’d snap it up every time.”
Others maintain incredulity. “I’ve vaguely heard of Fingers’ story,” concedes Eric Wing of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association. “But the penalties for fixing a race are so stiff it’s just not worth it.”
Fix 1,000 races and pay a $5,000 fine—where do we sign up?
Drugstore cowboys
Step 1 in any 12-step program is admitting you have a problem. This sport’s in full-blown denial.
Over the past year, scores of trainers have been suspended after post-race tests detected banned substances in their horses’ blood. “There are trainers pumping horses full of illegal drugs every day,” says Kelso Sturgeon, former public relations director at Churchill Downs, Arlington Park, and Penn National racetracks. “With so much money on the line, people will do anything to make their horses run faster.”
Some of the banned drugs are highly technical performance enhancers like clenbuterol and pentoxifyline, designed to aid breathing and increase muscle endurance. Others sound like stuff looted from a local rave. Bob Baffert, a two-time Kentucky Derby?winning trainer, was suspended last June after his horse tested positive for morphine. In January, champion trainer John Bassett’s horse was found to be high on cocaine. (Presumably, a whole lot of it.) And in the strangest incident of the year, Tammi Piermarini was busted after five of her horses tested positive for benzylpiperazine, a central nervous system stimulant similar to the club drug Ecstasy.
Tellingly, all their suspensions have been mere slaps on the wrists. Most states have little interest in uncovering widespread drug abuse, fearing owners will simply race in states with more-lenient policies. “States have the power to test for hundreds of banned drugs,” says Wing of the NTRA. “But they claim they don’t have the money.”
In other words, horse racing has no intention of going cold turkey.
“We’ve even developed a Supertest, which is a monumental step forward in accurate detection,” says Wing. “But it was created as a science project. The purpose is not to shine a light on the rule breakers.”
If only our parole officer would be so kind.
http://www.maximonline.com/sports/articles/article_4630.html
Birdstone did have an incredible burst at the end and you could tell Smarty was running flat out for a long time. Smarty's burst was used up at that point. I was really surprised that Purge came in last, he totally romped in the Peter Pan and he has great breeding. With all the hype over Rock Hard Ten he's still not in Smarty's league. Overall Smarty is a great horse and he will make a fortune as a sire. His father is the number one sire right now.
And it is totally naive for anyone to think that Jockey collusion or fixed faces don't happen. But let's concede this race was run fair and square.
The Smarty Party is over, and the other horse, (WHAT's his name?)..came flying out of the blue to pull off one of greatest upsets we have witnessed. It was pathetic that the winning jockey felt he had to apologize. Yesterday, he had the best horse.
I can't believe how unfair, and unkind people have been toward an unknown horse that beat the Horse of the Century. The term "sore losers" comes to mind.
He deserves at least an extra carrot...poor horse.
sw
LOL.
One interesting GOOD thing, I've learned today- Smarty's owners are determined to keep the horse in this Country. The breeder farms they are looking at will have this in the contract. Also, they want Smarty to be available to fans. I thought that a kewl thing to do.
Okay, for those with the heart, on to next year.
We had a fine day at Belmont Park, the crowds were overwhelming. Thick enough (and drunk enough) that even this born and raised in NYC girl got clautrophobic outside. Smarty Jones proved to be a two-flusher, sadly, but hubby was the genius of the day, keying Smarty second with several contenders front and back to hit the triple 1 1/2 times for "the syndicate" comprised of hubby, his brother, and their friend. In addition, he wisely sold ALL his tee-shirts before post time.
I hit a cheap exacta early on, so I was happy. And after all that fun, the flat tire we got on the way out wasn't so, so bad.
President Reagan's death must have been announced during the time we made the journey back to the car for the last 3 dozen tee-shirts. I noticed the flag was at 1/2 mast, but didn't know why until we got in the car to drive home. It's been great to listen to the words of praise from his former detractors.
Back again today, after we got the 18 y.o. daughter to come and be the ringer at the IRS window to cash the ticket. Hopefully we'll make good on our annual promise to hit the track a few more times this year.
Yes they do and they have broken mine many times. I don't care, I still love them. Even the manure. I am the best man I can be when I am around horses, either on the ground or in the saddle.
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