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Horses Archive

Change of Plans

The effect of Ghostzapper’s retirement continues to be felt in the older male handicap division. Trainer Mark Hennig has adjusted Eddington’s 2005 campaign now that the 2004 HOTY is out of the picture. Eddington was scheduled to start in the Suburban, the Saratoga Breeders’ Cup, the Jockey Club Gold Cup, and the Breeders’ Cup Classic. He’s still on schedule for the Suburban and is a definite for the Classic, but may now enter the Whitney and the Woodward in place of the Saratoga and Gold Cup. The July 2 Suburban will be Eddington’s first start since winning the Pimlico Special in May. (Daily Racing Form)
Trainer Robbie Bailes needs a new plan for Scrappy T — the horse didn’t take to the turf as it was hoped he might. Scrappy T worked out on Colonial Downs’ turf course yesterday, with the idea that he might run in the Colonial Turf Cup and the Virginia Derby, but Scrappy T didn’t like the change of surface. “[Rider Ramon Dominguez] said he didn’t have the same spurt that he had on the dirt,” said Bailes. Scrappy T may be pointed to the Ohio Derby at Thistledown instead. (Lexington Herald-Leader)

Posted in Horses on June 18, 2005

Ghostzapper Retired

Ghostzapper, the 2004 Horse of the Year, has been retired with a hairline fracture in his left front ankle. Ghostzapper last raced on May 30 in the Met Mile, which he won by more than six lengths. It was then that he sustained the injury:

“After the race, he had some filling in his ankle,” trainer Bobby Frankel said. “We X-rayed it and didn’t find anything, but I wasn’t comfortable with it and wanted to make sure everything was all right. I didn’t want to take any chances, so I sent him to New Bolton (Medical Center) on Wednesday (June 8). They did a nuclear scan and found a hot spot. Then they took an X-ray of the spot and discovered a small crack. They said it was very difficult to find. He looks great and he’s walking perfect. You couldn’t tell anything was wrong with him.” (Blood-Horse)

The Blood-Horse article notes in the paragraph before Frankel’s quote that it was revealed after the Met Mile that Jess Jackson, “the California winemaker who has been extremely active in bloodstock transactions over the last year,” had purchased an interest in the horse, a juxtaposition that invites a little cynicism.
There’s not much to say about Ghostzapper, other than that he was undeniably fast:

“He is the fastest horse since we began making figures in 1982,” said Jerry Brown, who operates Thoro-Graph, a Manhattan-based company that produces speed figures for gamblers, trainers and owners. “And he is the fastest by quite a bit. There have been a couple of other horses who ran figures close to his on occasion, but three of his races produced the fastest three figures we have ever given a horse.” (New York Times)

Ghostzapper was 4-for-4 last year and had a similarly light schedule planned for this year, with all of his races to be at Belmont or Saratoga. He ends his career 9-for-11.
Related: “Great-lite to Great-great.” Before Ghostzapper’s retirement was announced, Equidaily’s Seth Merrow was wondering why the 2004 HOTY lacked appeal and decided the horse needed a hook — “A streak. A rivalry. An accomplished career.”
6/15 Addition: Alan of Left at the Gate (who I had the pleasure of meeting Saturday at Belmont) writes that there’s new meaning in graded stakes for older horses with Ghostzapper gone.
Horsemen grouse at Ghostzapper’s passing from the scene. “I’m in the game and it breaks my heart,” said trainer H. James Bond. “It’s like watching the Final Four and seeing the star center go out. We have very few heroes in our game and it’s a shame.” (Times-Union)

Posted in Horses on June 14, 2005

“Hard-Hitting Throwback”

Steven Crist writes a nice column about Afleet Alex, praising him for being competitive as a two-year-old and a three-year-old, something that doesn’t happen often anymore:

More recently, it has become practically a given that it’s just too much to ask the modern racehorse to be competitive at the highest levels of both 2-year-old and 3-year-old racing. Exceptions such as Point Given seem more exceptional with each passing year. Before this year, we had three consecutive Derby-Preakness winners in War Emblem, Funny Cide, and Smarty Jones who among them did not even compete in a graded stakes as 2-year-olds. You had to go back to Summer Squall in 1989 to find a Hopeful winner who returned to win a Triple Crown race — until Afleet Alex.

The list of Grade 1 races that Afleet Alex has competed in is remarkable in and of itself: the Hopeful, Champagne, Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, Kentucky Derby, and Preakness. He has won or been right there in all of them, and is a combined 2 1/4 lengths from having won all five, having lost the Champagne by a half-length, the Juvenile by three-quarters, and the Derby by a length. In an era when horses’ campaigns are craftily managed to find the likeliest venues to showcase them in narrow fields of specialization, Afleet Alex has run time after time in the biggest races against the best horses over different tracks and distances. (Daily Racing Form — sub. req.)

For a good example of how widespread this expectation is that a horse who’s racing at the highest level as a two-year-old won’t be as a three-year-old, check out this Bill Finley ESPN column from last August after Afleet Alex won the Hopeful Stakes. “Come the first Saturday in May, 2005,” wrote Finley,

You can rest assured that Afleet Alex will not duplicate Smarty Jones’ Kentucky Derby victory. That’s not necessarily a knock on the horse. It’s just that he’ll be attempting to do something that horses just can’t seem to do anymore. You can’t be at your best in mid-August and still at your best in early May.

He was half right …
—
Crist also makes an excellent point in his column about the love for flash over substance in racing:

Consistency, durability, and versatility have come to be regarded as quaint virtues from grandfather’s era, less important than a few dazzling weeks in the spotlight ending with a lucrative financial transaction involving commercial breeders.

And Gary West makes a similar complaint about a different horse, writing that Ghostzapper may be redefining greatness:

The new definition will emphasize flashes of brilliance rather than prolonged accomplishment. Under the new standard of greatness, a horse won’t be expected to defeat rivals while carrying significantly more weight, won’t have to overcome unfavorable circumstances and certainly won’t have to sustain a superlative level of performance over a few seasons. (Star-Telegram)

Posted in Horses on May 27, 2005

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