Friday, February 03, 2012

Will Sheppard Be Ever So Lucky?

Have you heard about the all-time leading steeplechase trainer in the United States with 11 Eclipse Awards? The trainer who has dominated American steeplechase standings for more than four decades with the most career wins, most purse money earned, most championships? Hint: his two most recent flat champions are Informed Decision and the long-striding mare Forever Together, both Breeders’ Cup winners.

Of course, we’re talking about Jonathan Sheppard, renowned for his boundless patience in bringing young horses along. The Hall of Fame trainer and his primary client George Strawbridge, Jr. have long been synonymous with older distance turf horses with imposing stamina, not precocious colts with dreams of the first Saturday in May. Hold on to your hat, Sheppard just might have a major Kentucky Derby contender in his barn.

Say hello to Ever So Lucky. A flashy 3-year old son of Indian Charlie, the handsome dark bay colt will launch his 3-year-old campaign in the seven-furlong Hutcheson on Feb. 11 at Gulfstream Park.

Arriving recently in south Florida from the legendary Camden Training Center in South Carolina, Ever So Lucky worked five furlongs over a fast track at Gulfstream, firing a bullet 59.19 on January 30. The colt rated smartly behind a stablemate then turned on his eye-popping speed to pull four lengths clear at the wire.

“It was a good fitness work, he wasn’t blowing very hard, not stressed afterwards,” related Sheppard from his barn at Gulfstream. “He has such an effortless way of going. There’s a lot of talent there. He’s a well-made, sturdy colt, quite smart and has a good mind.

“Speed-wise he is probably the fastest colt I’ve ever trained. At the sale he didn’t look like a one-dimensional speedball, and he still doesn’t. He has a very relaxed style of running. With his superior ability he might be good enough to carry his stamina a little farther and get the mile-and-a-quarter. But, we’ll let him tell us.”

Ever So Lucky was purchased by Strawbridge as the $600,000 sales-topper at the May Fasig-Tipton Mid-Atlantic Sale. Out of the Summer Squall mare Bally Storm, Ever So Lucky unleashed a string of blistering workouts at Delaware Park and Keeneland Racecourse prior to his racing debut in a 6 ½ furlong race at Churchill Downs on Nov. 11.

Wearing the familiar green and white silks of Augustin Stable in his racing debut last November at Churchill Downs, Ever So Lucky faced pressure early from three different runners before opening a commanding lead at the eighth pole. Ridden under wraps by jockey Julien Leparoux, he hit the wire 3 ¼ lengths in front. A dazzling debut, Ever So Lucky recorded a solid time of 1:17.42. The colt finished second by 1 ¼ lengths behind the undefeated Gemologist in the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club in his only other start in late November.

The winner was coming off a 26 day layoff, versus 15 for the Sheppard colt.

“We threw him into the deep end to get that two-turn race into him before the end of the year,” acknowledged Sheppard, a native of Ashwell, England. “The other horse just outstayed him, but he had one more race than us. We didn’t have a good foundation for that race and we came back a little quick too. But I was proud of him. He put up a brave fight. It was only in the closing sixteenth that he gradually gave way. We asked him an awfully big question in that race in going two turns and he ran pretty darn well.”

After the race Ever So Lucky developed some heat in his ankle. The colt was sent to Sheppard’s farm for some down time and a check up at the nearby New Bolton Center that included a scintigraphy.

“The problem was diagnosed as minor bone bruising in his shin and ankle,” said Sheppard over the holidays from his training farm in Chester County, Pa. “So we backed off and didn’t jog him for about three weeks. That was all he needed. He jogged and has done some galloping at the farm. We’ll just keep an eye on it.”

In recent years the trainer has been celebrated for his turf champions, route-runners like With Anticipation, Crowd Pleaser and Cloudy’s Knight, runner-up in 2009 BC Marathon.

Sheppard has never run a horse in the Kentucky Derby. Though a pair of his protégés-- Graham Motion saddled Animal Kingdom last year and Barclay Tagg with Funny Cide in 2003-- have won the “Run for the Roses.”

“Old school horsemen like Graham, Barclay and Michael Matz showed it can be done, that’s its attainable,” Sheppard said. “It’s not just Baffert, Lukas, Zito and Pletcher who get there.

“I’ve had a few young horses that maybe were good enough to get to the Derby, but for one reason or another we’ve never gotten there. We’ve been close-by running quite a few nice horses on the undercard of Triple Crown races, the likes of Informed Decision, Forever Together, Rainbow View and With Anticipation. So, I’ve got caught up a bit in those race day atmospheres.”

Sheppard has always said that a case can be made that it’s too early in the year for an immature horse to go a mile and a quarter.

“The odd horse that happens to be bred to be a stayer and trains like one and has a lot of natural stamina, he would be fine for the Derby,” Sheppard observed. “But I think most people try to make their horses fit a program they’re not cut out for. But then again, the most important ingredient is speed. I don’t care how many miles they can stay. They have to be quicker than the rest of the field at some point in the race. Our horse has that kind of speed.”

Sheppard is impressed with Ever So Lucky’s easy-going temperament.

“He doesn’t let anything bother him,” he said. “He’s just a really nice horse to be around. He is very simple, with a lot of poise, a very attractive colt, a lovely, deep, almost heavenly colored dark bay. There is a lot of presence to him. The more you get to know him the more you like him.”

Sheppard is making no future plans on the Derby Trail until he sees how the Hutcheson plays out.

“We’ll just take things one race at a time and see how he progresses, the trainer said. “George and I are open-minded about the Derby. It would be fun if we do, but I’m not going to run just for the sake of being there. If the horse is doing very well, we’ll take a stab at it. Having a Derby horse is a gap in our resume. We’re getting into the twilight of our careers, so if it happens, that would be very nice indeed.”

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Saturday, January 21, 2012

“King Kelly” Racing’s Five-Time HOTY

As owner Wilmington, Del.’s Rick Porter revels in his first Horse of the Year Eclipse Award that his brilliant filly Havre de Grace earned on January 16, here’s a look back at Kelso’s unprecedented five-time Horse of the Year run in the 1960s.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the greatest of them all?

When it comes to taking home the year-end hardware for “Horse of the Year,” no one can rival the mighty Kelso. A mud-colored, rather plain looking gelding, Kelso was battle tough, durable and relentless. It has been said that “no horse raced so good, for so long.”

Fifty-one years ago Kelso was named Horse of the Year for the first of five consecutive years (1960-1964). Along with the likes of Man o’ War, Citation and Secretariat, Kelso is regarded as one of racing’s mega-stars according to most of the sport’s historians.

Mrs. Allaire du Pont, Kelso’s owner and breeder, was the matriarch of American horse racing during the 1960s. Campaigning under the gray and daffodil-yellow silks of her Bohemia Stables, Kelso notched a stunning 39 victories, and broke or equaled 15 track records over dirt, turf or muddy tracks at distances up to two miles. Kelso was also the first racehorse to travel by jet aircraft.

A model of consistency, Kelso captured 31 stakes and finished first or second in 51 of his 63 starts. Remarkably, he won 13 times carrying 130 pounds or more, twice with 136. Kelso triumphed five consecutive times in the Jockey Club Gold Cup which back in the day often crowned the Horse of the Year. A champion of the people, Kelso retired to “Mrs. D’s” Woodstock Farm in 1966 with a bankroll of $1,977, 896, the all-time record money earner to date.

"Kelso was an extremely determined horse," said Carl Hanford, his Hall of Fame trainer who died last August at age 95. "If he saw a horse in front, he wanted to get to him. You could take him back or send him to the front. He was an extremely sound horse who was light on his feet with incredible balance. Kelso could also wheel on a dime, spinning around in a circle and never letting his feet touch the ground."

Upon his retirement, The Blood-Horse stated: “Kelso demonstrated the durability of class. No horse in our time was so good, so long. His was mature greatness.”

On April 4, 1957 at Claiborne Farm’s foaling barn, Kelso dropped into the world, the leggy brown son of Your Host, a stakes winner of $385,000. His dam was Maid of Flight, a daughter of the 1943 Triple Crown Winner Count Fleet. The horse was named after a good friend of Mrs. Du Pont, Kelso Everett. Initially trained by Dr. John Lee, the veterinarian recommended gelding the strong-willed horse that was known to buck for over a mile before commencing workouts. Still cantankerous, Kelso won his juvenile debut and finished second in two other races.

Carl Hanford took over the reins in January 1960. A few years ago I met with the Hall of Fame trainer who lived in a brick ranch house a few furlongs from Delaware Park. Three portraits of Kelso looked down on him.

“A pal named Charley Maloney told me Dr. Lee was giving up his training duties, that Mrs. du Pont was increasing her stable and needed a full-time trainer,” recalled Hanford.

“I interviewed with her and got the job. When I first saw Kelso, I didn’t think that much of him. He was kind of scrawny. Honestly, I favored a couple other colts.” In his three-year old season Kelso won eight of nine starts. In the Lawrence Realization Stakes Kelso equaled Man o’ War’s record of 2:40 4/5, a time that stood for 40 years.

On Oct. 29, 1960, the Aqueduct track was sloppy as eight of the finest distance runners in the country went to post in the Jockey Gold Cup. Kelso and Don Poggio ran in tandem for a half-mile heading into the far turn. By the quarter pole they were seven lengths clear of the field. With 300 yards to go jockey Eddie Arcaro tapped Kelso twice with his whip. Kelso powered home, splashing to a resounding victory by 3½ lengths.

The official timekeeper did a double take. The lean, hard-muscled gelding had galloped to the fastest 2 miles (3:19 2/5) in North American history, shattering the great Nashua's mark by a full second. Arcaro quipped: "At the end I was breathing harder than he was."

For the feat of whipping older horses, Kelso was awarded honors as both the 3-year old champ and Horse of the Year. For the latter, Mrs. du Pont received her first of five oil paintings by Richard Stone Reeves.

Longtime exercise rider Dickie Jenkins remembers Kelso as an ornery horse who knew when it was time to go to work.

“In training he was like a freight train,” recalled the late Jenkins. “You could feel the power when he changed leads. Kelso was a smart horse, too. I always believed he understood every word I was saying. Milo (Valenzuela, his regular jockey from 1962 on) was perfect for him. He was a tough fellow, a wild little Mexican. He had the same attitude as Kelso.” Sweeping Horse of the Year honors in 1960, ’61 and ‘62, there was no quit in Kelso and that trait stamped him as a beloved figure all across the U. S. He spawned his own fan club, the “Kelsolanders” founded by 11-year old Heather Noble of Alexandria, Va. As the years rolled by Kelso even won over the hard-boiled railbirds of New York.

In 1963, his fifth racing season, Kelso reeled off a string of seven major stakes victories carrying weights up to 134 pounds. During a stretch of four Saturdays from July through October crowds in excess of 70,000 packed the grandstands at Aqueduct for each of his races. His rabid fans unfurled hand-painted signs and banners urging on “King Kelly” and their cheers shook the rafters when he flashed past the wire.

Kelly even warranted his own private mailbox at Woodstock Farm where he received bushels of fan letters from young school kids. In retirement he was turned out daily in his own eight acre paddock. And then within a couple of years, much to the amazement of her friends, Mrs. du Pont began riding Kelso at regional fox hunts where she remembers him “jumping over fences just as if he had been doing it all his life.” On other mornings her gentle hands guided the powerful racehorse as the pair hacked through the backwoods of Chesapeake City.

On Oct. 15, 1983, Kelso, then 26, paraded at Belmont Park on Jockey Club Gold Cup day. Heled the post parade for the 64th running of the Jockey Gold Cup, joined by two other legendary geldings, Forego and John Henry, in an appearance that raised funds for the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation. A crowd of 32,493 roared with delight at Kelso's appearance. "Kelly" broke into a spry jog on the familiar track. After stopping to smell the flowers in the winner's circle, he walked off the track one final time. Late the next afternoon in his paddock, the staff found Kelso in severe distress with colic. At 6:50 p.m. his heart gave out and Kelso, considered by many the greatest racehorse in history, was gone.

"When he got to Belmont he was very excited, a lot was going on," recalled Lana du Pont Wright, Allaire's daughter. "I think that the excitement was just too much for him."

Kelso was buried the following morning behind the farm office. Today, a well-worn path leads to a shaded area identified by a circle of weathered Greek columns, majestic trees and variegated shrubs. It marks Kelso's final resting place and those of his sire and dam. A quote at the base of Kelso's granite marker simply says: "Where he gallops, the earth sings."

The safest bet in racing: no horse will ever rival Kelso’s five-time Horse of the Year honors.

“There was never anything like him before and there has never been anything like him since,” Hanford declared. “They don’t make ‘em like that anymore. In fact, they never did.”

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Wednesday, January 11, 2012

The Domino Effect

It is horse racing’s age-old question: who has the fastest horse?

It is that incredible, eye-catching turn of foot which is the very symbol of the thoroughbred. Back in the 1890s the swiftest horse in the land was the immortal Domino.
Following the demise of heat racing in the 1880's, greater emphasis was placed on speed rather than the endurance needed to compete in a day's competition of races from eight to twenty miles. Domino was one of the earliest speed horses. Nicknamed the “Black Whirlwind” by a turf writer, from 19 starts at a mile or less, Domino won 18, and was runner-up in the other.

The colt’s laid-back nature and blinding speed brought a smile to his stone-faced owner James R. Keene. But Domino’s unchecked acceleration nearly did him in. In a blistering 1892 yearling trial at Coney Island, he injured both front tendons. Still, Domino held it together through his unblemished juvenile season and established an American earnings record that lasted 25 years.

The colt’s steely determination on the turf was equally matched on Wall Street by Keene, a master at buying stocks cheap, then manipulating the share price upward until a crazed public snapped them up.

“Keene did not bet on fluctuations, he made them,” observed one bedazzled Wall Street broker.

An Englishman by birth, Keene grew up in post-Gold Rush California and as a young speculator piled up $6 million through bold and shrewd trading in mining stocks. Eventually he was appointed president of the San Francisco Stock Exchange. In 1876 Keene relocated to the heart of the country's financial center in New York City.

In America’s “Gilded Age” of financiers such as J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and Jay Gould, Keene was the greatest stock manipulator of his or any time. A slightly built man who dressed in a black Victorian frock coat and derby hat, Keene sported a pointy beard and possessed cold, penetrating grey eyes, nerves of steel and an iron will. He would chomp down on a dozen un-smoked cigars a day as he twisted the stock market to fit his own purpose.

“He was the admired and envied and feared King of Wall Street,” reported English turf writer Edward Moorehouse. “With nary a close friend, even his own son Foxhall called him ‘Mr. Keene.’”

Keene was also arguably the most successful thoroughbred owner of his era, campaigning racing legends such as Colin, Maskette, Peter Pan, and Sysonby. In 1881 his colt Foxhall won the classic Grand Prix in Paris. Keene’s horses won nearly every prestigious race run in New York and New Jersey including six editions of the Belmont Stakes. But his favorite runner was Domino.

Sired by Himyar out of the mare Mannie Gray (by Enquire), Domino was bred by Major Barak Thomas at his Dixiana Farm near Lexington, Ky. in 1891. A dark bay, almost black colt he had a small star and white snip running up from his muzzle and two white pasterns.

A part of Thomas' consignment to the Tattersall's yearling sale in New York in 1892, the sleek-bodied colt caught the eye of Foxhall Keene who purchased him for $3,000, a sale-topping figure well above the $895 average. The Keenes, father and son, merged their stables in 1893 and Domino was sent to trainer William Lakeland. Fred Taral rode the colt his entire career.

Launching his racing career at Sheepshead Bay on May 22, 1893, Domino paraded to the post carrying the family colors, white with blue spots. The colt blew around the track like a malevolent wind rolling to a six length victory in the field of 13. His victories came in waves as he scored stakes wins in the Great American, the Great Eclipse, the Great Trial, Hyde Park, and the Produce Stakes.

Unbeaten in nine races as a 2-year old, Domino took home the “Horse of the Year” award, earning a record $170,790, displacing Kingston, also bred by Keene. Considered the fastest sprinter of his time racing, Domino’s spotless juvenile campaign sparked the legend of the “Black Whirlwind.”

His 3-year old campaign kicked off with a win in the Withers Mile over Belmont Stakes champion Henry of Navarre. Domino won five of the next seven races, including the Flying Stakes where he set a new track record with a 130-pound weight on his back.

After another easy victory in the Ocean Handicap, Domino tackled that season's champion in the handicap division, Clifford, in a one mile match race which he won by three-quarters of a length. Domino added the Culver Stakes to his record and was shipped to Gravesend to run a match with Henry of Navarre. It is rumored that the legendary gambler Pittsburgh Phil bet a reported $100,000 on the Black Whirlwind and as the race unfolded Phil calmly ate a bag of figs. For nine furlongs, the two colts mirrored stride for stride, flashing under the wire in tandem. Unable to determine the winner, the judges declared a dead heat.

In a rematch versus Henry of Navarre Domino pulled up lame and his three-year-old season was over. Still, in eight starts the Black Whirlwind had won six times, and pushed his career earnings to $189,940.

The Thoroughbred Record wrote that the horse’s trainer reported: “that an injury to a hoof early in the three-year-old form was the cause of his failure at long distances, and that the severe pain in this foot from the continued exertion was the only reason he would not go any distance that horses are asked to go.”

Domino went on to enjoy some racing success as a four-year-old, though he was no longer as strong as he had been as a two-year-old. He won four of his eight races. In all, Domino won 19 of his 25 starts, placed in two races and came third in another. He won $193,550.

In 1895 Keene purchased the historic Castleton breeding operation outside Lexington, Ky. He transformed Castleton into perhaps the greatest thoroughbred farm in the United States at the time. In 1908, London Sportsman Magazine declared that Keene possessed, “the greatest lot of race horses ever owned by one man.”

Epilogue

Domino entered stud in the spring of 1886 at Castleton where he covered a dozen or so top-class mares Keene had imported from England. In his second season, Domino covered just 20 mares, with Keene “declining the numerous solicitations of owners of outside mares.”

Enjoying the good life at the palatial Castleton, Domino ate voraciously; according to one account he was fed 18 quarts of grain a day. In his seventh year, 1897, Domino was discovered stricken in his paddock at Castleton and died in a spasm of pain the next day of a condition the vet diagnosed as spinal meningitis.

Journey to his Kentucky gravesite today and visitors will find a quote at the base of Domino’s marble headstone that reads: "Here lies the fleetest runner the American turf has ever known, and one of the gamest and most generous of horses."

Domino produced just 19 foals from two crops, but among them were champions and leading sires Commando, Disguise-- conqueror of an English Triple Crown winner and sire of three champions-- English Oaks heroine Cap and Bells, and the dams of influential American sires Sweep, High Time, and Ultimus.

Today scores of thoroughbred and quarter horse racehorses trace their lineage to this "whirlwind" and incredible sire and grandsire. The Domino male line is still alive today, principally through the champion sprinter Ack Ack (eight generations from Domino) who sired the top-class handicap horse Broad Brush and his son Include who produced Her Smile and St. John’s River, top-flight 3-year old fillies in 2011. Domino was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in the initial class of 1955.

As for Keene, he was a spectacular risk-taker who rode the market to fame, fortune, and bankruptcy-and worked his magic to come back again. Yet, today he is now rarely mentioned among the titans of Wall Street history at the turn of the century.

A founding member of the Jockey Club in 1894, Keene demanded regulatory action in a sport where crooked jockeys and bookmakers drove race-fixing schemes that were sinking the grand sport. The Lion of Wall Street invested a fortune in the construction of Belmont Park in 1905. His last winner was a colt named Helmet who carried his famed silks to the winners' circle in Saratoga on August 23, 1910. At age 72, Keene sold Castleton and sailed to Europe. A stomach ailment brought him home in December 1912 and his son Foxhall placed him in a sanitarium where he died in the early hours of January 3, 1913.

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