Quest Club of Arizona

Shortly after Smarty Jones had been shipped back from Florida to Philadelphia Park he suffered what could have been a catasophic injury and ended not only his racing career, but his life. During a training session preparing for his first race an accident almost ended his career before it started. He reared up and hit his head on an iron bar, fracturing his skull and shattering the orbital bones (around the eye socket) on his left side. Servis thought, “he just killed himself. The accident nearly cost the horse his left eye, but he recovered in a short time and was back in training.

Servis noticed that in his training Smarty Jones was full of run and wanted to go fast all the time. He developed a program where he purposely undertrained his young horse and did not let him go fast very often. He felt the horse was so talented he needed to train him lightly and let his talent take over from there. They did relatively long easy gallops weekly to maintain his natural endurance.

Smarty easily won his first two races at Philadelphia Park. He was ridden by Stewart Elliot, a minor league jockey who was riding on small tracks in the east and even though he had ridden some 3300 winners, none of his rides had been in large races like the Derby or the Breeders Cup, or even many of the stakes races around the country.

Elliott’s father, Denis, was a jockey and his mother was a show horse rider, so it was in his blood early to ride race horses. He dropped out of school at age 16 and started his professional career at Phildelphia Park. During the next 20 years Elliot became a heavy drinker and was convicted of two cases of battery. At one point he became so depressed over his life that he quit riding and started bumming around race tracks working at odd jobs like cleaning stalls in some of the horse barns. But after 18 months and meeting John Servis the desire to ride returned and he cleaned himself up. He began as an exercise boy and then successfully rode several of Servis’ horses in local races . He lost weight and was assigned to ride Smarty in his first two races. He was overwhelmed with the horse’s talent. He had never ridden a horse of this ability, one who could go fast, or accelerate so quickly off a slow pace. He was hopeful that he could continue to ride the horse as it went into more important races, but was also realistic. He knew that most owners hired name jockeys who had experience at the highest level as the races became more important. But Servis never considered replacing Elliot.

Elliott and Servis communicated almost daily about Smarty Jones and he was helpful to Servis with feedback about what the young horse needed. A team was beginning to form: The owners who had never had a really good horse, the trainer who was young and had never trained a horse good enough for one of the important races like the Kentucky Derby, a jockey who had only ridden horses of limited talent on small tracks, and finally the little brown horse who had some emerging gifts they all served.

After Smarty won his first two races Servis went to Chappie with the suggestion that they winter the horse in Arkansas. But Chappie was curious, “Why Arkansas?”

“It’s a good place to train,” Servis explained, “and there are some good races Smarty could do well in. Chappie, I think this is a good horse and he might go someplace in racing. I have a plan for his development that I think will work and if we do it this way he may qualify for the Derby.” According to Chapman they never deviated from Servis’ plan in any way.

Servis had worked in the obscurity where most trainers work who don’t have big money behind them. But he was a self confident young man who felt that if he ever had the chance to work with a top horse he could do the job. When Smarty Jones came to him he could see that this horse was different from any horse he had ever trained. His plan to go to Arkansas was to avoid the hot shots who went to California and Florida for their preparation for the 3 year-old campaign which included the triple crown. He liked the idea of a place where he would have time without national pressure. In training Servis discovered he had an exceptional horse, but wanted time to develop his ability, even though he would be tested in Arkansas stakes races. Those races would tell him if he just had a fast horse, or a potentially great horse.
Smarty easily won his first two races in Arkansas. His next two scheduled races were the Rebel Stakes and the Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park. For years Oaklawn had offered a $5,000,000 bonus to any horse that won both the Rebel and the Arkansas Derby and then went on to win the Kentucky Derby. No horse had ever won that bonus. Smarty proceed to win both races impressively and set up his attempt to win the bonus at the Kentucky Derby. He was being entered as the only contender who was undefeated. Although few experts had seen him run, most remained skeptical, favoring the better known horses from California and Florida. Even though the betters made Smarty the favorite in the Derby, the experts were not so sure.

The City of Philadelphia had not won a championship with any of it’s sports teams for decades. When the Philadelphia Enquirer and some other papers and national magazines like Sport’s Illustrated ran stories on Smarty a wave of enthusiasm swept the city. Smarty was Philadelphia bred and trained, and an outsider, considered inferior to the Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, and California bred horses who had won most of the great stakes races over the past half century and the underdog status appealed to blue collar, tough minded Philadelphia fans. and the thought of a windfall bonus of $5,000,000 was intoxicating. Smarty was undefeated and had brought Philadelphia the national spotlight. So local betters backed their horse and made him the favorite.

When Chapman was interviewed he was quick to point out that “we have never raced at this level before, referring to the Kentucky Derby. “We never thought we’d get there until we met Smarty and that guy over there,” pointing to Servis.

“You know Smarty is not too impressive to look at,” said Servis. “He’s a small horse, but he is bullet-fast. He has an interesting pedagree that might explain his stamina, even though his parents were more sprinters then distance runners. In his bloodline we find Secretariat and Native Dancer, two of the greatest horses in history. “

“Looking at his background many thought that Smarty would be an outstanding sprinter and not a distance horse, and with his explosive speed it’s understandable,” said Allen Kershaw of Gainesborough Farms, home of Smarty’s sire, Elusive Quality. “But that doesn’t mean he can’t go further.”

It was time to find our what they really had. It was time to go to Lexington and the Kentucky Derby.

Yesterday I watched as American Floyd Landis, the leader of this years Tour de France, crack over the last 8-10 miles of hard mountin road. I saw him finish 8 minutes behind the new leader of the tour and lose any hope of winning this years race with only one more mountain stage and one time trial to try and recover and get back into the race. It was painful to watch and seemed hopeless. Landis looked like a beaten man when he finally crossed the finish line. Could any athlete so badly beaten recover?
For Landis this is a one and done Tour because he has to have hip replacement surgery immediately after the race is over. He is in effect riding on a dead hip, a painful dead hip. That alone makes his ride an incredibly courageous act. But now it was over. He was beaten.

But somehow someone forgot to tell Landis it was over, and this morning he performed a miraculous performance. He attacked in the mountains early in the stage and without any help rode to a stage win and gained back 7:30 of the 8 minutes he was behind. In two days comes his last chance to regain his lead and win the Tour. He is currently in third place 30 seconds behind the leader, and Landis is a very good time trialer, which means he has a chance to win. But after today could anyone bet against him.

This is not riding on a well oiled machine like Captain Lance Armstrong led. This is a really tough guy pretty much doing this on his own. He had gotten some help from his team but not so much, and none today. For some of us it may have been one of the great moments in sports. GO FLOYD!!! You have a lot of fans behind you.

Barbaro, Seabicuit, and Smarty Jones Part II

Laura Hillenbrand has written a brilliant book about horse racing from the perspective of one incredible animal in a time of depression in America. She begins her story like this:

“In 1938, near the end of a decade of monumental turmoil, the year’s number-one newsmaker was not Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Hitler, or Mussolini. It wasn’t Pope Pius XI, nor was it Lou Gerhig, Howard Hughes, or Clark Gable. The subject of the most newspaper column inches in 1938 wasn’t even a person. It was an undersized, crooked-legged racehorse named Seabiscuit. And so began Hillanbrand’s tale of the saga of Seabiscuit, the racehorse that captured the imagination of the nation. He was especially adored by those who were having a tough go in the depression. He was one of them and he gave them hope. Some seventy years later another small horse caught the nations attention again.

Roy Chapman made his fortune with a string of automobile agencies around Philadelphia. He and his wife Pat bought a small horse operation outside of Philadelphia called Someday Farms. They had both come to love horses and loved to ride. Over the years they raised a number of pretty good horses, but none good enough to enter any of the national races like the Kentucky Derby.

Roy’s trainer, Bob Carmac, came to him one day with a suggestion. “Let’s breed our little filly I’ll Get Along with Elusive Quality and see what we get. I have a hunch that this might produce something special. I’ll Get Along is a good sprinter, and Elusive Quality good from 3/16th to a mile. Might be a good combination of speed and stamina.”

Roy had been hesitant because of failing health. A lifetime smoker he was quite ill with emphysema, getting around with a motorized wheelchair connected to an oxygen bottle. But he loved horses and he trusted his friend Bob Carmac. The colt was foaled on February 28th, 2001. Pat wanted to name the colt after her mother, but they both agreed it wouldn’t be proper to name him Mildred, so they compromised. Mildred Jones was quite a talker, and a smart aleck to boot, and so she had been nicknamed Smarty, and so they named their horse Smarty Jones after Pat’s mother.

But then tragedy struck. Bob Carmac and his wife had taken in their son-in-law, Wade Russell, a troubled young man who Bob thought he could help. But soon after Bob discovered that Wade and been stealing from them in a check forgery scheme. Bob sued Wade for the $70,000 he had stolen from them. Wade, in a rage, broke into their house in the middle of the night and shot and killed both Bob and his wife as they slept in their beds.

Roy was devastated. He decided that was all he could take, so he told Pat, “let’s get out of the horse business, and move to Florida and just live out our lives in peace. I just don’t have the stomach for it any more.” Pat agreed. So they put the 30 horses they had for sale, but a short time later they received a call from their farm manager. “Chappie, there’s a couple of horses down here you might want to keep. I think they may be special.” One of the two horses was Smarty Jones. It was Pat who persuaded Chapman to keep Smarty. “There was something about the look in his eyes,” she said, “and I told Chappie, let’s keep him.” He was to give them the ride of their lives.

Chappie shipped his two horses to Florida to be trained to race. They hadn’t been there two weeks when the manager called Chappie and told him that one of his horses, the little one, had bullet-like speed, and he had broken every record they had for 1/8 of a mile, 1/4 mile, 1/2 mile, and for one mile. “Chappie, I think this one is really special. He’s not only the fastest horse we’ve ever trained, but when asked he responds with incredible acceleration.” This left Chappie with another problem to solve. With Bob Carmac his former trainer now gone he needed to find someone to take over Smarty Jones’ training when he was received back in Philadelphia. He found a young trainer at Philadelphia Park Race Track who was highly thought of. When Chappie approached John Servis with a proposal to train Smarty Jones , Servis was thrilled with the opportunity. Servis had gone through some tough times when he was starting out. “When I left college I went to work for Scotty Schulhofer at Monmouth. I was living in a room at the end of the barn. I wasn’t making much money. I’d go to the grocery store once a week to stock up on peanut butter and jelly. But those are the sacrifices you make in order to do what you love to do. I think this gives everyone hope.” A small brown horse was about to change Servis’ luck and make him a nationally known figure in horse racing.

Much of my writing is stream of consciousness. I start one place, plan to head in one direction and end up somewhere else. This bit of writing concerns horse racing, and thoroughbred race horses. It was triggered by my life long interest in the sport, which is strange because I have no relationship with horses. I have not been around horses much, and when I have I kept thinking horses are really big and they scare me. I tried to horseback ride twice and fell off both times. It wasn’t the horses fault since my friends picked the oldest horse. So my interest is of something aesthetic, and sporting. In my opinion there is nothing more beautiful then a thoroughbred race horse in full flight. Get a copy of the movie Seabiscuit and watch the part where they take the horse to a farm to find out what he can do and he gallops at top speed along a tree lined road.

I am keeping a vigil. My vigil is about 2 1/2 months. I am waiting for the tragic news that Barbaro, the latest wonder horse, has been euthanized. I feel quite emotional about this. In a strange way I really get attached to these animals. Barbaro won this year’s Kentucky Derby and appeared to have a really good chance to win the Triple Crown of horse racing which includes the Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont. Barbaro interested me because his story seemed to parallel two other horses that I felt this affection for: Seabiscuit, and Smarty Jones. The interesting parts of these stories involved the horses, of course, but also the people around the horses: the jockeys, trainers, and owners, and the times which these horses raced.

During my vigil I have learned a lot about horses and their anatomy. I have always wondered when a race horse broke his leg why he was euthanized, often at the race course if that’s where the break occurred. The accident to Barbaro was different because they tried to save him because of the owners affection for the animal and the future value of the horse. The accident occured near the start of the Preakness when Barbaro stepped down wrong. The jockey heard a loud crack and knew immediately what had happened. The horse continued to race while the jockey desperately tried to reign him in and get him stopped as soon as possible. This horse weighs 1200 lbs so it wasn’t easy. Barbaro was a heavy favorite to win this race and the Belmont three weeks later. When he was pulled up, the crowd went into shock. A strange quiet came over the crowd. I remember my reaction was “Oh no!” They almost forgot the race as they concentrated on the injured horse.

Barbaro was fitted with a walking cast on the track and transported back to the stable and then on to the hospital where he has been treated by Dr Richardson, who is considered the top surgeon among large animal vets. The plain talking Richardson pulled no punches when he said the horse’s chance for survival was no better then 50-50. The next day a long, very complicated operation was performed to set the bones, his leg broken in three places. They placed metal rods and screws to hold the leg in place, and placed him in cast.

The doctors were facing several problems. Barbaro is a 1200 lb animal in tremendous condition trained to run and race. You could not put him to bed and get him to stay still for 6 weeks. The operation had to have given the horse enough stability to be able to stand and to walk. It seemed to have worked. Within hours the horse was up and walking around. He started eating and even noticed some of the other horses. The two other problems were infection, and laminitis. Infection could set in at the break site and that could be catastrophic. Laminitis was the other more serious problem, a gastro-intestinal disorder that can set in if the horse cannot stand or walk with his weight evenly distributed. In other words if the horse is favoring the leg then laminitis is a problem and it is very painful and lethal to most horses.

All went well for about 6 weeks and then suddenly all went to hell. Infection set in and the horse developed laminitis in a rear hoof and three fourths of the hoof had to be removed. Barbaro had three operations to remove the steel rods and some of the screws. Now Barbaro has a cast on both of his rear legs, and Dr Richardson stated the outcome is poor. So I have been steeling myself to the likely outcome, but there is no way for me to avoid the pain and loss of this magficent animal. Each day I look on the internet for the daily reports expecting the worse, but being the optomist I am I look for any reason to hope. Last week we got some better news that Barbaro had perked up and was prancing around his stall. But still Dr Richardson won’’t give the horse much chance to survive this, but I do.

During the vigil I began to think back about my last story about Smarty Jones and the circumatances of his life and races, and the parallel with Seabiscuit, and now Barbaro.
My interest in horse racing started when I was in junior high school. My Dad took me to the races at Tanforan Race Track outside San Francisco where we lived. It must have been sometime between 1946-1948. I remember clearly the featured race that day had the great Citation. He was a big red horse that won by a perverbial mile. Later he went on to win the triple crown and is considered one of the great horses of all time. Following that I listened each year to the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont. And that has continued until this day.

On days when I was too sick to go to school and after my parents had gone to work, I would get the San Francisco Chronicle out and turn to the racing page. If you had ever looked at the page you would see each race listed, the horses, the jockeys, and the odds. I would pick winners in each race, then turn on the radio and listen to the results and keep track of how much money I would have lost or won that day. It was great fun. So I was aware of the greatness of the horses, but also the gambling side of the sport where most horse race fans get their biggest thrill. And I knew vaguely that this was also a business, and some individuals, and some of the racing farms made a lot of money.

Each year in March and April Sport’s Illustrated began to report on the winners of the major stakes races that led up to the Kentucky Derby. Based on those reports I usually picked a favorite to root for. Then started a string of years where one horse won both the Derby and the Preakness, but lost the Belmont, and therefore did not complete the Triple Crown. The first horse during this period that really caught my fancy was a horse called Funny Cide. I think it was the unusual story surrounding the horse that got my attention. Five friends decided to go in together and buy a race horse. They knew nothing about horse racing and bought a horse named Funny Cide they could afford for about $20,000. Low and behold he won the first two parts of the triple crown, but lost the Belmont.

The next year I was so involved in coaching one of my runners that I didn’t pay attention to the stories about the favorite horses getting ready for the Derby, although I was aware that the Derby was coming up the first week in May. We were traveling to Orange County to a track meet the Saturday that the Derby was run. When I checked into the hotel the first thing I did was turn on the television set, but was too late to see the race. I turned on Sport Center on ESPN and they reported and showed clips of the winner of the Kentucky Derby, Smarty Jones. Smarty Jones, who was that, and what kind of name was that for a Kentucky Derby winner? Well that week some very interesting stories began to appear in the papers and sport magazines not only about Smarty Jones, but about his jockey, his owners, and how he had been discovered and was still undefeated.

I would like to see TNT fire Charles Barkley. It makes me sad to say this because he was my favorite player at one time, a real American hero. But now his schtick has gotten old, and he has nothing new and interesting say about any of the games. Time to get some talent in with a different perspective.

I think Barkley’s obvious dislike of the Suns makes what he says irrelevant. He spent the time after both the Lakers and Clipper’s series talking about what they did wrong that lost them the series rather then what the Suns did right. He made it clear that the Çlippers were the best team and that if you examine the results of the series they blew a couple of games they should have won.

Finally if I hear one more time that Steve Nash has to have a MVP game or the Suns have no chance makes the efforts of the rest of the Suns of no consequence. I hope that some people are watching these game and not just listening to Charles and Kenny Smith, and they noticed guys like Shawn Marion, Raja Bell, Leandro Barbosa, and Boris Diaw were also playing. Then of course they told us all the reasons the Spurs and Mavericks were really playing for the Western Championship and if I could interprete their comments, will sweep the Suns away. We’ll see….
The Suns have made no excuses this year, but I find in strange that neither Charles or Kenny have mentioned that the Suns have accomplished all this without their best player, Amare Stoudemire, and without their best interior defender in Kurt Thomas. They accuse the Suns of being a bunch of overachievers. When has being an overachiever ever been a weakness.

I think the Suns have far exceeded what most of us could have ever imagined losing three of last years starters, and especially those needed to provide an inside presence. I believe that Mike D’antoni has done a masterful job in guiding this team into the Western Conference Championship. They have reached the same level as last years team, and are the most entertaining team in basketball.
I say to Charles and Kenny, time to say goodbye. Time for you to find something else to do with your time. Maybe get a real job.