too small, too ordinary and, one race away

[desdemona]

Two Times a Jewel

Smarty Jones is too small, too ordinary and, one race away from a Triple Crown, almost too good for words

By JEFFREY KLUGER

Monday, May. 17, 2004

If there's one thing harder than being from Philadelphia — the Eastern seaboard's perennial underdog — it's being from Baltimore, chronic runner-up even to Philly. But every so often, synergy works. The scrappy cities and a scrappy horse came together last week for a brilliant flash-paper moment in which Smarty Jones, a too-small Thoroughbred from an ordinary farm, roared to an 11.5-length win in the Preakness Stakes, the widest Preakness win ever and one that puts horse racing two-thirds of the way to its first Triple Crown since Affirmed in 1978. Coming on the hooves of his win in the Kentucky Derby, Smarty Jones might be one of the most remarkable horses ever to get this far. He's certainly one of the unlikeliest.

In a sport in which bloodlines are everything, neither Smarty Jones nor the team behind him had any business being in the winner's circle at Pimlico Race Course last week. Owners Roy and Patricia Chapman are an unlikely pair — Patricia is a peppy 62, and Roy, a weary 78, is confined to a wheelchair and hooked to an oxygen tank, the result of too many decades filled with too many Lucky Strikes. Far from a bluegrass blueblood, he made his living as a Philadelphia car dealer, and it was in his showroom in 1976 that he and Pat met. A decade later they went into the horse business, opening a 100-acre farm in Chester County,Pa.

The Chapmans' place was a lunch-bucket operation that never earned much acclaim. In 2001 the farm took a devastating hit when trainer Bob Camac and his wife were shot to death by the wife's son in a quarrel over money. That sucked the life out of Roy — from whom emphysema was already sucking the breath — and he decided to sell out. Pat persuaded him to keep two horses, a pair of yearlings they sent to a farm in Florida so that its general manager, George Isaacs, could evaluate them. "Let's see what you have here," Isaacs said to Roy. Ultimately, he pronounced one of the horses — Smarty Jones — a "runner."

read the entire article here:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...-638437,00.html

Edited May 21, 2004 by desdemona

[Bombardier]

Win or lose, Smarty's one heck of a racer! ;)

[DudeAsInCool]

Smarty Jones is the fastest horse I've seen in my lifetime...

[DudeAsInCool]

Here's an interesting article from Slate:

Why 3-Year-Olds Rule the Triple Crown

And faster 4-year-olds don't get a shot.

By Brendan I. Koerner

Posted Thursday, June 3, 2004, at 2:30 PM PT

Smarty Jones will vie for horse racing's Triple Crown this Saturday at the Belmont Stakes. Like the Crown's other two jewels, the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, the Belmont is contested solely by 3-year-old horses. Why is there such a strict age limit, especially considering that older thoroughbreds often run faster?

The predominance of 3-year-olds dates back to the early days of organized English racing. Famous races such as the St. Leger Stakes (first run in 1776), the Epsom Derby (1780), and the Two Thousand Guineas Stakes (1809), which make up the Old World's version of the Triple Crown, have always been limited to 3-year-old entrants. When the comparable American races started up (beginning with the Belmont in 1867), they were closely patterned on their English predecessors—the Kentucky Derby, for example, took its name from the Epsom Derby, which in turn took its name from an English aristocrat, Lord Derby. In keeping with tradition, then, the American races adopted the age restriction, too.

No one's entirely sure why the restriction was originally put in place, but it probably has a lot to do with the fact that thoroughbreds generally reach physical maturity during their third year. A race with 2-year-olds would be the equine equivalent of watching a junior-varsity basketball game; a race consisting of 4-year-olds would be something of a snooze, because by that time it would be clear which horses were great and which were lackluster. On the other hand, 3-year olds guarantee both viewing and wagering excitement—they're old enough to burn up the track, but raw enough to add the element of uncertainty that makes gambling worthwhile.

Continue Article

The English horse owners who first established these races may have also had selfish reasons for instituting the limit. Some racing horses get worn down during their third years and never race as 4-year-olds; the English horsey set wanted to ensure that their prize thoroughbreds got a chance on the track.

The horses that do soldier onward, however, tend to run faster than their younger counterparts, at least early in the racing season, when the 3-year-olds are still maturing and gaining their competitive sea legs. The early fall marks the first time that 3-year-olds compete against 4-year-olds, most notably in the prestigious Breeders' Cup Classic. To level the playing field, the Classic's rules mandates that horses of differing ages be assigned different handicapping weights—3-year-olds are saddled with 122 pounds, while 4-year-olds are weighted down with 126 pounds. Still, 3-year-olds have won fewer than half the Breeders' Cup Classics that have ever been run.

Explainer thanks Ron Mitchell and Steven Haskin of The Blood-Horse magazine.

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a fellow at the New America Foundation.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2101703/

[DudeAsInCool]

Smarty Jones Faces the Test of the Champion

By JOE DRAPE

Published: June 5, 2004

Yoni Brook/The New York Times

If he wins the Belmont Stakes Saturday, Smarty Jones will become the 12th horse to capture racing's Triple Crown.

the colt was born on the hopefully named Someday Farm in Pennsylvania. He was tagged with a moniker that is just as catchy: Smarty Jones. His owners and breeders, Roy and Pat Chapman, are proud Philadelphians who helped their dreams along with hard work. The colt's trainer, John Servis, and his jockey, Stewart Elliott, won a bunch of races on racing's second-tier circuit, but in the past five weeks they have shown that they possess first-rate skills.

Someday is finally here.

Before what is expected to be a record crowd at Belmont Park today, and a national television audience that may also exceed recent history, Smarty Jones will take on eight other 3-year-old colts over a mile and a half. Hanging in the balance for Smarty Jones is $5.6 million and the priceless honor of joining the 11 horses that have swept the Triple Crown, beginning with Sir Barton in 1919 and ending with Affirmed in 1978.

Thoroughbred racing has been down this road before, its aficionados pumped up on a Friday only to be deflated at dusk on a Saturday when another bid to obtain the regal old sport's holy grail is dashed in the Belmont Stakes. Last year Funny Cide became the fifth horse in the last seven years to leave horsemen and horseplayers shaking their fists at the racing gods.

But this time, it feels different. Ask Ron Turcotte, who believes Smarty Jones, the 2-5 morning-line favorite, can win today by as many as 25 lengths.

Turcotte was the passenger on Secretariat in the 1973 Belmont when Big Red roared off with a 31-length victory and the Triple Crown in a track-record time of 2:24, which still stands.

"I feel very confident the horse is being handled just right, and that he's a horse that can be placed anywhere and his jockey can do whatever he wants with him," Turcotte said. "I feel very comfortable that he's the real thing."

As captivating as the stories of the horse's owners, trainer and jockey are, it is Smarty Jones's brilliant performances on the racetrack that have made him a good bet to join Seattle Slew (1977) as an undefeated Triple Crown champion. In his eight starts, Smarty Jones has won at eight distances over five tracks by an average of six lengths.

If rain falls, as predicted, it is unlikely to faze Smarty Jones: he has won twice on muddy tracks, most memorably in the Kentucky Derby.

Still, Smarty Jones will have to earn the Triple Crown. The Belmont is called the Test of the Champion because it is the first, and, usually, the last time a colt is asked to run a mile and a half.

In the minds of some pedigree experts, Smarty Jones has already outrun his bloodlines. His father, Elusive Quality, was a versatile horse, winning on dirt and grass, but never beyond a mile and a sixteenth. His mother, I'll Get Along, was a daughter of Smile, a sprint champion.

Servis, however, chose Oaklawn Park in Arkansas for Smarty Jones's 3-year-old campaign because it featured a series of stakes races at distances of a mile, a mile and one-sixteenth and the mile-and-one-eighth Arkansas Derby.

"John was real crafty about how he has handled this horse," Elliott said. "He put him in races without asking him to do too much. He got him used to winning."

Last summer, Smarty Jones reared in a training gate, fracturing his skull and bloodying an eye socket severely enough that Servis feared he might never race again. He recovered fully, but what impressed Servis most was how much Smarty Jones learned from the experience.

"Ever since that accident, he takes care of himself very well," Servis said. "He eats and sleeps and is thoroughly professional."

Once on the Triple Crown trail, Servis kept to an easy-does-it training method, opting to gallop Smarty Jones daily for distances reaching a mile and a half rather than taking him for frequent breezes or racespeed workouts. He breezed the colt only once before the Derby, not at all before the Preakness, and once before today's race. In contrast, Seattle Slew and Secretariat each had three workouts before the Belmont Stakes, and Affirmed two.

While the mile-and-a-half distance will test Smarty Jones's pedigree and Servis's preparations, Elliott will be tested by his eight rival riders, all of whom will at some point take a shot at pressuring him in the hope of forcing a mistake. Elliott, a 39-year-old journeyman, is the dominant rider at Philadelphia Park and has yet to make a mistake aboard Smarty Jones.

But Elliott has never been on a stage this enormous. Jerry Bailey is likely to mount the first challenge aboard Eddington, who is lined up in post No. 8 inside Elliott and Smarty Jones, who is leaving from post No. 9. Eddington's trainer, Mark Hennig, said the colt's late-running tactics will be reversed and he will try to force the early pace, which may give Bailey the opportunity to try to float Smarty Jones wide going into the first turn.

Inside on the rail, another speedy colt, Purge, is looming. Purge lost twice to Smarty Jones in Arkansas, but he ran away with the Peter Pan Stakes two weeks ago with stalk-and-pounce tactics. Purge's trainer, Todd Pletcher, said his colt was unlikely to make a run at Smarty Jones until the last half mile.

Somewhere in the first turn, Elliott will have to decide whether to take the lead — something he has yet to do in this campaign. Elliott is not worried. "This is a push-button horse," he said. "He will do anything I want, and if I end up with the lead, I'm not going to be worried, because I'll make sure we're going very slow."

If Elliott succumbs to the harassment and Smarty Jones is forced to labor down the backstretch, the jockeys on late runners like Royal Assault, Birdstone and especially Rock Hard Ten will be emboldened. By the far turn, they will ask their horses to switch to cruising gear and take aim at Smarty Jones.

Rock Hard Ten, the Preakness runner-up, is a strapping 17 hands with a ground-gobbling stride that is perfectly suited for Belmont's sweeping turns. He is also rapidly developing as he comes up to his fifth career start.

But Servis tends to agree with Turcotte. He believes that Smarty Jones is fit and fantastic enough to join Sir Barton, Gallant Fox, Omaha, War Admiral, Whirlaway, Count Fleet, Assault, Citation, Secretariat, Seattle Slew and Affirmed as horse racing's greatest champions.

"If he gets beat," Servis said, "it's going to be something out of the ordinary, I think."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/05/sports/s...ial/05BELM.html

[DudeAsInCool]

Place your bets:

[DudeAsInCool]

Who is gonna watch today?

[desdemona]

I can't believe he lost, that just happened so fast in the last few seconds really, I don't think he realized the threat til it was too late.

[DudeAsInCool]

He had the lead the whole way until the last 5 seconds. He didnt seem as fast today and I thought he would open up with a bigger lead. He still is one of the best horses Ive ever seen

[Ken]

The fact of the matter is, in this day and age, there isn't as big a difference between horses.

It's way more competitive.

Each horse that ran today had a shot. Nobody was out of it.

I'm sorry people, but i've been saying it a lot.

Smarty Jones is no Secretariat. He's a great horse, but not leaps and bounds ahead of the competition like Secretariat, nor was he as dominate.

He had the lead the whole way until the last 5 seconds.

You see, that's the thing. He beat any horse that decided to be a front runner, but he ran out of gas (the Belmont is a longer race than the Derby and the Preakness), and was overtaken by a horse that saved a little in the tank for a last push.