DEL MAR – OK, so maybe water polo doesn't need a Secretariat. But horse racing could use a Usain Bolt, or at the very least an equine facsimile, maybe with Jamaican breeding.
Go Between yesterday won the $1 million Pacific Classic, the biggest race of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club's summer meeting. Not exactly a barnhold name in his own barn. There was a horse in the race named Mostacolli Mort, which sounds like a bad fast-food Italian restaurant.
Face it. The Sport of Kings needs a king. It needs a name. It needs a great racehorse. It doesn't have one. Hasn't had one in years. We didn't see one in this Classic.
“I think horse racing always needs a star,” Joe Harper, Del Mar's boss, was saying. “But they're so fleeting. Look at the stars we've had in the past. Horses like John Henry raced for a long time. You could establish them. Now, your horse wins the (Kentucky) Derby and, poof, he's off to the breeding shed.”
There are several reasons for the lack of stardom, but Harper's probably is No. 1. There could be greatness in some of these horses, but most of them aren't given a chance to achieve genuine stardom. They do something of promise and, if not gelded, they're whisked off to the horsey bedroom.
“Smarty Jones might have been a great horse. Who knows?” said Bob “Eisenhower” Ike, the U-T's crack handicapper. “He didn't race long enough. Based on longevity, the last great horse was Cigar, and he wasn't great early in his career, so he was given a chance to become one.”
Cigar last ran in 1996, the year he finished second in the Pacific Classic after winning 16 straight races. He undeniably was a terrific horse – better than Go Between, or Dare And Go, who beat him here in '96. Before Cigar, what? Sunday Silence, who last ran in 1990.
The walls of Del Mar's press-level eatery are decorated with photos and charts featuring many of the greatest horses of the past century. Secretariat. Buckpasser. Citation. Seattle Slew. Affirmed. Seabiscuit. John Henry. Kelso. Damascus. Best Pal. Sunday Silence. Cigar. Dr. Fager. Round Table.
There are more, but you get the picture. Not one on the wall has raced since 1996. We try. We love Smarty Jones and Barbaro and Big Brown, but in nearly every instance, for whatever reason – in Barbaro's tragic case, it was injury and death – they're comets more than enduring stars.
It's the horses, man. There are great jockeys, trainers and owners, but only the hardcore remember Ron Turcotte rode Secretariat, that Lucien Lauren trained him, that Penny Tweedy owned him.
But the horse is remembered. They remember Secretariat's Belmont, the most incredible thing I've seen in sports.
Chargers GM A.J. Smith continually reminds me it's all about the players. In this game, it's all about the horses. And there are no LaDainian Tomlinsons.
“If a breeder has 10 horses, he should have to geld a certain percentage of them,” insisted Dan Smith, Del Mar's senior media coordinator. “More horses should be gelded.”
So they would run longer. Fat chance. More money in stud. Smith, who is in his 45th year at Del Mar, knows only too well that Cigar was the last great horse to come along.
“I thought Ghostzapper (2002-06) had a chance,” he said. “He ran well early and late, but then he went south (injured). He reminded me of Buckpasser and Spectacular Bid.”
Cigar doesn't make Smith's top 20. Tells you something.
Some of history's best have run at Del Mar. Seabiscuit. Best Pal. Native Diver. Cigar. And some Hall of Famers have run in Southern California – the aforementioned, along with Buckpasser, Affirmed, Damascus, Dr. Fager, Round Table, Kelso, Ferdinand, Seattle Slew and Spectacular Bid.
“Shoe (jockey Bill Shoemaker) didn't like to talk about the great horses,” Smith said. “But if you got a few drinks in him, he'd tell you Spectacular Bid.”
No “Bids” around now.
“Horses should be better,” Ike said. “There is better nutrition, better training, better drugs, better everything. But it hasn't been better. I think we've had some brilliant horses. They just haven't had a chance to prove their greatness.”
I can't say we saw true greatness here yesterday (actually, last night). Five of the 10 horses in the Classic were geldings, maybe not good for the horses' egos, but good for racing in general.
Five-year-old Go Between, not a gelding and yet to step up as a horse for the ages, nevertheless was a 5-2 favorite and charged down the stretch under jockey Garrett Gomez to nudge Well Armed to win the Classic. Gomez also won Saturday's Travers on Colonel John at Saratoga. Has any jock won million-dollar races on back-to-back days?
Don't know, but that's a nice weekend.
“I don't know if that's some kind of record,” Go Between's owner, Peter Vegso, was saying. “I think it's got to be.
“I think he (Go Between) loves the artificial surface. I was expecting to win this race, but you know how horse racing goes.”
Right. Go Between's trainer, Bill Mott, also saddled Cigar in the '96 Classic. The better horse lost that day.
Nick Canepa: (619) 293-1397; nick.canepa@uniontrib.com
