Unusual Path to Acclamation

The 1990 Nureyev-Rossard colt as a yearling.

Havre de Grace, Zenyatta, Rachel Alexandra, Azeri, Lady’s Secret, All Along, Moccasin, Busher, and Twilight Tear aren’t the only female Horses of the Year who have made their mark in the United States. Another, Rossard, is a most unusual source of stakes winners in this country, unusual because she carries a quaint country code after her name: (DEN) for Denmark, where she was foaled in 1980. Her grandson, Acclamation, picked up an Eclipse Award last night as 2011 champion older male.

Rossard had been an exceptional runner in Scandinavia. In 1983, she won the Denmark Derby, Swedish Derby, Danish Oaks, Swedish Oaks, Danish St. Leger and the Danish 1,000 Guineas for trainer Hans Adielsson. The filly won all Danish classics that season bar the 2,000 Guineas. She was named Horse of the Year in Sweden, as well as champion three-year-old filly in Denmark and Sweden.

She made eight starts the following season in North America, for Catherine T. Koffend and trainer Evan S. Jackson, winning three times, including the Grade 1 Flower Bowl Handicap at Belmont Park under Laffit Pincay Jr.

Rossard was a daughter of Swedish St. Leger winner Glacial, a Danish-bred son of Pardal. Pardal, a full brother (by Pharis) to Arc winner Ardan, had won the Jockey Club Stakes, Princess of Wales’s Stakes, Lowther Stakes, and the Great Yorkshire Stakes, all in England. Rossard’s dam was the British-bred Peas-Blossom, who was exported to Denmark after she had failed to win on the racecourse, a daughter of the Paul Mellon-bred stakes winner Midsummer Night. Rossard’s was a stout pedigree, and unheard of bloodlines in North America.

That being said, the success of this family is not unprecedented on the continent. This is the same female family as 1986 Canadian Broodmare of the Year Loudrangle. Light of Day (by Hyperion), Rossard’s third dam, was also the third dam of Loudrangle, who produced 1986 Canadian Horse of the Year Ruling Angel – another female Horse of the Year – and 1987 Canadian champion Tilt My Halo, and was granddam of two more Canadian champions: 2004 Horse of the Year Soaring Free, and 1988 champion three-year-old colt Regal Intention.

Rossard was retired to stud following her lone season of racing in North America, and she was subsequently bred to dual Arc winner Alleged. John T.L. Jones Jr. of Walmac Int’l purchased her from the 1985 Keeneland November sale consignment of Pegasus Stud for $300,000.

Crystal Springs Joint Venture and Jones (in partnership with Red McCombs one year) bred the mare’s first three foals: a 1986 colt by Alleged (Pitchfork); 1988 filly by Nureyev (Dot Dot Dash); and 1989 filly by Miswaki (Danish Prospector).

With three foals on the ground – one of which, Pitchfork, had raced, managing just a placing – Crystal Springs and Jones put Rossard, in foal to Walmac’s flagship stallion Nureyev, through the 1989 Keeneland November sale, where Jones bought out his partner for $320,000, probably more for the valuable Nureyev foal in utero than for the mare herself.

Nureyev, sire of Unusual Heat.

Rossard foaled a stout, near-black colt on January 1, 1990. Jones bred the mare back to Nureyev’s Grade 1-winning son Stately Don and sold her to Kirsten Rausing – the Swedish doyenne of Newmarket-based Lanwades Stud in England – for $55,000 at the Keeneland November sale that autumn.

A skittish Unusual Heat meeting me (my arm) for the first time.

Unusual Heat with his best childhood friend, Julie's Jazz.

When the Nureyev colt was a yearling, Walmac offered him at the now-defunct Keeneland July sale, where he was not sold for $185,000. A year later, Jones’s Two Creek Ranch consigned him to a two-year-olds-in-training sale, selling him to The Oaks (Dr. Thomas T.S. Liang) for $250,000, and he was subsequently exported to Ireland and sent to the Curragh yard of trainer Dermot Weld.

The colt, named Unusual Heat, was moderately successful, winning four-of-ten starts from two to four in Ireland. He won three Listed stakes races, two at a mile and one at nine furlongs, and was third in the Group 3 Concorde S.

Owner Liang sent the horse to Richard Mandella in California, where he made his first start as a six-year-old, debuting in an allowance at Santa Anita. He was a half-length second to stakes winner Nonproductiveasset, who had finished second in the Strub Stakes-G1 two years prior. Unusual Heat’s next race, another allowance, saw him run third – a length and a neck behind 1995 Breeders’ Cup Turf-G1 winner Northern Spur (Ire) and Grade 2 winner Wavy Run (Ire).

Encouraged by Unusual Heat’s ability to hang with the big boys, Mandella ran him with stablemate Atticus, another son of Nureyev (who later won a Grade 1), in a minor stakes race at Hollywood Park, but he could only finish fifth, one place behind Atticus. Fifteen days later, on June 10, 1996, Unusual Heat was entered in a claiming race, which he won under Laffit Pincay Jr., who had guided the horse’s dam Rossard to her Flower Bowl victory.

But the real winner that day was Barry Abrams and the Auerbach family, although it would be some time yet before they realized the full extent of it: Abrams and Auerbach (along with Team Green and Wolkoff, et al) claimed Unusual Heat from Liang for $80,000, beating out trainer Mike Mitchell in the shake.

He raced twice for the new ownership, all in less than two weeks from the claim. With Chris Antley aboard (the only time Pincay did not ride him Stateside), Unusual Heat ran sixth of seven in the Grade 2 Shoemaker Breeders’ Cup Mile S., then he won a $125,000 claiming race on June 29th by 2-1/2 lengths.

The chart line reads that he “returned lame.” Eight months later, the tendon injury he had sustained in the race hadn’t healed well enough for a return to the track, and he was retired. There had been a deal to sell Unusual Heat to an Argentine farm for stud duty, but when that fell through, his owners thought they had no other option and concluded, “Why not stand him ourselves?”

Why not, indeed.

Unusual Heat duly rewarded their faith in him by quickly producing top-quality runners, despite starting off with a first crop of just 15 foals, two of whom would go on to be stakes winners. He has been the leading sire in California from 2008-2011, and sired the newly minted Eclipse Award winner Acclamation, who won three Grade 1 stakes last year and one in 2010.

Other top sons and daughters of Unusual Heat are Grade 1 winners Golden Doc A, The Usual Q. T., Unusual Suspect, Grade 2 winners Burns (who sadly passed away at Santa Anita last year), Lethal Heat, Pretty Unusual, and Tucked Away, and Grade 3 winner Lightmyfirebaby. Among his other stakes winners (24 in total) are Grade 1-placed Bel Air Sizzle and Grade 2-placed Spend it All Baby. Many of these, although not Acclamation, raced as homebreds for the Auerbachs and were trained by Abrams. Acclamation was bred by Old English Rancho,  where Unusual Heat stood before moving to Harris Farms prior to the 2011 breeding season, and trained by Don Warren on behalf of E.W. “Bud” and Judy Johnston (of Old English Rancho) and Peter and Mary Hilvers.


(Click here to go to Unusual Heat’s website.)

As it turned out, from thirteen named foals out of Rossard, Unusual Heat was the only one who was any count on the racetrack. But his older full sister, Dot Dot Dash, produced multiple stakes winner Dash of Humor (by Distorted Humor), dam of 2011 stakes winner Lil Bit O’Fun (by Langfuhr); and stakes-placed Two Dot Slew (by Evansville Slew), dam of 2011 stakes winner Angelica Zapata (by Sharp Humor).

Stakes producer Dot Dot Dash, as a two-year-old.

Dot Dot Dash, a full sister to Unusual Heat, and a very different physical type to him.

Danish Prospector, the Miswaki filly out of Rossard, is granddam of stakes winner Three’s a Crowd (by Ecton Park). Note that three of the four stakes winners under daughters of Rossard are by Forty Niner-line sires.

Rossard produced her last foal, for Tim Holland, in 2002. The mare was found dead of old age in her paddock at Huntertown Farm in Paris, Kentucky, in March of 2005, at the age of 25.

As a sidenote to this blog post, I knew Rossard, as well as Dot Dot Dash, Danish Prospector, and Unusual Heat as youngsters. I don’t remember much of Rossard physically except that I think she was plain and not a big horse, nor do I recall her personality. (I would scan in a photo if the entire R section of my filed pictures hadn’t disappeared.) She shared her paddock with Parrish Princess, the dam of champion Princess Rooney and a Nureyev filly (Julie’s Jazz) who was Unusual Heat’s playmate.

Danish Prospector was the first horse I ever showed at a yearling sale, at Keeneland in July of 1990. I was paired up with her because she was small, especially for a foal of January 7, and the thought was that she would look less tiny next to an equally small me. I remember a British stud manager inspecting the plain bay filly and saying to me, “Even with you holding her, she’s still small.”

"E.T." (and the gray tail of Parrish Princess).

A year later, during a summer vacation from high school, I worked in the yearling barn with Unusual Heat. I had also known him as a foal, when one of the farmhands nicknamed him “E.T.” because he thought the marking on the colt’s face was in the shape of Spielberg’s martian. As a yearling, the Rossard colt, as he was then known, was not my favorite to exercise: he was very thick – a tank – and always had some fancy footwork with undiscriminating, rather violent placement of his shod feet, but occasionally I ended up having to turn him out. One night, he stomped on me so hard I thought my little toe was severed. I managed to get him to his paddock, then hobbled back to the barn to take off my shoe and sock to see the damage. My toe was smashed but, I was happy to note, still attached to my foot. To this day, there’s a bump on it.

A tank, after being bought back in July of his yearling year.

Who would have ever thought that the U.S. breeding industry’s most influential female Horse of the Year of the last 30 years (not counting Havre de Grace, Zenyatta, and Rachel Alexandra, who haven’t produced foals yet) would be a Danish-bred, primarily Scandinavian-raced, one?

It's Queen Elizabeth day at Keeneland

The Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Stakes this afternoon is shaping up to be a very good race. Here are some of the contenders:

Summer Soiree galloping on Friday.

Winter Memories out for a graze on Friday.

Together on October 8, when she ran second in the First Lady S.

Grade 1 winner Nereid schooling.

Nereid

Grade 3 winner Star Billing.

Star Billing.

John Shirreffs and Tiger.

Tiger.

No mention of Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup S.-G1 should be complete without a visit from the Queen, Zenyatta.

Some Thoughts On the Eclipse Awards, and My Votes

When I became a member of the National Turf Writers Association (now the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters, or NTWAB) in 2009, there was a delicious thrill at the prospect of participating in the voting for the Eclipse Awards. Having been in love with horseracing for almost as far back as I can remember, it was a personal achievement to have ‘made it,’ if you will.

My excitement last year quickly fizzled in the ensuing ugliness that erupted in the Rachel Alexandra vs. Zenyatta debate. I use the word “debate” out of politeness; my experience was not pleasant, and the verbal attacks I received and witnessed against both sides is not something I want to go through again, ever. My philosophy is this: I respect your right to have an opinion within reason, and in return I ask that you respect my right to have an opinion within reason. I couldn’t tell anyone who argued for either Rachel Alexandra or Zenyatta as 2009 Horse of the Year that their opinion was “wrong,” just as I wouldn’t do that to anyone who opts for Blame or Zenyatta this year. I stand behind and wholly support my candidate, which means that I’m not going to insult anyone’s intelligence by hitting them over the head with my opinion. I’ve learned that that approach has a counterproductive effect, and being respectful of each other’s opinion should not be too much to ask.

There are those who think the Eclipse Awards are meaningless, a dinosaur, that their chief purpose is to enhance stud fee values or the like. Me, well, I believe it is an honor to have one’s achievements recognized in an industry where we have bred pure-blooded horses for hundreds of years in the quest for a superior animal. Claiborne Farm imported Rough Shod (for whom this blog is named) to the United States circa 1951, and from her the Hancock family nursery bred Thong, Thong’s daughter Special, Special’s daughter Bound, Bound’s daughter Liable, and Liable’s son Blame. You can bet that breeding a horse such as Blame from a mare purchased 60 years and five equine generations ago is a pretty big deal to Claiborne – for whom I voted, along with Blame’s co-breeder/co-owner Adele B. Dilschneider, as leading breeder. They have invested 60 years into cultivating the Rough Shod family; do you honestly think an Eclipse Award is meaningless to them?

I worked at Walmac Int’l in 1997, when 2-year-old Favorite Trick was named Horse of the Year. Walmac stood Favorite Trick’s sire Phone Trick and had bought an interest in Favorite Trick early in his juvenile season, so it was doubly meaningful. When that gold statuette – a duplicate of the original, which principal owner Joe LaCombe kept – arrived at the farm, it was…wow!…beautiful. To pick it up and hold it gave me a tangible understanding of what it’s all about. That Horse of the Year statue was placed in the office of Walmac owner and general manager Johnny T.L. Jones Jr. (Sid Fernando has a post on Johnny here.) Amid the smell of cigars, a collection of Western saddles, and a Remington bronze, paintings of Nureyev and Alleged hung over the fireplace and a portrait of Phone Trick was on another one of the cushioned dark green-paneled walls. A small, framed note handwritten in cursive was displayed so inconspicuously on a narrow strip of wall that one might have missed its importance: a thank you letter from Breeders’ Cup founder John Gaines to Johnny for having broken the ice between disagreeing parties and making the Breeders’ Cup a reality. Favorite Trick’s Horse of the Year award sat on the shelf behind Johnny’s desk, where he and any visitor could easily see it, in front of the window overlooking the mares and foals in the front field on Paris Pike. I don’t know if through the years Johnny still noticed the statuette every single time he went into his office, but I know that I did. Perhaps the memory of how it felt in my hands is why the Eclipse Awards are still important to me; if they weren’t, I couldn’t use my vote.

Horse of the Year Favorite Trick at Walmac in 1998.

I do have some quibbles with the voting process. I question why we are required to list three horses per category – if we fail to do so, our vote will not be counted. The vote is not set up to award, say, five points for a first place vote, three for a second, one for a third; there are no “points” at all, so the only name that counts for anything is in the first field. In many cases, choosing the top horse is simple, and agonizing over who was second- and third-best is not. The killer is that it essentially makes zero difference if I type in Quality Road’s name as second best older male, or if I go with Mine That Bird. If only first place votes are tallied, why the need to rate others? (I am joking about using Mine That Bird, whose best effort this season was a fifth-place finish, to make a point here.)

Another quibble: an award for the sake of an award. The male turf horse category was exceptionally difficult for me this year, not because there was more than one excellent horse, but because there is no clear-cut, truly deserving winner of the 2010 Eclipse. I went back and forth between Gio Ponti and Winchester, and then Paddy O’Prado, and out of frustration very nearly opted for Champ Pegasus. I considered abstaining from the category. In the end I didn’t abstain because someone is going to get the award and I felt like it was my duty to choose; if I had had an option for “no award” I would have taken it.

(I did abstain from the apprentice category; I simply don’t feel I know enough about those young riders to make a qualified decision.)

I would also like to see some of the information on leading owners and breeders laid out differently – not just their totals, but for starters, how many horses did they race or breed that started in the year in question? Obviously, breeding or owning four graded stakes winners from 40 starters is more impressive than eight graded stakes winners from 200 starters.

That there are no guidelines for choosing the best horse is a common complaint against the system, but not for me. I prefer it this way; it gives me a freedom to choose based on whatever criteria in which a horse excelled. Look, I was never into My Little Pony and I promise not to vote for a horse just because it has the prettiest forelock, okay? If the guidelines were “the horse who won the most open Grade 1 races” or “the horse who faced and defeated more Grade 1 winners” or whatever, then a computer may as well calculate the winner. Instead, I get to vote as a person, and as a person who knows what a rush it is to have met the likes of Secretariat, Alleged, Miesque, Affirmed, Forego, Seattle Slew, Nijinsky, Dubai Millennium, John Henry…

And Zenyatta.

Thus, after the long prelude, I arrive at my votes in the equine categories:

2-year-old male:  Uncle Mo

2-year-old female:  Awesome Feather

3-year-old male:  Lookin At Lucky

3-year-old female:  Blind Luck

Older male:  Blame

Older female:  Zenyatta

Sprint male:  Big Drama

Sprint female:  Dubai Majesty

Turf male:  Gio Ponti

Turf female:  Goldikova (this was not as clear-cut for me as one might suppose)

Steeplechase:  Slip Away (this would have been another “no vote” category)

Horse of the Year:  Zenyatta

You are welcome to a different opinion but please – this is not a forum to be hateful or to argue your case (as I myself have refrained from doing).

One Man’s Trash; Or, The Kindness of Strangers; Or, When it’s Time to Check Yourself in to the Loony Bin*

I collect things. Weird things, by most standards. Among my favorite possessions are worn halters, used horseshoes, and mane and/or tail hair from favorite racehorses. These items are not necessarily easy to come by, so I will often seize any opportunity to get a memento. When Harmonious lost a baby tooth in October, I diverted it from being thrown away and kept it. When at Oaklawn I saw the great mare Zenyatta shake her head vigorously and a wad of cotton fly out of one ear, I picked it up. Let’s face it: chances are slim I will ever be able to get a more mainstream keepsake like a halter or shoe of Zenyatta’s, so the cotton ball was like a treasure.

And then it occurred to me before Zenyatta’s start, her final race, in this year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs that the rundown bandages a horse wears in a race are typically thrown away. I asked my friend, John Shirreffs’ stable foreman Francisco, if he would try to keep Zenyatta’s hind leg wraps for me. After all, if they were going to end up in the trash…

In the aftermath of Zenyatta’s second-place finish in the race on Saturday evening, remembering to take the bandages home with me was the last thing on my mind. By early Sunday afternoon, when I realized what I had done, I was at Keeneland with no hope of being able to drive to Churchill to pick up the bandages prior to Zenyatta and her groom Mario, Harmonious, and Francisco boarding their flight to California.

Like any insane person paranoid about losing a piece of, let’s face it, junk with dirt ground into it, I panicked briefly until my friend Sarah connected me with Alice, who had vanned over to Churchill with a horse on Sunday. I can only imagine how crazy I, a complete stranger, must have sounded when asking if she would get the rundowns for me. But she got them anyway and took the wraps back to her stable barn at the farm in Versailles. I was tied down at the sales for the next two weeks, but I knew that my beloved Zenyatta’s bandages were safe and waiting for me to get them.

Yesterday, the first weekday after the sale was finished, I sent Alice a text message that I would be coming by to get the bandages. But I had to much to do after a month of overexerting myself -- for instance, the milk in my refrigerator was dated October 7th -- and I only wish I were kidding -- and then I felt uncomfortable showing up at the training barn unannounced, so I decided to wait one more day and e-mail someone I know in the office to say I would be there today.

I was up early and eager to pick up the wraps, but I made myself wait, not wanting to show up during the busiest hours of their workday. Mid-morning, on my way out the door, I grabbed a gallon-sized freezer bag and wrote “Zenyatta – hind bandages from 2010 BC Classic” on the label. As I scrambled to get the dog and myself into the car, I missed a call from Alice on my cell phone.

With dread, I listened to Alice’s voicemail saying that between yesterday and today, the bandages had ended up in the dumpster and couldn’t be found. I sat in the car, still in the driveway, clutching on to my baggy for dear life, running the gamut of emotions, not moving for 25 minutes. I was crushed.

I knew that I had to call Alice; I felt equally bad for both of us. I could tell from her message that she felt horrible, and I needed to tell her that it was alright. None of this was her fault: I had left them at Churchill, and I hadn’t picked them up on Monday like I said I was going to do. All she had done was to perform an act of kindness for someone she didn’t even know, and whatever the outcome, I appreciated it. But I didn’t want her to hear in my voice how sad I was, so I decided to hold off on calling her until I knew I would sound better.

Unbeknownst to me, while I was idling in my car staring at the empty freezer bag, some of Alice’s co-workers – Rosa (or Rosie) and two guys – had driven to the big dumpster across the farm and were searching for the bandages. So less than half an hour after the first call, and before I was composed enough to call her, I heard from Alice again: Zenyatta’s rundown bandages had been found!!

Two of my treasures: my traveling companion poses (unhappily) with my rundown bandages.

I really don’t know quite how to express an adequate “thank you” to the people who would and did do all that they did so I could add this unconventional prize, from a horse I love unabashedly, to my collection, but what I do know is that my unique piece of Zenyatta memorabilia is even more special to me now as a reminder that human kindness does, in fact, still exist.

*Special thanks goes to @EJXD2 for the vocabulary lesson/thinking clearly on my behalf.

As the Breeders' Cup Nears, the Big Show Hits Town

Beauty. Majesty. Perfection. Zenyatta.

I am swamped – completely in-over-my-head, what-am-I-going to do?! swamped. And yet after getting up at 5am and putting in five solid hours of work this morning, I somehow, and quite without my permission, ended up in the car driving to Churchill Downs. What can I say, the devil made me do it! And yes, there will be hell to pay as I pull another all-nighter.

Was it worth it? Well, I was there for this, Zenyatta walking off the van after a police (and news helicopter) escort from the airport:

Before her arrival, I was squished in behind the barricade elbowing for room with the other members of the press when I heard my name and looked up to see Marcelino, Evening Jewel’s caretaker who I had met when they were stabled near Harmonious at Keeneland. “Come inside the barn,” Marcelino said, “you’ll see better.” So thanks to him, I had a lovely, roomy, unobstructed view of the big girl from the shedrow of the barn housing Evening Jewel, The Usual Q.T., Blink Luck, Dakota Phone, etc. – though facing into the sun (the location behind the barrier was not much better, light-wise).

Pardon my finger...I was recording with my camera phone while taking this picture.

After two spins on the gravel, Zenyatta’s groom Mario took her through the barn to the other side to stretch her legs for a few minutes on the grass (what little there is of it!):

Another treat was getting to pet this girl’s nose, after the commotion surrounding Zenyatta had awakened her from her nap:

Breeders' Cup "Distaff" favorite Blind Luck watching the Zenyatta parade.

…and I saw a couple of other Breeders’ Cup horses from California arrive on the grounds who I haven’t even tried to identify yet. (I missed Lookin At Lucky, that much I know.):

Frizette winner and BC Juvenile Fillies morning line pick A Z Warrior.

Two of the Baffert horses. Last season's Acorn S.-G1 winner Gabby's Golden Gal leads. I don't know who is behind -- it's not a BC horse.

Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint contenter Tropic Storm.

Breeders' Cup Marathon morning line favorite, 7-year-old Awesome Gem.

So, was it? Worth it? When it involves seeing Zenyatta, the answer is always going to be an emphatic, “Yes! Yes, it was worth it!”

I could, however, have done without the accidental detour to Indiana on my way home.

Its precious cargo of 16 horses including Zenyatta unloaded, the Tex Sutton charter leaves Standiford Field.