What a difference 100 years makes

A lot changes in 100 years. (I know, "duh.")

Still, it's worth noting that since 1910, science and technology have brought us spectacular modes of travel (luxury automobiles, jet airplanes), engrossing forms of entertainment (HDTV, gaming consoles, computers with high-speed Internet) and amazing advancements in medicine (life expectancy for the average American male has rocketed from just 46.3 years in 1900, to 73.8 by 1998).

So what the hell is wrong with our horse racing?

That question is prompted by a pair of stories I read today that starkly contrast the differences between racing 100 years ago, and racing in the 21st century.

Teresa Genaro (of the Brooklyn Backstretch blog), writing for The Saratogian, tells the story of the colt Novelty, who a century ago this year staked his claim to the title of best 2-year-old in the country by winning five of his six starts during (what was then) a three-week Saratoga meeting. Meanwhile, at Bloodhorse.com, we're told that trainer John Sadler says blazing 3-year-old Sidney's Candy, who just set a course record in the La Jolla H.-G2, in his first-ever try on turf at Del Mar, will likely not compete in the Del Mar Derby-G2 three weeks from now; that's just too soon after such a big effort.

Something's wrong with this picture.

Granted, many factors could play into this dramatic change in the expectations for our horses.

Some critics of recent breeding practices -- especially the American desire for precocity and speed that has caused a dramatic shortening in the distances of our races -- has also led to more fragile horses. It's possible that our handling of young horses, bulking-up and pushing them for the sales while hot-housing them to safeguard them from every scratch rather than letting them "just be horses," short-circuits a more natural maturation process.

Others would suggest that our horses today are too dependent upon medications. And financial considerations play a role; some horses can earn so much more money as breeding stock after their careers than they can on the track that racing them to earn income isn't worth the risk of losing that windfall in the shed to a catastrophic incident.

I happen to think it's very likely that horses 100 years ago were asked to "run through" medical maladies that no trainer would push a (valuable) horse to withstand today. And many minor illnesses and ailments might have gone completely unnoticed, whereas current veterinary medicine more readily uncovers niggling health problems -- and there's probably an injection prescribed, complete with necessary withdrawal times before the horse can run again.

Whatever the combination of culprits, I don't think it's a good thing that our expectations are now so far removed from an era when a sharp horse runs a big race -- such as Novelty's Saratoga Special win over Iron Mask and Naushon, who had beaten him in the trio's last race -- and the trainer (in Novelty's case, owner Samuel Clay Hildreth) would wheel him right back and run him again. After his upset of his two rivals in the Saratoga Special, Novelty won a match race vs. Textile (Novelty's third race in eight days), came back to win the Hopeful on Aug. 21 against all three aforementioned rivals while carrying 130 pounds, then on Aug. 27 was assigned a whopping 135 pounds for the Rensselaer and won it anyway.

Today, we have a fit 3-year-old colt setting a course record on grass -- coming out of the race "in great shape" and looking "wonderful," according to Sadler -- and a three-week break between races is just too short.

Admittedly, Secretariat was a freak. But he set course records in the Derby and Belmont and, if not for faulty timing, would have done so in the Preakness, as well, all races a total of five weeks apart. So, it's possible that much has happened just since 1973. And actually, the top three finishers behind Sidney's Candy expect to run three weeks later in the Del Mar Derby. Said Jim Cassidy of his runner-up, Kid Edward, "He ran a big race. He closed a lot of ground. ... Definitely, we're going to the Derby."

So apparently, it's OK to run a big race and then wheel back in three weeks. Just not "too big" of a race.

If Sidney's Candy had come out of the La Jolla showing signs that the effort had been more taxing than it appears, I'd more likely understand dismissing him from Del Mar Derby contention so soon. But he crushed in the La Jolla and seems to have come out none the worse for wear.

Back in the day, that was the sign your horse was razor-sharp. Thus you didn't rest him, you ran him.

So when it comes to the perpetual decline in number of starts by thoroughbreds, in a season or in a career, I'm more and more thinking it isn't the horse's fault. Whether training methods, reliance on medications or simply expectations, it's ours.

Still waiting for a super horse?

A discussion on a Yahoo forum I frequent -- dubbed tb_breeding_theory -- prompted some thinking on my part.

It was suggested by one person that the breeding and racing industry goes through a roughly 30-year cycle in which we keep producing equally well-bred horses, but none of them reaches "super horse" status.

I asked myself (and others), do we really go through a 30-year cycle between "super horses?"

And I decided that I don't think so, but it might depend on how we define "super horse."

It seems to me the drought is really in Triple Crown winners. But certainly that can't be the only measure of a "super horse." I'd say Spectacular Bid was one (26-for-30 lifetime), and he lost the Triple Crown.

I'm sure nobody needs this history lesson, but the American Triple Crown was won three times in the 1970s -- Secretariat in '73, Seattle Slew in '77, and Affirmed in '78). All are undeniably "super horses" who rarely lost, and certainly took down America's most notable title; "Triple Crown winner."

The Bid had his shot in 1979.

So by that measure, we'd be looking at -- about nowadays, really -- for the next "super horse" to arrive. If we're on a 30-year cycle.

But what has racing seen since? Were there no "super horses" in the interim?

Just looking at Kentucky Derby winners, we see these examples (dated by their Derby wins):

1985 -- Spend a Buck: Surely almost nobody would consider this colt by a relatively unheralded son of Buckpasser (Buckaroo) to be a "super horse." But then again, why not? He was 10-for-15 lifetime and never finished worse than third, earning more than $4.2 million. He was a Grade 1 winner at 2 and 3, and very well might have backed up his Derby win with victory in the Preakness had his connections not skipped Pimlico for Garden State Park and the Jersey Derby, where a $2 million bonus had been established for any horse who could win two earlier stakes races there (the Cherry Hill Mile April 6 and the Garden State Stakes April 20), plus the Kentucky and Jersey derbies. ... Spend a Buck followed the money. ... Champion 3-year-old colt and Horse of the Year, Spend a Buck's connections possibly kept him from going down in history as a "super horse" by choosing the $2 million bonus over winning the Preakness (a Churchill-Pimlico double many horses have made) and then at least trying the Belmont, where I'm not sure he would have beaten Creme Fraiche (the only gelding ever to win the race), but finishing second or third would've preserved his 100 percent OTB record lifetime.

1987 -- Alysheba: Maybe going 11-8-2 for 26 starts isn't a high enough win percentage to qualify for "super horse." But he was a G1 winner 10 times, took the Derby and Preakness at 3, the Breeders' Cup Classic at 4, earned $6.6 million, and was a champion three times; 3-year-old colt, older horse and Horse of the Year.

1989 -- Sunday Silence: A lock for "super horse" status had he not lost to Easy Goer in the Belmont Stakes, this near-black son of Halo won nine of 14 (six G1s), never finished worse than second, and went on to sire the richest lifetime foal crop in world history.

That would seem to get us through the 1980s with at least several near-misses for "super horse" status.

The Derby winners were a relative dearth of super-horse candidates for several years after Sunday Silence -- Unbridled, Strike the Gold, Lil E. Tee, Sea Hero, Go For Gin, Thunder Gulch, Grindstone. But even among those (who were still undeniably pretty good racehorses) emerged two major U.S. sires in Unbridled and Thunder Gulch.

Then in 1997 we saw the beginning of a run on near-Triple Crowns, that began with Silver Charm (12-for-24 lifetime, beaten three-quarters by Touch Gold in the Belmont to lose the Triple Crown). It would be hard to argue a 6-for-20 horse is a "super horse," but had Real Quiet been a nose quicker than Victory Gallop at Belmont, he'd have been a Triple Crown winner the next year and the drought would have been broken 12 years ago. Charismatic nearly did it just one year later, finishing third despite a broken leg. War Emblem, Funny Cide and Smarty Jones gave us another three-year stretch from 2002-2004 where the first two legs were won and the Triple lost at Belmont; War Emblem stumbled at the start of his legend-defining race, Funny Cide was a credible third and Smarty Jones crushed everybody in his Belmont Stakes -- except Birdstone, who ran him down and won by about a length.

So that's six near-triples from 1997-2004. Had any of them broken through we'd be talking about half or less the Triple Crown drought we're presently suffering. And at least a couple of those horses (Silver Charm, definitely Smarty Jones) would be serious arguments for "super horse" status had they won a Belmont Stakes (and thus Triple Crown) they narrowly lost.

(Big Brown was our latest TC shot, but threw a stinker in the Belmont.)

I think Barbaro was a super horse, but regrettably we can't fully label him such. We'll never know how and why he went wrong in the Preakness, but had he run it the way he did the Derby, maybe not even a razor-sharp Bernardini would have been beating him that day. And how many rivals even would have shown up at Belmont three weeks later?

None of this takes into account horses like John Henry (39-for-86, 16 G1s, seven times champion, raced 1977-84), Cigar (19-for-33, 16 straight at one point), Zenyatta (17-for-17), Curlin (11-for-16, five G1s, $10.5 million), and Rachel Alexandra (13-for-18, three historic G1 wins vs. males), nor anyone overseas, most recently and notably Sea The Stars, who might have been the first English Triple Crown winner since Nijinsky (1970) had his connections not considered the accomplishment so unimportant as to not even try the St. Leger at 14 furlongs.

So I'd argue we've not suffered a dearth of "super horses" since the last U.S. Triple Crown was won in 1978. We've just had a lack of that one horse who could be a length (or sometimes less) faster on one day of his life (or be handled differently by his connections) to break the Triple Crown drought -- and thus to take our minds off the question, "How long has it been since we saw the last 'super horse?'"

You can't go home again ... but you can flash back

Traveling back home to Kansas -- Coffeyville, specifically, where I attended high school and junior college, worked for seven years after college, and where most of my family still lives -- has spurred some thinking on my part.

Where did my fascination with horses and racing begin? Why is it that the only dream I have besides wonderful, long, healthy lives for my kids consists of a farm or ranch house, lots of acreage, and horses about as far as my eye can see?

Then I saw a clip from an old TV show on the Internet and it dawned on me: TV westerns.

Granted, there isn't horse racing in those old westerns -- like "Bonanza," "The Virginian," "The Big Valley," my grandmother's favorite, "Gunsmoke," etc. -- but there were plenty of horses. And rugged men whom a little boy in front of a TV set would want to grow up and emulate.

Specifically, more than any of the characters, I wanted to grow up and be like Manolito Montoya from my personal favorite of the western series, "The High Chaparral." Played by Henry Darrow -- birth name Enrique Tomas Delgado -- Manolito was the brother of Victoria (Linda Cristal), wife in a marriage of convenience to "Big John" Cannon (Leif Erickson), patriarch of the family and owner of the High Chaparral Ranch in Arizona Territory.

"The High Chaparral" debuted on Sept. 10, 1967, just a day after I turned 1. So my recollections of the show are from late-afternoon reruns in the early and mid 1970s.

Since I was just about the whitest kid in one of the most-caucasian parts of America at the time -- wheat farming and ranching country of northwest Kansas, Phillipsburg, to be exact -- I'm not exactly sure what made me aspire to be like the son of 19th century Mexican squire. I guess Manolito Montoya was just the coolest, most dashing, baddest cat on TV at the time. At least in my young opinion.

Ultimately, I grew up not to be Manolito Montoya, but rather Hoss Cartwright. Same line of work, at least, but not so dashing. Which is why when I begin to tell people of my love for horses and racing -- and what as a child I aspired to be when I grew up -- they start laughing before I can finish the story. They're always expecting to hear me say "jockey," when the sentence is actually to be finished with the word "cowboy." Nobody would ever confuse Hoss Cartwright, or me, with a jockey.

Anyway, at about the same time as my love for TV westerns was at its height, Triple Crowns were falling like tenpins in the racing world. The news was abuzz about Secretariat in 1973 -- the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years -- then Seattle Slew followed up with another in '77 and Affirmed a third in '78. Spectacular Bid woulda, coulda, shoulda made it three in 1979. So horse racing was at perhaps its highest point of visibility since the 1940s or early 1950s at the same time as my interest in horses was piqued by a slew of TV westerns in syndication.

At least, it's as good a theory as any for why a kid born hours from anywhere in northwest Kansas, from a family that otherwise owned no horses nor had anyone with an interest in them, would become a racing fan of his own volition by his early teens.

I also had a friend at the time whose father was one of the biggest hereford ranchers in the region. I always enjoyed visiting their house, helping (or more likely, trying not to be a hindrance) with chores like feeding hay off the back of a flatbed truck in the winter, and afterward sipping hot chocolate and gazing out over the plains at acre upon acre of livestock, thinking, "I'd like to have this someday."

High school counselors have different ideas. Any kid who scores well on the ACT or SAT has no business raising livestock for a living. Go find something else ... something that requires lots more schooling (which I never enjoyed) ... something that takes you away from this little town and its country way of life.

Regrets, I've had a few.

Finally, watching the reruns spurred me to relisten to the theme songs for these shows, which were appropriately dramatic. They still send a chill up this big little boy's spine -- particularly the themes from "The High Chaparral" and "The Big Valley."

So I've set up a poll at left of my favorite shows and themes. Listen to the themes at YouTube, if you will, and cast a vote. And "The Lone Ranger" doesn't count; that's "just" the "William Tell Overture." Otherwise, feel free to offer your shows and themes in the comments. It'll be a good vacation diversion for me.

Theme Songs:
1. Bonanza
2. The Big Valley
3. The High Chaparral
4. The Virginian
5. Gunsmoke
6. The Wild Wild West
7. The Rifleman
8. Rawhide

On a lighter note ... a foal photo

There was a veritable explosion of traffic at the Fugue Wednesday, thanks to the unfortunate dismissal from the Saratogian of my friend and former co-worker, Brendan O'Meara. He blogged about it; I blogged about it, and linked back to him; then he blogged about my blog and returned the traffic. The next thing you know, a whole 50 visits were made to this page Wednesday.

That's right, my sliver of the online publishing world is slowly building in popularity to where the readership periodically exceeds the number of pennies in the armrest of my '97 Dodge Ram. ... Lay off me, it's a milestone.

In an effort to brighten the mood, I'll share a foal photo. Surely nobody in the racing world can be too depressed when there's a healthy young foal to admire.

This one is Oracle At Delphi (or will be when the paperwork is finished); daughter of Mighty Forum(GB) out of the winning mare Bushes Victory (Spartan Victory-Below Broad Street, by Kokand). A Virginia-bred, she was foaled March 30 at Sarah Warmack's Hilltop Farm, near Gordonsville. With a bay sire and dark bay dam, neither with considerable white, the chromed-out chestnut was a bit of a surprise. But she kindles memories of her great-great-grandsire, Secretariat, whose color and three tall stockings she shares, and we're going to take that as a good omen until proven otherwise.