Horse racing's best of 2007
Thoroughbred racing shared its memorable moments in 2007, none bigger than the tear-jerking, heart-wrenching passing of 2006 Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro on Jan. 29 after an eight-month ordeal of epic veterinary proportions. And while the sport suffered through some difficult lows, its highest of highs once again rekindled its fan base as to why they love the game so much.
January
Subway restaurant franchisee Stan Bavlish, 54, and accounting student Geoff Dutton, 30, outgunned the best horseplayers in the world to win the Daily Racing Form/NTRA National Handicapping Championship and Coast Casinos Horseplayer World Series contests, respectively. Bavlish's $400,000 payday was a culmination of playing the ponies since he was 16. Dutton, a recreational horseplayer who left his job as an EMT to pursue an accounting degree just two weeks before the World Series, earned $357,500 in just the second tournament he ever entered.
February
Donn Handicap Day provided the last time that 2006 Breeders' Cup Classic winner and Horse of the Year Invasor would set foot on American soil to race. Despite a melee of traffic trouble at Gulfstream Park, the champ weaved and forged his way to his fifth of six straight Grade 1 scores. His Donn victory would be followed up by a win in the Dubai World Cup in March, bringing his career mark to 11 wins in 12 starts. Invasor would be retired in June after suffering a minor leg fracture.
March
The largest Santa Anita Handicap crowd in 15 years, more than 43,000 strong, came out to witness history as Lava Man became only the third horse in 70 years to capture consecutive runnings of the Big 'Cap. In joining Milwaukee Brew and the legendary John Henry in the record books, the 6-year-old who was claimed for $50,000 in 2004 increased his career earnings to nearly $4.7 million.
The Kentucky Derby prep season got its biggest jolt of electricity when unbeaten Curlin turned in the spring's ultimate performance with a record-setting romp in the Arkansas Derby. The late-bloomer's winning margin of 10-1/4 lengths was the largest in the 71-year history of Oaklawn's most famous race, eclipsing the previous mark set by eventual 2005 Preakness and Belmont Stakes champion Afleet Alex.
May
Jockey Calvin Borel's emotionally frenzied post-race celebration aboard Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense will remain engrained in the minds of racing fans for years to come. But the drama that unfolded at Pimlico two weeks later quickly stole the show. A photo finish simply too close to call saw Derby third-place finisher Curlin's late Preakness surge provide a whisker's worth of redemption over Street Sense.
June
Though the '07 Belmont Stakes lacked the Derby winner, the stretch-long fireworks between Preakness hero Curlin and racing's soon-to-be-coronated queen, Rags To Riches, simply was a show-stopper. In a pulsating drive every bit the equal to the Preakness three weeks earlier, "Rags" became the first filly to wear the white carnations in 102 years, and, in the process, gave super trainer Todd Pletcher his first Triple Crown race victory after 28 unsuccessful tries.
Another Pletcher stable star, Lawyer Ron, took center stage in mid-summer when he blitzed his Whitney Handicap foes at Saratoga by nearly five lengths in track-record time. The 4-year-old stopped the clock in a watch-busting 1:46.64 for 1-1/8 miles. On the very same program, Ginger Punch knocked out the competition in the Grade 1 Go For Wand by six lengths, a precursor to her victory in the autumn's Breeders' Cup Distaff.
August
Young riders Michael Baze and Joe Talamo sprinted clear in the Del Mar standings and cemented themselves as the new order in West Coast riding. A colony that once boasted signature Hall of Famers like Willie Shoemaker, Chris McCarron, Laffit Pincay and Eddie Delahoussaye, the SoCal jockeys' room received its biggest youth movement in decades. Baze, 20, and Talamo, 17, would wind up 1-2 in the final Del Mar standings.
September
The Breeders' Cup Preview card at Belmont showcased yet another stretch thriller when 3-year-old Curlin out-slugged elder statesman Lawyer Ron by a neck in a memorable Jockey Club Gold Cup renewal. If that wasn't enough, the same card witnessed eventual Breeders' Cup Turf champion English Channel squeeze through a seemingly impossible hole to win the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational in one of the year's gutsiest rides from John Velazquez.
October
The Breeders' Cup Classic gathered a Who's Who at Monmouth Park, but Curlin simply decimated all comers in a wet-weather quagmire appreciated only by ducks. Left in his wake were stars Street Sense, Lawyer Ron, Any Given Saturday and Hard Spun. But, to me, the star of the afternoon was Sprint champion Midnite Lute, whose close-from-the-clouds obliteration of the competition proved to be one of the most visually impressive races in Breeders' Cup history.
November
Midnite Lute found himself in the headlines once again, but this time for the wrong reason. Upstart 3-year-old Daaher flashed brilliance beyond his experience in upsetting the Breeders' Cup Sprint winner in a very impressive Cigar Mile performance at Aqueduct. Though in receipt of nine pounds in the handicap weights, Daaher stamped himself one of 2008's most intriguing horses to watch.
December
New Mexico-bred Pepper's Pride may be small-time on the national scale, but her 14-for-14 career record deserves big-time repute. Burdened with a 127-pound impost, the 4-year-old tallied the New Mexico Racing Commission Handicap at Sunland Park to bring her within two victories of tying the all-time North American record for consecutive victories, shared by Cigar, Citation, Hallowed Dreams and Mister Frisky.
Jeremy Plonk is the editor of The HorsePlayer Magazine and its Web site, HorsePlayerdaily.com. You can E-mail Jeremy about this topic or any other racing-related topic at plonk@horseplayerdaily.com.
