Smarty Jones is now retired, is this another case of Too-Fast, Too-Soon? He was being compaired to the great Secretariat, now will he ever be remebered in five years?
< a href = \"http://news.bloodhorse.com/viewstory.asp?id=23665\">
Too fast too soon, too fast too often, too fast too often over too short a period (5 weeks).
but why can\'t horses run races after entering the breeding shed. Are they too \"worked up\" or otherwise spent?
Take the case of War Emblem who was a dud in the shed. Why couldn\'t he return to training at 5?
Sorry JB,
But I think you are off on this. It is not a case of \"too fast too soon too often\". It is a case of \"too much money\" for not racing versus \"too little return and too much reputation risk for the too high 39 million dollar breeding price\".
The vet was clear, this is a minor injury and any horse can come back from it with 60 days of rest. Why bring him back and get a chance at 2 to 3 million in purses next year (if things go well) and run the risk of him not running well and killing his stud fee and causing financial disaster on the 39 million dollar investment.
39 million dollar syndicatin fee for a son of elusive quality and Smile? Is he expected to produce \"classic\" runners? I would bet against that. He is more likely to produce precocious sprinters who don\'t get the classic distances. He was a fast horse in a WEAK class. I know the T-graph numbers say different, but this class of 3 year olds stink.
TGJB - I think you are correct to some extent but Smarty pretty much threw the rules out the window this year and was a genuine freak. This sounds like a very minor injury and more of an excuse than a reason to retire him. I think Jimbo is right on. It seems that the chances of ever seeing a great horse run beyond the TC may be remote at best.
In this case, the owner was well into retirement and not in the best of health (he almost had a heart attack when his horse won the Derby) and he still cannot resist the lure of big money for an early exit to the breeding shed.
I cannot say I blame him (or anyone else) but it sure takes something away from the sport. Imagine if the top stars in other sports all retired after just one brilliant rookie season...
Chris
Agree, disagree, agree, disagree. Boy I\'m all over the place. The fast racing and hard campaign was too much to come back from this year, not a problem. Run him next year and you enhance that resume. Think Silver Charm. Rested after the Belmont had a great four year old year.
But the rich Mr. Prospector pedigree made Smarty a very valuable commodity in the eyes of some very smart people (R. Clay and company) so they jumped in with both hands full of cash. Now things get hairy.
Run next year stubb your toe and wave bye bye to the demand for him as a Stallion.
Also as I pointed in a post that was a tribute to the deceased Free House. Where do think Smarty would have stacked up in crop that included Silver Charm, Free House, Captain Bodgit, Touch Gold, Behrens and Deputy Commander on his good days.
He might be lucky to hit the Board.
If I understood Dr Bramlage correctly, Smarty did not suffer any injury, & there is an excellent chance he would have come back better & stronger after a 3 month or so break in training. The problem is the length of the break would have caused him to miss an entire breeding season which, if you multiple the $100k rumored stud fee times the 110 limit imposed by the Chapmans, represents $11 million in potential lost gross revenue.
That\'s a considerable amt for the Chapmans, who retained half of the breeding rts, to put at risk, but I nonetheless think that as much as anything, it was the cost & availability(or lack thereof)of insurance which drove the decision. Using the reported syndication value of $39 million & today\'s rates for racehorses, the Chapmans would themselves have had to come up with a little less than $2 million for mortality insurance, assuming they could get full coverage, which is very doubtful. 1st yr stallion coverage, which also protects against infetility, will probably be a little less than double that, but the Chapmans will only have to pay half of the bill, which will come at the same time they are receiving $19.5 million as a result of the syndication. Amazingly, I am led to believe that sufficient post-syndication underwriting capacity has been assembled to cover the entire $39 million, so the very real possibility that a much lesser amt of coverage would be available a yr from now also had to be taken into consideration.
These are the factors that caused me in an earlier post to question the Chapman\'s advisor when he very publicly insisted that any deal include the right to race Smarty as a 4 yr old, something I\'m guessing the very astute owner of 3 Chimneys agreed to because he calculated the liklihood of that actually happening as pretty close to zero.
It\'s also why I view the \"we\'re doing this for the good of the horse\" comments as nothing more or less than a rationalization which, given human nature, the Chapmans are now completely convinced is the case.
Jimbo is right. These guys are not sitting around looking at a sheet to figure this out. It has NOTHING to do with how fast he was or how often he ran or anything of the kind.
Why should he step up to the plate to whip horses for a million bucks (if he\'s lucky) when he can just step up to the ***** every day and make over $10 million a year? If there was ever a no-brainer business proposition...
If you want to see more four-year old campaigns from Derby winners you better root for the geldings or forget about it. Even super rich owners can\'t seem to resist this kind of deal. HP
Look, a lot of what you guys said is true, but there is more to it than that. First of all, even assuming that the vet info released is true (not a sure thing) there was bruising in all 4 legs. I actually was supposed to write an article for the Thoroughbred Daily News about this, but haven\'t gotten around to it-- I suppose now I\'ll have to.
The point is this-- take a look at the horses that have run in all 3 legs of the Triple Crown over the last 10 years or so. They don\'t necessarily immediately break down, and sometimes run well once or twice again over the summer. But they are never the same, and have done very little of note from Labor day of their 3yo years on. There are some minor one race exceptions (Silver Charm and Real Quiet, for example) and Skip Away, and one other big exception that I have some familiarity with-- but Victory Gallop only ran twice before the Derby, and still only got to run 4 times as a four year old before he gave way.
There is absolutely no reason the Triple Crown should be contested over a 5 week period, and it\'s costing the game its stars. Ideally it should be 8 weeks, but even if they won\'t go that far, the two weeks between the Derby And Preakness is punitive-- it just destroys horses.
Well written and right on the mark. It can hardly come as a surprise to anyone that with a line like that through the Classics we wouldn\'t be seeing this one as a 4yo. It\'s too bad of course, but if a horse is going to throw efforts like that in the spring of his 3yo year culminating with those three races in a 5 week stretch, that\'s the way it\'s going to be.
Well what about the great ones back in the days that ran their eye balls out all the time, on shorter rest sometimes. One thing is we don\'t know what goes on most of the time with these horses, they might have some small hurt about them and the owners will act all crazy and says, \"its time to end it\". It\'s mostly about the money.
jb wrote:
The point is this-- take a look at the horses that have run in all 3 legs of the Triple Crown over the last 10 years or so. They don\'t necessarily immediately break down, and sometimes run well once or twice again over the summer. But they are never the same, and have done very little of note from Labor day of their 3yo years on. There are some minor one race exceptions (Silver Charm and Real Quiet, for example) and Skip Away, and one other big exception that I have some familiarity with-- but Victory Gallop only ran twice before the Derby, and still only got to run 4 times as a four year old before he gave way.
that\'s a little specious.
http://www.drf.com/drfNewsArticle.do?NID=57840&subs=0&arc=0
So right you are Jerry and I remember talking to Al about Smarty over at the office one saturday after the 1st big neg # 3 earned in the Oaklawn race and he told me that you basically thought it was game over then , it was just a matter of time . I was also of the opinion that Smarty would unfortunately break down sooner or later most definately .
The horse\'s connections finally made the right move however and now I give them alot credit for having done so . Indeed this horse had alot working against him and not to mention even Smarty\'s history as a 2 year old .
Of course I Don\'t have 1/2 the ability or 1/8 the experince you have in reading a pattern and knowing what it all means in terms of a career of a horse much less where it\'s going in the next upcoming race or 2 or 3 , I was hoping Smarty\'s line would hang in there (enough to get him over to the breeding shed) but I could see where it was going and not the least bit curious whether this type of line could ever recover from those type of exertions and stress . What happened to Smarty Jones is what happens to horse\'s when they run those kind of unthinkable and unfathimable type of numbers at a very young age and on short rest .
Even had the scales had been shifted , an idea you\'ve thrown around from time to time , those Smarty numbers are still way too fast .
On previous post on Thorograph\'s web site when visiting this matter , I discovered that quite a few people had very different views on the subject , many thought Smarty should just keep racing - I guess they don\'t weigh speed figures as closely as needed to get the big picture .
I still wouldn\'t be surprised if this horse winds up running over in the UAE next year specially if he\'s kicking around with Cigar .
The upshot of Smarty\'s retirement for racing is a big net gain , I\'m pretty happy about it .
Also , the Thorograph Data is really performing better than ever - I nailed a horse @ 52-1 and hit another couple of nice thing\'s the other day , I\'m pretty happy about that too ! thanks again #1 !
Post Edited (08-04-04 19:13)
Oh please, we don\'t know what SJ would have done if he keep running, how do we know it was him running so fast that lead to all of this, we don\'t. SJ had a little boo boo, that he could have over come and these cats got scared. So i guess if he keep on running vs. the older horses and maybe running 2nd-3rd or even 4th, I guess we would have blamed it on the #\'s uh??? It\'s different when a horse runs one big freak number and goes off the chart, but when he runs a neg. and everyone says oh its over, then another big #, and you all say oh wait now is when he runs bad,then comes another, come on.
Smarty gave us all a lot of $$ and a lot of fan apprecitation...not many do that these days...let\'s leave it at this:
We love Smarty, he was very, very good to us that subscribe to TG, and it is rare that we fall in love with a horse that does not disappoint. Best to Chap and family...and the smart farm - R. Clay!
The bet w/ Smarty Jones for quite a while was that he probably win\'s if he doesn\'t break down - that was the play with Smarty , like it or not . So the Belmont Stakes loss and subsequent retierment are fortuitious ... Long Live Smarty Jones !
JB,
>The point is this-- take a look at the horses that have run in all 3 legs of the Triple Crown over the last 10 years or so. They don\'t necessarily immediately break down, and sometimes run well once or twice again over the summer. But they are never the same, and have done very little of note from Labor day of their 3yo years on.<
I believe \"some\" of the 3 year olds that ran well in the triple crown that didn\'t do very well later on were simply more precocious than some of their later developing rivals.
Typically, the figures required to win the Derby, Preakness, and Belmont are below what is required to win top races in the fall because 3 year olds are still improving quickly. \"Early bloomers\" that do well in the Spring can get passed by other rivals later on.
There is no question you are correct that the triple crown is very demanding and you can run a horse into the ground if you ask too much (especially when trainers ask a lot in the mornings too). However, I think if a horse is given a decent and appropriate break after the grind it can come back in the fall and continue to improve if he wasn\'t just a precocious springtime horse to begin with.