Hi JB
Just finished reading an article by Haskins about Forego from Bloodhorse. I\'m not a big fan of Haskin\'s but this is a great read. I\'m a big fan of Forego and this article shows the metal of the animal. Was this before Thoro-graph\'s time? If not is there a Forego sheet. If so, were you working with the raggies then. What ever the case may be, could you equate some of forego\'s performances and compare them with those currently. He was always very very wide in the grandstand turn. Below is a link to the article. Thanks in advance.
http://cs.bloodhorse.com/blogs/horse-racing-steve-haskin/default.aspx[/url]
Sorry, double dipped.
Thanks for the link.
In 35 years of going to the races, Forego perhaps the most courageous specimen
I had the privilege of watching.
In the 70s I went to the track with a lot of folks who loved the \"action\"
without really caring much about the horses; much to his credit, Forego made a
lot of these people into his fans.
To quote Geraldine Page in \"Pope of Greenwich Village\", Forego was \"as tough as
a bar of iron.\"
Forego was way pre-TG, back when I was a young pup with Ragozin. As I recall he had a couple of figures that were very big for the era, but his claim to fame was 5 straight years of figures that were at least very good, no bad ones.
I also recall I bet him in Secretariat\'s Derby, before Forego was a gleam in the public\'s eye. Probably wasn\'t the only one in that office to do so. I was a huge fan of the horse, which didn\'t stop me from betting against him every time he spotted huge weight as an older horse. Didn\'t work out too well.
here comes forego on the outside moving like a freightrain never forget that call. him and a5 g claimer in maryland that won 11 timesone year muckaluck were the best
Clearly Forego was one of the all-time greats and while I was nothing more than a fan, I did have some contact with his full-sister Foredate.
It would have been around 1980 or so, while I was working at Claiborne in Paris Ky. Foredate was a huge mare that had one eye, a mind of her own and after Le Fabuleux died, was the meanest horse on the 3,000 acre farm.
She was housed with the barren mares in the concrete barn down near Stoner Creek, and being a new (and green) employee I was assigned that barn. To get mares in heat lights and teasers (small male horses and ponies) are used and the mare\'s follicles are checked periodically by the vet sticking his arm into the mare and actually feeling for growth on her uterus. Thoroughbred mares are bred to the exact day if not hour of maximum conception.
My job was to hold Foredate with a shank and a twitch. The latter is a three foot long or so, three inch in diameter hickory stick with a small rope attached to the end. You stick your fingers thru the rope and grab the horses upper lip, pull it thru and twist until tight. Most horses will not move when twitched.
Doc then put his arm into the mare to check her and told me to tighten the twitch, which I did. A few seconds later he said \"tighter\", again I complied. At that point Foredate tried to kick Doc, missed but reared up and struck the twitch with her front foot knocking it against the stall wall with tremendous force. Doc, a very strong man, uttered a string of expletives picked up the twitch and struck Foredate across the back with all his might. Foredate didn\'t move a muscle and looked at him with her good eye as if to say \"Is that all you got\"? Both Forego and Foredate had very strong wills and thats what makes a good horse great.
Not to prattle any further, but both Foredate and Forego are by the South American champion Forli. When a stallion arrives at the farm where they will stand they are kept in their stall overnight. The next morning they are turned out in the two acre or so paddock where they will live out there days. EVERY employee on the farm lines the inside of the paddock and the stallion with a lip shank is walked around the entire paddock where he can see the human wall. Then he is taken to the center of the paddock where some alfalfa and sweet grain awaits. His handler, slowly takes the shank off and for the first time since a weanling the stallion is \"free\". Once they realize this they start running and the employees wave their hands and hollar getting the stallion to turn and after some ten minutes everything is fine and the stallion starts eating grass.
Not Forli!! He ignored the waving hands and hollaring voices, ran through the line of men, continued through a solid wire fence before plowing through a concrete wall then turned left on highway 627 with about fifteen yellow Claiborne vehicles in hot pursuit!! BBB
Hey wait a minute. The year you bet on Forego in Secretariats Derby:
YOU WERE 14 OR SO!!
What the F is this. And I tried to beat Citation in his Derby.
Jerry,
I could swear that you (or maybe Ragozin) posted Forego\'s sheet (Rag\'s version), back in the early-mid 90\'s. As I recall, the figures were very consistent in the 5-6 range.
pat
Not sure how to post links here, but here is video of Forego winning his four consecutive Woodwards.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RXt4RfCIMI&feature=PlayList&p=49A30158A76D22FC&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=21
BBB, Thanks for sharing. Awesome stuff!
great stuff,thanks to all
Would have to be Ragozin, and I think he ran some 2\'s, which were big in those days.
SC-- well, maybe a little older...
So you waited until you were old enough to vote before making your first bet on a horse? Seems unlikely.
Jerry there were two things I nothing about in my early teens.
Betting on horses and women.
Some people say I am still working on it..........
Silver:
Where can you bet on women?
I\'m the opposite..I laid my first bet down at 7 years old..I\'m pretty sure the horse\'s name was Creme De La Fete or something like that it seemed like that horse was around forever because I remember betting him a lot of times after that..And my entire teen days were spent in OTBs and the NYRA tracks. Also not too much luck with the ladies until I hit college...At 35 now I feel like a grizzled veteran..
Hey Richiebee, miff
Lost Cause mentions Creme de la Fete. A gelding, primarily a claimer, this was a one hell of a racehorse.
Career record: 151 Starts, 40 Wins, 27 Places, 16 Shows Career Earnings: $460,350
I remember at one point in his life he won at least 10 straight and I think Migliore was on him for most of those. I forget who trained him. During the streak he was getting claimed it seems every race or so cause all he did was win. Ferriola, Gaspar, Debonis--who else? Maybe Oscar, too. For awhile this guy could do no wrong.
Alan--
I remember him vaguely, and you\'re probably right, the Gas Man, the Pistol and
Oscar all probably had him at one time or another.
Another trainer who was big in the claiming game at the time and may have had
him at one point was Murray M. Garren...
Seem to recall this gelding was running at about the same time that Dick Dutrow
was transforming Kings Swan from a claimer into one of NY\'s most popular stakes
performers.
Actually Jerry remembers Creme de la Fete as well. Says if Oscar had him, that may account in part for the winning streak and also probably dampened claiming activity since for a time there nobody could improve upon what Oscar was doing and I\'m sure they all thought the horse would fall apart once he left the stable. Pancho may have had him for a while too but it\'s hard to fathom Garren or Puentes having him, since the horse won and as you know Richie, the Murray and Gil partnership strove for and generally accomplished that 4% echelon.
Alan:
Without a doubt, the blue Garren colors were only rarely seen in the winners
circle.
Murray was well liked by the racing secretary, though, as many of his runners
started 20 times per year (gasp), and Murray was always good about tossing in a
couple of hopeless horses to fill stakes races. As I recall with 5 or less
entrants NYRA would scrap the exacta and go to the \"instant double\"; Murray
saved that exacta numerous times.
Can\'t mention Gil Puentes and Murray Garren without thinking of their good turf
runner Peat Moss, who won the Kelso Handicap 2 straight years when it was run at
2 miles.
As for Pancho, at about this time he was training for Viola Sommer, who was on
the NYRA Board of Trustees. My recollection is that Pancho, who won training
titles in bunches, realized he couldn\'t compete with the \"Holy Trinity\" -- the
3 wine men -- and tried buying decent young horses at auction and had very
little success.
Will comment once again that the quality of racing was so much better back
then, but that wagering options (the wagering \"menu\") were quite limited, and
the closest thing you had to Living Room Downs was a \"social club\" somewhere in
Brooklyn which was able to pirate the OTB video feed.
If memory serves, Garrens horses would warm up harder than most horses work in a race.
Not sure exactly what that was about, but maybe that was how the 4% was so expertly achieved.
Yeah every once in a while they did claim a decent horse. Peat Moss was a good one. I bet the racing secretaries loved him. He did fill out many a race. Pancho did tail off after awhile. Partly age and \"wine\" and lack of clients got him.
You guys are toooooo funny. Those were the days weren\'t they.
The bottom feeders like the The Gas Man, OscarN Pistol Pete, R2D2 Sr.
The creme at the Top like Woody, Mack Miller, Frank Whitley, etc.
Real Good two year olds who campaigned and actually won Triple Crown races.
Large owner breeder stables
New York Bred races that were mostly restricted. As in restricted to Finger Lakes.
No Lasix.
Yah the racing was so much better back then