I've been going to the races and following the horses since before I can honestly remember. For example, my best recollection of being in the stands for Secretariat's amazing run in the Belmont was not the race, but the stands shaking so much beneath my feet. Quite an experience for a little guy who just turned 4! Two of my favorite fellow handicappers are my brother and my father. My one year old daughter is already showing signs of loving the horses :>) My favorites...how about Wajima, Spectacular Bid, Fancy Naskra, Five Star Flight, Christmas Past, Princess Rooney, Lady's Secret, With Approval, Paradise Creek, Sunday Silence, Unbridled, Skip Away, Free House. Musket Man and Rachel Alexandra, just to name a few.
I started a poll, there on the left, a few days ago and the more I considered the votes coming in, the more I realized it required a little write-up. These are the ten crops that I have identified as the best in American racing history. To qualify, the horses did not need to be bred in America, but they did need to have made a name for themselves on American racetracks. I highlighted each year by listing the top five runners (not an easy task in many cases) of each year. The year represents the standouts' three-year-old season. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did researching it, and please let me know what you think…which year did I leave out? What horse should I have included in my top fives?
1948 - You do not need to look much farther than the roster at Calumet Farm to realize the excellence of this crop. Citation, Coaltown, and Bewitch were all Calumet runners. Throw in handicap star Noor, and the filly Miss Request, to complete a special crop.
1955 - Swaps and Nashua were true superstars of 1955. Summer Tan, Dedicate, and High Voltage round out this year’s top five.
1957 - Round Table, Bold Ruler, and Gallant Man were all Hall of Fame runners and great sires. Gen. Duke was a star before injury and Clem became a top handicap horse, making this class possibly the greatest of all time.
1967 - Dr. Fager and Damascus were two all-time greats. Include Gamely, Fort Marcy, and In Reality and you have one of the greatest crops in American history.
1969 - An underrated crop…Everyone remembers the Triple Crown match-up between Majestic Prince and Arts and Letters, but do not underestimate the greatness of a couple of fillies Gallant Bloom and Shuvee. Ack Ack gets the five spot by a whisker over Ta Wee.
1973 - Secretariat, Forego, Sham, Dahlia, and Desert Vixen…enough said.
1978 - Affirmed and Alydar will be remembered forever, but speed merchants Sensitive Prince and Dave’s Friend were members of this crop, and oh yeah, a plucky gelding named John Henry.
1987 - Depth was the word for the word this top class crop. Narrowing it to five is not easy; I will go with Alysheba, Personal Ensign, Bet Twice, Miesque, and Java Gold.
1997 - See 1987. Forced to narrow this crop down to five, I went with Silver Charm, Free House, Touch Gold, Awesome Again, and Kona Gold. Captain Bodgit loses the photo one last time.
2007 - Led by sure to be Hall of Fame runners Curlin and Zenyatta, 2007 was the best crop of the young century. Street Sense, Hard Spun, and Rags to Riches cement that standing.
This is a story about many things. It’s a story about a dingy OTB in Louisiana. About a wedding. About the only Derby I’ve missed in 25 years. About a white-haired dude from Arizona. But mostly it’s a story about the horse with the “ham sandwich price,” my favorite thoroughbred I’ve ever had the pleasure to watch.
It was early 1997, the spring semester of my first year at Tulane Law School, a Kentucky boy transplanted to New Orleans. Like any good degenerate fan of the ponies, I found a couple of kindred souls in my good friends, Adam & Chris. It wasn’t long before we were making regular trips to the track when we should be in class. At the time, the Fair Grounds was still recovering from the 1996 fire, so they only had temporary wagering tents available. We opted instead to cross the river to Gretna, and make our wagering home a converted movie theatre, one of the dumpiest venues ever. Soon we were holding Contracts II study sessions there.
I didn’t immediately fall in love with Silver Charm that Spring. I mean, I was aware of him. Bob Baffert had burst onto the national racing scene with the year before with Cavonnier, and it was obvious he was becoming a major player on the west coast. But I was more focused on a couple of east coast horses: the mighty Pulpit and a plodding closer named Jack Flash. Even a couple of weeks before the Derby, I was still focused on Jack Flash, simply based on his passing a lot of dead horses in the lane in the Bluegrass. I was trying to keep up with all the three-year old contenders, but first-year law school is time-consuming.
Everything changed sometime in mid-April sometime in the wee hours of the morning. In those days, ESPN’s Racing Across America came on at some odd times, and that included something along the lines of Thursdays at 3 a.m. They showed a replay of the Santa Anita Derby. Silver Charm went out with the speedball filly Sharp Cat, ran thru some sizzling fractions, got the lead at the head of the stretch, and was beaten barely by his main rival, Free House. Everything about the race stood out to me. He had no business being around at the end, but he was, a near-winner. Free House got the win that day, but Silver Charm won me over. I had my Derby horse.
Derby Day 1997 was going to be bittersweet for me. Law school finals were going on, and on top of that, I was engaged to be married six weeks after Derby Day (in Louisville, no less.) Logistically and financially, I could not attend the Kentucky Derby. This was like being gouged in the eye. Being away from Louisville on Derby Day; indeed, not being at Churchill Downs on Derby Day was something I had not experienced in a long time (and haven’t experienced since.) But, I was determined to make the best of it. Finals were keeping Adam and Chris close to home, but I convinced my fiancée to make the drive out to the Gretna OTB. I’m certain she hated every minute of it, and given the tight state of finances that we were experiencing this close to the wedding, I’m certain she was not happy that I was doing any wagering whatsoever. Nevertheless, I placed a small trifecta, Silver Charm & Captain Bodgit on top with Free House & Jack Flash in 2nd and3rd. A small $12 wager.
The 1997 Derby was exhilarating. Gary Stevens kept Silver Charm close to the early pace, but kept him from getting into a deadly speed duel. At the top of the stretch he made a brilliant 3-wide move, passing Free House with a furlong to run. To his outside, however, flying was the favorite, Wood Memorial champion, Captain Bodgit. It looked to all observers like the Cap’n was going to run down Charm. But then Silver Charm caught a glimpse of the Captain, and kicked into one extra gear 100 yards from the wire. Stevens got Silver Charm home first. Bob Baffert had won the Kentucky Derby. I had my first Derby winner since Winning Colors (and last before Street Sense), and also cashed a nice little trifecta. I didn’t attend the 1997 Kentucky Derby, the only such anomaly for me in the past 25 years…but it’s my favorite Derby. Go figure.
On to the Preakness. Four weeks before by wedding. Finals were now over, and that meant Adam was in for the trip to Gretna. Once again, Captain Bodgit was favored, as the betting public thought he’d flip the results on Silver Charm. Free House was back as well, and so it was that those three found themselves side by side by side deep in the stretch at Pimlico. They hit the rail whiskers apart, but in between the other two, Silver Charm got a nose in front. I went bonkers, in complete love with this colt. Adam told me later he had never heard someone scream so much during a race. Silver Charm was 2/3 of the way to the Triple Crown, in scintillating fashion. The readers of Blood-Horse magazine would later vote the 1997 Preakness as the Race of the Decade. They got it right.
Three weeks later, it was time to go for the Triple Crown. My fiancée and I were leaving for Louisville the next day, as the wedding was only one week away. She was none too happy that I was headed out to watch a horse race, but there wasn’t a chance in hell I was missing this. This was going to a coronation of a silver king!Most likely, you know what happened. Silver Charm didn’t have Captain Bodgit to worry about this time (he had suffered a minor injury and was retired), but he did have his old pal, Free House to contend with. There was also the presence of Preakness fourth-place finisher, Touch Gold, who had stumbled badly at the start, but rallied on the rail to finish only a couple of lengths behind the top 3. In the Belmont, Silver Charm appeared to have the race won in mid-stretch, having put away Free House. But Chris McCarron had Touch Gold zooming on the far outside. Baffert and Stevens insist that because Free House was in between the two, and blocking Silver Charm from seeing Touch Gold coming, that that was the only reason why McCarron could get by him. If Silver Charm locked eyeballs with him, they reason, he could never make the pass. But he did. And I was crushed. It was the most pain I’ve ever experienced watching a horse race, and it look me along time to get over it. Maybe that’s what doomed my marriage! But that’s a story for another day.
Silver Charm’s owners, Bob & Beverly Lewis, an elderly couple from California, had gotten in the race game late in their lives, and had a lot of success, Timber Country and Serena’s Song chiefly among them. But for them, Silver Charm was a whole different stratosphere of love and adulation. Following the grueling Triple Crown trail, the Lewises and Baffert made the decision that Silver Charm would definitely run as a 4-year old, with the Dubai World Cup and the Breeder’s Cup Classic the top goals. To wit, they decided to give Charm a rest until late in the year. He returned in December with a second-place finish in the Malibu Stakes. For 1997, Silver Charm finished with 3 wins and 4 seconds in 7 starts, good enough for the Eclipse Award as Champion Three-Year Old.
Silver Charm’s four-year old campaign was a roller-coaster ride, and I was watching every exciting moment. The big jewel was his trip to Dubai for the world’s richest race, which was just the third-running of the event. Cigar’s win in the initial running had put the event on the map, and Singspiel’s subsequent win evened the score for the Europeans. So it was a matchup of one of the USA’s big guns vs. Europe’s top contender, Swain in the 1998 event. At the time, the event was not televised stateside and the internet was in its infancy. I was desperate for results that Saturday morning when the race was won. I saw an ad in the Daily Racing Form that an audio replay of the race would be available shortly after the race had been run. Of course, I was on that line every other minute until finally the call was available. And while I couldn’t see the race, hearing the exhilarating stretch duel between Charm and Swain nearly stopped myheart. The gritty gray was a winner of the Dubai World Cup by a nose! Silver Charm is the only horse to win the Kentucky Derby and Dubai World Cup (in fact, before Curlin won in Dubai, he was the only horse to win in Dubai and any leg of the Triple Crown).
The ride continued that summer. He won some brilliant races --- the Kentucky Cup Classic in a dead heat with Wild Rush, the Clark Handicap, the San Pasqual; he also had some agonizingly close losses. He once again beat his old rival Free House in the Goodwood in his final prep for the Classic. For me, it all boiled down to the Breeder’s Cup Classic; not only was Churchill Downs the 1998 venue, but I was finally going to see Charm run in person!
The 1998 Classic field is probably the strongest in the event’s history --- Touch Gold was there, Swain as well. Add in Skip Away, Gentlemen, Victory Gallop, Coronado’s Quest…well, you get the picture. Beating this field was going to be tough.
I had seats at the ¼ pole, so I had a birds-eye view of what transpired in the stretch. Silver Charm seized the lead, but Swain was coming to his outside, just like Dubai. Could Stevens hold him off, I thought? Then, suddenly, Swain bore out badly under Frankie Dettori’s whip. I swear that I have never seen a horse come out that far at Churchill Downs. Silver Charm, ever the eyeballer, drifted out with Swain, though not nearly as bad. The slight drift allowed Pat Day and Awesome Again all the opening he needed, and the big payday. Once again, a year-and-a-half after breaking my heart in the Belmont, it had happened again. It was an emotional defeat, and it hurts me to write about it here.
Silver Charm raced as a five-year old; indeed Baffert sent him to Dubai to attempt to pull off the repeat. He bled and finished sixth, the worst result of his career. He just wasn’t the same. His career ended for me in depressing fashion, at the Gretna OTB, watching the 1999 renewal of the Stephen Foster Handicap. I was ready to embrace this as the spark he needed to move forward in his five-year old season. But it was clear he just wasn’t the same. A fourth-place finish signaled to me that he was finished, and apparently Baffert and the Lewises agreed; he was retired the next week.
Words can never properly describe what watching Silver Charm meant to me. I could certainly recite the stats, 12 wins in 24 lifetime starts, close to $7 million in earnings, a 2007 Hall of Fame inductee, a #63 ranking on Blood Horse’s top 100 racehorses of the 20th century. Those are all well and good, but they don’t measure how happy watching the Charm, the horse Bob Baffert described as being bought for a ham sandwich, made me feel. Those were halcyon days, those law school days. And I am damn glad I had Silver Charm to help me along.
Do I remember Silver Charm? You’re damn right I do.
I will never forget the look in his eye as he turned to eyeball his great rival Silver Charm coming down the stretch of the 1997 Preakness. It was like he was telling his adversary to bring everything you have, because you are in for the fight of your life. Never mind the two other great horses on either side of them, Captain Bodgit and Touch Gold. This was all about two great rivals giving their all to get to the wire first. It was the fight of both of their lives as they battled to the wire in a head-bobbing, too-close-to-call finish. That was the day my appreciation grew into a real love for Free House. Oh, those long white legs and those expressive eyes.
It is said that the eyes are the windows to the soul and for Free House, I knew this to be true. I always felt that he had just a little more depth to him than the average thoroughbred race horse. Smart and sensitive with a whole lot of heart. His heart was on display for millions to see that day in the Preakness. For me, a sad result, but fitting in a way that Silver Charm got the head-bob and defeated Free House by a nose or a small head or whatever they would call it. You see, Free House was the perfect horse to root on, for a diehard Cubs fan like me. Always teasing greatness, but never able to win the really big one. I take solace in the fact that next year or the next race could finally be the big one.
Don’t get me wrong, Free House had a very successful career. He is considered to be one of the greatest California breds ever to run. The homebred son of Smokester won 9 times in a 22 race career and earned over three million dollars. Trained by Paco Gonzalez and owned by John Toffan and Trudy McCaffery, his victories include the biggest races run in California: the Norfolk, San Felipe, Santa Anita Derby, Swaps, Bel Air, Pacific Classic, San Antonio, and the Santa Anita Handicap. He never raced in an allowance race and was a major player in one of the best crops of horses I have seen. 3-year-olds of 1997 included Silver Charm, Touch Gold, Captain Bodgit, Pulpit, Deputy Commander, Concerto, Behrens and my favorite, Free House.
Together with Silver Charm, he was part of one of the greatest rivalries of modern racing. Their rivalry was another reason for me to be so fond of Free House. Fans could not help taking one side or the other. They faced each other eight times, all in major stakes including all three races of the Triple Crown. Silver Charm won four of those races and Free House won three. Only in the Belmont Stakes did another horse, Touch Gold, win a race that they both ran. In that race Silver Charm and Free House battled the majority of the stretch before Touch Gold swooped by them late with Silver Charm just missing out on a Triple Crown and Free House, who had gone very wide throughout, a tough luck third. Most fans were heartbroken over the Charm losing his bid for immortality, I was saddened that my gray lost again after such a valiant performance. What a Triple Crown series he had run only to be defeated by Silver Charm each time. The final tally was Silver Charm 5 and Free House 3. I for one, wonder when we will ever see two great horses like these ever face each other so often again.
It was ironic that in Free House’s final race he found himself battling to the wire again at Pimlico. This time he would fall just short to another Bob Baffert trained, near Triple Crown winner, Real Quiet in the Pimlico Special. It was almost exactly two years after his finest hour and again he showed all the courage that he had in that thrilling Preakness. The performance was all the more impressive when you consider he strained a muscle early in the race. He retired as one of the few horses ever to win at least one Grade 1 race in four consecutive years.
Free House’s life came to a sudden, tragic end in 2004 when he injured himself severely at his farm in California. He was only ten years old. In his short career as a stallion, Free House was well on his way to becoming a force among California sires. His life was cut way too short, I miss those long white legs and those expressive eyes. I remember you … Free House.
