By Bill Finley
It looks like Omaha Beach (War Front) is going to end up his career on a high note before going off to stud. He romped in Saturday's GI Runhappy Malibu S. at Santa Anita and will likely be favored in the GI Pegasus World Cup, his last stop before entering stallion duty at Spendthrift Farm. Should he win the Pegasus, his record will include four Grade I victories and over $3 million in earnings. That's a very good career but not nearly as good as what he might have been able to accomplish had he simply been luckier.
Whatever chance he had to fulfill his full potential was lost the moment trainer Richard Mandella discovered his horse had an entrapped epiglottis. Omaha Beach had already been entered in the GI Kentucky Derby and had to be scratched the Wednesday before the race. He also would not be ready for the GI Preakness S. or the GI Belmont S. But Mandella said at the time that Omaha Beach would only miss about three weeks of training, which meant that he should have been ready for the major 3-year-old stakes in the summer.
Instead, Omaha Beach's recovery was anything but smooth. He had a virus and a minor setback in his training and wasn't able to get back to the races until Oct. 5 when showing up in the GI Santa Anita Sprint Championship. To the extent that he won and ran down the tough sprinter Shancelot (Shanghai Bobby) in the process, it was a successful comeback for Omaha Beach. But Mandella did not think he could go from a six-furlong race to a mile-and-a-quarter in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic. Omaha Beach wound up in the GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile, where he couldn't catch Spun to Run (Hard Spun), who had gotten loose on the lead.
Add the Classic to the mix and circumstances had kept Omaha Beach out of what would have been the most important races for him had he had a healthy, uninterrupted campaign in 2019. No Triple Crown races. No GI Travers S. or GI Pacific Classic. No Breeders' Cup Classic.
How he would have performed in those races is, of course, a matter of conjecture. But there's no harm in dealing with the hypothetical. As talented as Omaha Beach is, could he have won the Kentucky Derby or another Triple Crown race? Might he have won a Grade I race over the summer? If his training schedule had not been filled with fits and starts, might he have won the Breeders' Cup Classic?
No one will ever know, but it's hardly a stretch to speculate that this is a horse that is so talented that he was capable of putting together a career that would rank him among the best of his generation. Sometimes, talent isn't enough.
Smith vs Bailey
The win aboard Omaha Beach in the Runhappy Malibu S. gave jockey Mike Smith his 217th Grade I win, moving him past Jerry Bailey and into first place in that category.
While both are among the greatest jockeys in the history of the sport, it's worth noting that Bailey needed a shorter window to pile up all those Grade I wins than Smith did. Retiring in 2006, Bailey rode for 30 years and had 30,204 mounts. He won 663 graded stakes. Smith is in his 37th year of riding and has had 33,517 mounts. He has 606 graded stakes wins.
Whichever of the two has had the better career is difficult to answer. But Smith has a chance now to put some distance between himself and Bailey and that's because he's among the most durable top riders in the sport's history.
Smith had a huge afternoon Saturday at Santa Anita, winning four races, all of them stakes. He may be 54, but he's still riding at a top level and very much in demand. Bailey retired at age 49.
Should There Be Racing on Christmas?
Obviously, there are reasons not to run on Christmas, none more important than giving employees the day off to be with their families. But racing, which shuts down throughout North America on Christmas, is definitely missing a golden opportunity to have what would be one of its bigger days of the year. It might be time to re-examine why no racetracks will run on Christmas.
It's not that the sport has always shut down on Christmas. It once was a staple of the racing season. The first day of racing ever at Santa Anita was held on Christmas Day 1934. The Fair Grounds and Tropical Park also raced that day. After a while, Florida was the only place left where you could find racing on Christmas, a day that usually attracted a huge crowd. At Tropical, the most attended day of racing during any year was often Dec. 25. After Tropical Park closed down in 1972, its dates went to Calder. Calder kept up the Christmas tradition up until 1996.
In the many years since Tropical brought in big crowds on Christmas, American society has become a lot more tolerant of businesses staying open for the day. Several grocery chains stay open for the day and so does Starbucks. Need your prescription filled? It's not hard to find an open Walgreens or CVS.
The NBA has embraced Christmas and turned it into its biggest days. Every year since its current television deal began in 2002, the Christmas games have been the highest rated games of the regular season.
NBA executives understand that a lot of basketball fans are looking for something to do on Christmas, that there's plenty of time left over after accounting for a big meal and opening presents. The same holds true for horseplayers. Give them a signal to bet on on Christmas Day and they will flock to it, ready to drive the handle through the roof.
Though racetracks can't be faulted for looking out for their employees, at several, there's a degree of hypocrisy involved. Many of the same places that can't operate horse racing on Christmas Day don't think twice about keeping their casinos open that day and asking those employees to show up to work.
Racing on Christmas would not be for everyone, but if one track tried it more would likely follow suit. If done the right way, horse racing could turn Christmas into what it is for the NBA, one of the biggest days of the year.
Seabiscuit “Actor” Finds Wonderful Home
There's no better week for a heartwarming story than Christmas Week and there aren't too many stories better than the one of Fighting Furrari (Momsfurrai). The horse, whose nickname is Fred, was just 1 for 16 during his career and made $4,935, but, in a way, was as famous as any horse this century. He was the main horse used to play the part of Seabiscuit in the movie.
After the movie wrapped up, Fighting Furrari, now 21, served as a goodwill ambassador at Santa Anita under the eye of Candace Coder Chew, Santa Anita's director of print and graphics and the president of CARMA, the California Retirement Management Account. He worked well with all people, but after an encounter with an autistic child it was decided that there were ways that Fred could truly make an impact on society. It was decided that he would be sent to the Square Peg Foundation in Half Moon Bay, Calif, an equine retirement facility that uses horses as emotional support for autistic children.
“Candace Carmen Chew already knew what Square Peg was doing,” said Square Peg's founder Joelle Dunlap. “There was an encounter at the track where a school visited and a child just really attached to Fred. Candace gave the lead rope to the little boy and he started chatting with Fred and took him for a walk. According to the school, this was a child that barely talked at all. From that moment forward she knew that Fred really deserved a quieter life and she started thinking about him living at Square Pegs.”
At Square Pegs, he has joined horses like Bruce's Dream (Atticus), Cee's for Clever (Cee's Tizzy), Extra Fifty (Afleet Alex) and a handful of others. None were notable horses on the track, but are superstars in their second careers, helping children.
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