Colins Ghost

Like many race fans at this time of year, I am beginning to show symptoms of Derby fever. Unfortunately, we are still a few months away, so to whittle away some time before then, I decided to do a little project. I am not much of a numbers guy but sometimes you just can’t avoid numbers if you are trying to gain a better understanding of a particular subject.

The question that sparked this article was a simple one: How major are the major Derby preps?  In other words, how can you express, in raw numbers, the influence of the Bluegrass Stakes, Florida Derby, Wood Memorial, and Santa Anita Derby on the outcome of the Kentucky Derby? What I decided to do was start in 1952 – the first year of the Florida Derby – and focus on the top three finishers in those four races and see how they fared on the First Saturday in May.

Since 1952, 46 of 59 winners of the Kentucky Derby finished in the top three in the Bluegrass, Florida Derby, Wood Memorial, or Santa Anita Derby. Of those 13 who did not, two finished fourth in the Santa Anita Derby (Giacomo and Charismatic) and one finished fourth in the Blue Grass (Sea Hero). In 1966, Kauai King finished fifth in the Florida Derby prior to winning a three-year-old stake at Bowie in Maryland. That makes it 50 out of 59 who finished in the top five in one of the major preps since 1952.

If we add the Arkansas Derby to the mix, then we can add a few more runners who finished first at Oaklawn (Smarty Jones, Sunny Halo) or second (Lil E Tee, Grindstone).

That leaves us with only five outliers. In 1985, Spend a Buck took the short-lived Jersey road to the Derby in winning the Garden State Stakes and Cherry Hill Mile before winning the roses at Churchill.  In 2002, War Emblem used a win in the Illinois Derby to take the field wire-to-wire in Kentucky. In War Emblem’s Derby year, none of the colts that finished in the top three in the four major preps could manage second or third.  It is fitting in a year when the Illinois Derby produced the Kentucky Derby winner, that the runners from the traditional preps fared so poorly (the only time that has occurred since 1952).

The three runners that remain — Dark Star (1953), Cannonero II (1971), and Mine That Bird (2009) — are among the biggest Derby upsetters ever. Dark Star ran in the Florida Derby but he finished 13th by 16 lengths. He won the Derby Trial just a few days prior to his shocking victory over the undefeated Native Dancer (it would be Native Dancer’s only career loss from 22 starts). Another of the outliers is Mine That Bird. We are all familiar with his story, he finished 4th in the Sunland Derby in New Mexico before winning the Kentucky Derby in 2009. And, finally, we are left with Canonero II, who not only won the Derby but the Preakness too.  Mine that Bird was a surprise but, as far as racing upsets go, nothing compares to Canonero II. How would you have played this one if you were handicapping the 1971 Derby?

Past Performances for Canonero II as they appeared in the Daily Racing Form on Kentucky Derby day in 1971

Immediate throw out, right?  Steve Haskin wrote an outstanding piece about Canonero in 2008 that is a must read for racing fans.  Bill Finley also wrote about Canonero after last year’s Derby.

If you are interested in more details, I put together a spreadsheet in Google docs that includes the top three finishers in each of the four major Derby preps since 1952.

SOURCES, NEWS, AND NOTES

In researching this piece, I used the primary ammo for any racing historian: American Racing Manual, Champions, and the Daily Racing Form archive.

Last weekend marked the beginning of the real Derby prep season with the Southwest, Fountain of Youth, and Risen Star. If you would like to keep current with all of the races leading to this year’s Kentucky Derby, sign up for the Derby prep alerts from Hello Race Fans.

THANKS FOR READING AND GOOD LUCK!

Cover of the Pimlico program from November 1, 1938

The recent announcement that the Rachel Alexandra-Zenyatta race was back on at Oaklawn Park got me thinking about another highly anticipated but difficult to arrange match-up.  No horse race resonates more in popular culture than the Seabiscuit-War Admiral match of 1938.  Of course, a best selling book followed by a Hollywood film will do that. The Rachel-Zenyatta race isn’t likely to crack popular culture but it does have the possibility of being the most important race of the new century.

Time will tell how a race between the two great fillies will be remembered but, before we start thinking about the historical significance of the race, we need to get there first. Like most fans, I am cautiously optimistic that the two will meet as scheduled on April 9th.  However, if we use the Seabiscuit-War Admiral match as a guide, maybe any kind of optimism is foolhardy. It took over a year from the time the race emerged as the “white whale” for track owners to the time it finally happened at Pimlico on November 1st 1938.

Here is how the great Walter Haight from the Washington Post described the long and winding road to the big race:

“The matching of War Admiral and Seabiscuit has been in the making since the spring of 1937…

“…Strong talk of a race in the fall of 1937 brought no action. Then it was believed that the rivals would clash at Santa Anita the following March. However, [Charles] Howard shipped Seabiscuit to California and [Samuel] Riddle sent War Admiral to Florida. Seabiscuit lost the $100,000 West Coast race [Santa Anita Handicap] by another nose, this time to Stagehand, while War Admiral galloped away from the $50,000 Widener Cup [at Hialeah Park in Miami].

Program page for the great match race

“Belmont Park’s offer of $100,000 finally was accepted. The track hired an army of press agents and the ballyhoo began. The rivals reported on the scene and then Seabiscuit staled off in his training and the race was cancelled.

“Riddle and his trainer, George Conway, then changed their tactics with War Admiral and began sending the Man o’ War colt after all purses in sight.  It was in the Naragansett Special, over a muddy track that War Admiral met his first defeat since his 2-year-old season.  In the meanwhile, Seabiscuit recovered his form, although he was beaten several times.

“The War Admiral-Seabiscuit race has been the most discussed meeting in the history of the American turf.  Both owners have had many chances to match their horses in regularly scheduled stakes.  At Laurel last fall, each scratched out of races in which the other went postward. Pimlico tried to solve the problem with a special race [the first Pimlico Special in 1937] but only War Admiral accepted the issue and he had a hard time defeating Masked General…

“…While Howard and Riddle drew adverse criticism for the proposed $100,000 race, the setup for the Pimlico clash with the modest $15,000 at stake returns the race to sport proportions – which is as it should be.”

I like that a reasonable stake of $15,000 was considered sporting where $100,000 was considered distasteful. It is important to remember that the race took place in the throes of the depression so it is understandable that posting $100,000 for horse race may not have gone over too well.  I wonder if the Santa Anita Handicap – the first race worth six figures that stared in 1935 – drew similar criticism.

And finally the Washington Post racing columnist Bill Bennings reported some thoughts from the ground at Pimlico:

“It looks as if we are going to have a War Admiral-Seabiscuit race at Pimlico. It took a long series of events to swing the race to the Maryland Jockey Club, including [Pimlico's majority owner] Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt marrying into the family of C.S. Howard, owner of Seabiscuit. While horsemen and officials at this track are agreed that they will believe the two stars will meet only after they leave the post…”

Like race fans of the late 1930s, we’ll have to wait and see if the much ballyhooed race at Oaklawn Park goes off as planned.

SOURCES, NOTES, AND OBSERVATIONS

“Riddle Signs Contract for Turf Classic,” The Washington Post, October 6, 1938
“At the Post, Bill Bennings,” The Washington Post, October 4, 1938

The program from the match race used above is from the outstanding collection of Ron Micetic. Ron is in the market for pre-1975 racing programs. If you have programs for sale, he is a serious collector and would be happy to talk.  He can be reached at 708-925-1775 or rmicetic@hotmail.com.

THANKS FOR READING AND GOOD LUCK!

Some of you might have been following the continuing saga around the possible loss of the historical race archive on YouTube maintained by Jim Conti (aka partymanners). For those who haven’t, here is a bit of background:

Over the last four years, racing fan Jim Conti has built an archive of over 2000 historic race videos on YouTube.  The archive mainly covers the last 20 years of racing but includes racing from all eras  As far as anyone can tell, it is the largest set of historic races freely available online. If you have watched races via YouTube, chances are you viewed them on Conti’s partymanners account.  Races in the archive have been downloaded 4.5 million times in less than five years.

[You can read more about the background of the archive in an article published in the New York Times last year...]

A few weeks ago, an alert went out via Twitter that Conti’s account had been suspended by YouTube. The reason for the suspension was someone who lent race video tapes to Conti, did not feel they were getting enough attention for their contribution so they filed a copyright complaint against Conti’s partymanners account.  While Conti did all of the conversions and uploads, the jealous party felt they should have been give more credit.  In short, the account was suspended because of pettiness (you can get more details on a thread at the Pace Advantage horse racing forum).

A YouTube account is easily suspended by anyone who claims copyright to its content. The originator of this particular complaint — called the “biggest asshole in racing history” by a prominent racing authority — falsely claimed he owned copyright to races simply because he had copies of them on video. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of copyright law knows this is ridiculous.

The suspension of the partymanners account was recently lifted as the time-frame for the initial complaint expired.   However, this reinstatement might be short-lived as it appears the person who instigated this mess is threatening to request another takedown notice from YouTube.  In reading the back and forth on the discussion board, it’s apparent that this contentious situation might not end well. The content of the race archive remains at-risk.

On Sunday morning, Robin Howlett, a race fan and software developer from Ireland, posted a message on the Pace Advantage forum asking colleagues to begin making copies of partymanners videos so they wouldn’t be lost if the account were suspended again. Howlett posted instructions on how to download the videos from YouTube and created a spreadsheet so everyone could keep track of who copied what. As of Monday evening, approximately 80% of the archive has been copied among six different citizen archivists. In addition, Conti wrote on a message board that he spent the last week making local copies of his videos from YouTube too. It seems, in spite of the selfish actions of one, the content of the archive will be saved.  Unfortunately, if the account is suspended for a second time, who knows when all of the races will be made available again.

When news initially spread about the possible loss of the partymanners archive, I heard some buzz about behind-the-scenes maneuvering to ensure access to these historic races.  I have heard little else since then.  The truth is, the copyright morass around ownership, and the steps necessary to get the proper clearance to “legally” put the videos online, could be tremendously time consuming and expensive.  This gives me little faith that someone will come forward and repeat the work that Jim Conti did over the last four years.  Is it possible that someone could step in? Sure. Will it happen before the content disappears from YouTube? Maybe not.

These races likely exist in tape and film archives throughout the country but they are difficult (if not impossible) to access. If they do exist on analog media, their long term preservation is in jeopardy if they are not being properly cared for.  The “crowdsourced” effort organized by Robin Howlett will ensure multiple digital copies of these races will be saved and documented. While this isn’t ideal, it is a positive step.

It is heartening to see the concern that has arisen over the possible loss of this great archive of racing history.  It seems that Jim Conti – and those who spent the last few days making digital copies from his YouTube account – are the only ones taking action to consolidate, preserve, and make accessible this important footage.  If I am wrong about this, please let me know….

UPDATE: AS OF 9:00 PM ON TUESDAY NIGHT, THE ENTIRE ARCHIVE HAS BEEN COPIED AND BACKED UP AMONG A DOZEN CONTRIBUTORS. MORE TO COME ON THE PROGRESS OF THIS PROJECT IN A FUTURE POST…

If you would like to read more about the issues surrounding the preservation of historic racing films and videos, check out this post and discussion at the Superfecta blog

Back next week with more history….in the meantime, check out a really nice piece by Zipse at the Track on Gallant Man.

THANKS FOR READING AND GOOD LUCK!