Hangin' With Haskin : Belmont Park

The Skip Trip

Blood-Horse Staff — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 19:08:00 GMT

First it was Holy Bull’s rampage in 1994 and then the reign of Cigar. No chronicle of the mid-to-late ‘90s would be complete without recognizing Skip Away’s career, which football pundits would call smash-mouth racing.

The story of Skip Away revolves around four basic elements – his remarkable statistics, his toughness, the love of his owner Carolyn Hine, and the inspiring final days of his trainer Sonny Hine.

I will focus first on his stats and toughness before getting to the human side of his story.

To give you an example of just how brilliant and resilient Skip Away was, I surprisingly will start off with his workouts before I even get to his racing record. You can search far and wide and you won’t find anything comparable to what Skip Away accomplished in the morning.

During his career, he turned in an amazing 53 bullet works, along with 21 works that were the second-fastest at the distance. Just think of it: 74 works that were the first or second-fastest times on the tab.

Nowadays, you’d be hard-pressed to find trainers working their horses farther than five furlongs on more than an occasional basis. Skip Away worked six furlongs 30 times. In addition to having six works within the 1:10 and 1:10 3/5 range, he turned in a 1:08 3/5 drill at Belmont Park in 1997. At five furlongs, he worked in under 1:00 29 times, 10 of those under :59, including a :57 1/5 work at Gulfstream. At four furlongs, he had 11 works ranging from :46 1/5 to :46 4/5. From March 21 to April 21, 1998, he turned in six consecutive bullet works, and would have had seven had his 1:23 3/5 seven-furlong drill not been the only work at the distance.

Track conditions never stopped his trainer Sonny Hine, who worked Skip Away 19 times on an off track – 10 in the slop, five in the mud, and four on a good track.

OK, you get the picture. His racing career was no different, as he utilized that same brilliance and ruggedness in the afternoons as well, finishing in the money in 34 of his 38 starts. Of the four times he was out of the money, one was his career debut at five furlongs, in which he broke poorly; one came when he bled badly and was eased early in his 3-year-old campaign; and the other two came at Churchill Downs (in the Kentucky Derby and Breeders’ Cup Classic). Churchill proved to be the only track he couldn’t handle. Following his Derby fiasco, he finished in the money in 26 consecutive races, 25 of them graded stakes, 20 of which were grade I.

Skip Away was not the type of horse who would beat you in the final eighth of a mile, or even the final quarter of a mile. His strength (he was one of the strongest horses I’ve even been around) was his ability to run his opponents off their feet in the first three-quarters of a mile and keep going. He wasn’t going to dazzle you with his exceptional final quarters. But, having already demoralized his foes by running them into the ground, he didn’t need to close fast. When he had the lead turning for home, he was near-unbeatable. Of the 16 times he led at the head of the stretch, he won 14 of them. In those races, top-class horses Cigar, Gentlemen, Free House, Formal Gold, Will’s Way, Behrens, Deputy Commander, Louis Quatorze, Puerto Madero, and Editor’s Note couldn’t catch him. The only two times he didn’t win were in the Belmont Stakes after breaking from post 13 and the Gulfstream Park Handicap after going head and head every step of the way in demanding fractions, while giving nine pounds to the winner.

With Skip Away, there was no such thing as stealing a race with slow fractions. He didn’t believe in doing anything slow; that wasn’t his style. He ran hard, he ran fast, and he ran far. In his 1 1/4-mile victories, he set fractions of 1:09 3/5 and 1:33 4/5 in the Breeders’ Cup Classic (run in a stakes-record 1:59); 1:10 and 1:33 4/5 in the Jockey Club Gold Cup (run in 1:58 4/5); 1:09 3/5 and 1:34 in the Hollywood Gold Cup; and :46 3/5 and 1:10 1/5 in the Gulfstream Park Handicap. In his 1 1/8-mile wins, he went in :45 2/5, 1:09 flat, and 1:34 1/5 in the Woodward; 1:09 4/5 and 1:34 2/5 in the Haskell Invitational; 1:10 and 1:34 4/5 in the Philip H. Iselin (carrying 131 pounds); 1:10 1/5 and 1:34 4/5 in the Mass Cap (carrying 130 pounds); 1:10 1/5 and 1:34 4/5 in the Blue Grass Stakes; and in 1:10 3/5 in the Molson Million and 1:10 4/5 and Donn Handicap.

He did on occasion show the ability to win from off the pace in the final quarter, capturing the Suburban, Haskell, and Molson Million with strong stretch runs.

He didn’t even reach his peak until he was 5, putting together a nine-race winning streak, seven of them in grade I stakes, from Oct. ’97 to Sept. ’98.

************

OK, enough of stats. The real story of Skip Away is in actuality a love story. In fact, it is two love stories – Carolyn Hine and her horse and Carolyn and Sonny. It might sound a bit far-fetched to say that Skip Away was the child they never had, but that is the way Carolyn described him. Some may cringe and some may find it endearing, but the most familiar sound at the barn when Carolyn was there was “Skippy, mommy loves you,” which Carolyn would say constantly to the horse, much to Sonny’s amusement.

The relationship between Sonny and Carolyn was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Sonny, despite having a tendency to complain about a ride or other minor things, had the most easy-going disposition, which is why I chose him to work for at Monmouth Park in 1991 for a four-part feature I did for the Daily Racing Form, titled “Life on the Backstretch.” For five days, I mucked stalls, walked hots, held horses as they were being washed, did countless other jobs around barn, attended backstretch card games, night time prayer meetings, vanned down to Atlantic City with one of Sonny’s horses who was running in the United Nations Handicap, and attempted unsuccessfully to sit in on drug counseling meetings, but did speak to some of the participants.

Sonny’s barn was the stopping off point for anyone needing to borrow money or sell a horse, or simply indulge in a bagel and cream cheese or a donut. Some of the more recognizable backstretch characters that resided in Sonny’s barn were their cats Morris, Chi Chi, and Pepi.

Although the Hines’ certainly had enough money, that didn’t stop Carolyn from saving grocery coupons and searching for bargains at Fortunoffs. They preferred a Chinese buffet to a three-star restaurant, and never once in 37 years did they take a honeymoon or a vacation. Their life was the horses and their love for each other, and that was it. According to Carolyn, their entire life together was a honeymoon.

What makes Sonny’s story all the more remarkable, and one that seemed mind-boggling to those who knew him, was that prior to becoming a horse trainer he was an FBI agent and worked for Air Force intelligence and the CIA. On one mission he had to infiltrate enemy lines during the Korean War to monitor Russian and Chinese pilots who had been causing a great deal of damage to American facilities. The mission, coordinated by the Air Force and the CIA, was so important and hush-hush, Marines were sent in to protect them and battleships were positioned off the coast to prevent any further Communist movement in the area.

Sonny, was a good friend of J. Edgar Hoover, spoke fluent Mandarin Chinese, and became adept at breaking Chinese codes for the National Security Agency, for whom he worked, along with the CIA, in Hong Kong, investigating fraud cases. He also spent time in Vienna monitoring the Hungarian refugees who had converged on Austria following Hungary’s revolution. He was ranked one of the top 10 investigators in the world by the State Department, won the Outstanding Service Award, and did investigative work for the House Un-American Activities Committee.

This was such a far cry from the affable, cherubic Sonny Hine everyone knew that it was difficult to picture that aspect of his life. What I found funny was that Sonny would say about his life with Carolyn, “We’re so plain and simple it’s probably boring to most people.”

When Sonny and Carolyn first were married they had $900 to their name and lived in an attic at old Narragansett Racetrack. They had to cook meat on aluminum foil because they didn’t own a pot. When they were at Charles Town it was so cold they had to sit back to back on a bed in the tack room to keep warm. They carried all their possessions from track to track in a U-Haul and couldn’t even afford curtains for their windows.

So, one can understand why, when Skip Away came along over 30 years later, Carolyn would call him their “Gift from God.” Sonny always felt that he was Carolyn’s reward for having to endure so much in those early years.

Because of that, they turned down a $5-million offer for the horse after his devastating victory in the Blue Grass. And when Skip Away became a household name, Sonny and Carolyn didn’t hesitate to put up $480,000 to supplement him to the Breeders’ Cup Classic. When Skip Away retired, he had earned over $9.6 million and won an Eclipse Award for champion 3-year-old in 1996, champion older horse in 1997, and Horse of the Year and champion older horse in 1998. But the rewards were far from over, which I’ll get to later on.

Sonny would kid Carolyn, asking her where he ranks in her life compared to Skip Away, and Carolyn would always answer: “Dead-heat.”

Perhaps they were even more appreciative of Skip Away knowing how they came to get him. Sonny had purchased the colt at the Calder 2-year-old sale for $30,000, only to have to return him on the advice of their veterinarian after X-rays revealed a chip in his ankle. Carolyn had already fallen in love with the horse, and she was disheartened as they left the sales pavilion and drove home. Sonny hung a leg on route 441, heading toward Hallandale Beach Boulevard, when he suddenly pulled off to the side of the road.

“Honey, there’s something about that horse,” he said to Carolyn. “I want to buy him anyway if you’re OK with it.”

Carolyn replied, “Well, it’s my birthday in a couple of weeks. That’ll be my birthday present.”

So, Sonny turned around and drove back to the sales pavilion and told the agent consigning the horse he still wanted to buy him, even with the ankle chip. The agent contacted the seller and breeder, who knocked $7,500 off the price in order to pay for any surgery that might be required. Sonny was confident in his ability as a horseman and decided not to have surgery performed. So, Skip Away went through his entire career, one of the most grueling in years, racing with a chip in his ankle, which was a testament to Sonny’s skills as a trainer.

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Darkness had fallen on Belmont Park, and Sonny stood alone in Barn 3, which housed what remained of the retiring Woody Stephens’ string of horses. Inside the barn, the 3-year-old Skip Away was cooling out after having defeated the mighty Cigar in the Jockey Club Gold Cup. As he passed Sonny, the colt gave a single cough.

Sonny didn’t hesitate. “Uh-oh, he coughed,” Sonny said. “Must be Cigar smoke.”

If there was any smoke it was from the torch that had just been passed. The racing world had been given a glimpse of the future, and its color was battleship gray.

As Skip Away fought off Cigar’s challenge down the stretch, Carolyn stood in her box, pounding the rail with both fists, shouting, “Come on Skip. Come on Skip.” As soon as they crossed the wire, with Skip Away the winner by a head, one of Carolyn’s guests shouted in disbelief. “You beat Cigar! You beat Cigar!”

Skip Away and Sonny could not have given Carolyn a better anniversary present. In the executive offices following the race, Sonny saw Cigar’s owner Allen Paulson and said to him, “You’re a credit to the game. I really admire you. You’ve gone everywhere and you’ve run everywhere – you’re really a great sport.” The torch had indeed been passed.

At the barn, Sonny handed out hundred-dollar bills to just about everyone in the barn, from Stephens’ stable help to the security guards. He and Carolyn had to catch a helicopter to the airport, but there was one more thing he had to see before they left.

“First he’s got to go in his stall and lay down and roll and then I’ll be happy,” Sonny said. As if on cue, Skip Away was led into the stall once occupied by Forty Niner and rolled over on both sides.

“Look at him,” Sonny said. “He’s still full of himself. He’s not even tired. Isn’t he amazing? He doesn’t get tired; he gets tougher. OK, now we can go home.”

**************

I knew what was coming and wasn’t looking forward to it. For Sonny and Carolyn, the gloom of a gray November morning befitted the occasion. It was time for them to say goodbye to Skip Away. They had followed the horse’s van from Churchill Downs to Hopewell Farm near Midway, and after their goodbyes they would begin their long drive home down to Florida, knowing Skip Away was no longer a part of their daily lives.

Carolyn had already done some heavy duty crying in the car, but she and Sonny knew the worst was yet to come. “The drive went too quickly,” Carolyn said after arriving at the farm. “It’s going to be such a void in our lives. It was like there was magnet drawing me to his stall every day.”

As Skip Away was led into his new home and stared through the Dutch doors in the back of his stall at his new surroundings, Sonny said, “He loves it here. Look at him looking around at everything. Well, you deserved it, buddy. You really earned it.”

Carolyn was in tears, feeling she was deserting Skip Away, and kept telling him she loved him. Even his groom, Jose Luis Sanchez, was crying, as Carolyn went over to console him. “It hurts,” he said.

Finally it was time for Sonny and Carolyn to leave. “Skip, we’ve got to leave you here,” Sonny said. “I’m sorry. I’ll let you go now. Goodbye old buddy. We’ll see you later.”

But Sonny would never see Skip Away again. All through the horse’s 5-year-old campaign he had been battling cancer and was too weak to travel.

Sonny always said it was Carolyn and Skip Away who kept him going when he found it difficult to put one foot in front of the other. When he became ill with the flu early in 2000, Sonny insisted on going to the barn, because, as Carolyn said, “He just loved his horses so much.” He developed pneumonia and in his already weakened state, was unable to fight it. It was the only fight Sonny would ever lose.

After he died, his physician was in tears. He had watched Sonny travel around the country with Skip Away, despite suffering the effects of chemotherapy, and knew it was only his courage and perseverance that enabled him to do it. It was that same perseverance and dedication that drove him to the barn to be with his horses, despite the risk involved.

Following Sonny’s death, Carolyn had to adjust to life without him, but found it increasingly difficult. Her first priority was to sell all the horses, keeping just one or two. She finally was able to visit Skip Away later that year, in Oct. 2000. Being in Kentucky for the Breeders’ Cup, I met her at Hopewell Farm and witnessed the emotional reunion.

Carolyn’s main goal in life was to see Sonny and Skip Away inducted into the Hall of Fame. The first became a reality in 2003 when Sonny was voted in, and Carolyn asked me to make the presentation speech, which I was honored to do. The following year, Skip Away joined him.

“It’s a closure, Carolyn said afterward. “This is what I’ve been praying for. I’m grateful to have been blessed with such a wonderful husband and wonderful horse. I’m so proud of Sonny and so proud of Skippy. I don’t ever want that bubble to burst. Now I can go on and live with all my pride. The two most important men in my life are in the Hall of Fame.”

Help support Old Friends by purchasing Skipingo Home, the true story of Skip Away's little brother.

Viva Canonero! Part 2

Blood-Horse Staff — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 01:19:00 GMT

As the Kentucky Derby hoopla began to quiet down, a stunned racing world was still trying to recover from the bombshell that had fallen on Churchill Downs. An obscurely bred, crooked legged, harlequin of a horse from Venezuela, who had been ridiculed by the press and local horsemen, had just concluded the most bizarre journey and adventure in the history of the Kentucky Derby. Like Clark Kent turning into Superman, Canonero II had turned into the “Caracas Cannonball,” a term by which he became known.

With all of Venezuela still celebrating this unlikely victory, Canonero, trainer Juan Arias, and groom Juan Quintero arrived in Baltimore for the Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the Triple Crown.

But, once again, trouble awaited them. Shortly after arriving, Canonero refused to eat. Veterinarian Ralph Yergey was called in to look at the colt, with an interpreter needed for Yergey and Arias to communicate with each other. Canonero had developed a case of thrush, a foot infection usually caused by a horse standing in its own urine.

Not only did Canonero have foot problems, he was also cutting his tongue on a loose baby tooth, and had contracted a low-grade fever. Six days before the Preakness, Dr. Yergey switched his medication from pen-strep, a standard antibiotic mixture, to ampicillin because the lidocaine in the pen-strep would have shown up in a urine test.

Despite Canonero’s powerful victory in the Derby, most people were convinced the race was a fluke. The final time was a slow 2:03 1/5, and Canonero’s running style of coming from 20 lengths back was hardly suitable to the Preakness, which was run at a shorter distance and over a speed-favoring track with tighter turns. It was the fast Calumet Farm colt Eastern Fleet who looked to be the perfect Preakness-type horse, and many of the “experts” seemed to favor him over Canonero.

Disdain for the Derby winner grew after Canonero worked an agonizingly slow five furlongs in 1:06. One trainer commented afterward, “That was about a fifth of a second faster than might have been expected of a plow horse.” Another said, “If I had that horse and he worked that slow, I’d put him on the first slow boat to South America.”

Arias, however, was thrilled with the work. “Perfecto,” he said. “He’s ready for Saturday.” He later told the Baltimore Sun, “They laughed at us in Louisville, and they’re laughing at us in Baltimore. But it is we who will be laughing at the whole racing world!”

What people didn’t realize was that there was a lot more to Canonero than what appeared on the surface. When a Baltimore radiologist, Dr. George Burke, took an electrocardiogram of the horse, he discovered his heartbeat was only 30 beats per minute, which was five less than the average horse. “Fantastic,” Burke said. “That’s as low as a horse will go.”

Canonero and Jim French shared favoritism at 3-1, with Eastern Fleet, the main danger to steal the race on the front end, bet down to 6-1. This time Baptista came for the race. What he and everyone else witnessed was in many ways more remarkable than what had transpired in the Derby. The mindset going into the race was that Canonero, breaking from the disadvantageous 9-post, would again have to drop far out of it and make his big late run over the speed-conducive track. But they forgot that this was no ordinary horse, and that he never did anything by the rules.

Eastern Fleet, as expected, shot to the lead, but as shocked as everyone was when Canonero unleashed his 18th to first move in the Derby, they were even more shocked to see him burst out of the gate and go right after Eastern Fleet. How could a horse who came from 20 lengths back in the Derby and then worked a dawdling five furlongs in 1:06 at Pimlico show that much speed?

Canonero sat right off Eastern Fleet and then moved in for the kill as they turned up the backstretch. For the next five-eighths of a mile the two were at each other’s throat. After a half in :47, they sizzled the next quarter in :23 2/5, while opening up five lengths on the rest of the field. The farther they went the more they opened up.

No one could believe what they were seeing, as the pair went the opening six furlongs in a sizzling 1:10 2/5 and the mile in 1:35. Someone had to crack, and it was Eastern Fleet. Canonero, despite running his six furlongs four and two-fifths seconds (or 22 lengths) faster than he had in the Derby, was showing no signs of tiring. He pulled away from Eastern Fleet inside the eighth pole, again still on his wrong lead, and crossed the wire 1 1/2 lengths in front, with Eastern Fleet 4 1/2 lengths ahead of Jim French. The horse people had laughed at as being as slow as a “plow horse” had just run the 1 3/16 miles in 1:54 flat, breaking Nashua’s track record by three-fifths of a second.

Back in Venezuela, five million people watched the race on television, and once again the country erupted in celebration. Baptista rushed to the winner’s circle pumping his fist, then pointing it up to the sky, shouting, “Belmont! Belmont! Belmont!”

When asked how he felt, Baptista said, “We have come up here – two Indians (he and Avila) and a black man (Arias) with a horse that nobody believed in, and we are destroying 200 years of American racing tradition, dominated by the cream of your society. This is a monumental event for international relations. You cannot imagine the impact this has had in Venezuela. Canonero is truly a horse of the people.”

When Arias was asked how he got Canonero to run so fast off such a slow work, all he said was, “They could not hold back destiny.”

Before vanning to Belmont, Canonero was honored at Pimlico between races. He was led onto the track to the playing of the Venezuelan national anthem, as the applause began to build from those in attendance. In the winner’s circle, Maryland Governor Marvin Mandel signed a document proclaiming the members of the Canonero team honorary citizens of Maryland. Arias, Baptista, and Avila, dressed in suits and ties, stood with their arms locked together. Canonero wore four orange bandages and a white cooler, and when Quintero removed his cooler, the horse strutted proudly on the turf course with his ears straight up. But at one point Canonero became spooked and nearly got loose from Quintero who had to hang on for dear life.

When Canonero arrived at Belmont Park, a circus replaced the freak show of Churchill Downs. Between veterinarians and countless advisors to Baptista all trying to run the show, Arias had to deal with new physical problems that were plaguing Canonero, as well as some of the old ones. The colt was still suffering from thrush, and now his right hock had become swollen. He burned his heels while galloping at Belmont, and then came down with a severe skin disease that covered a good portion of his body.

Security was posted at his barn 24 hours a day. He even appeared on the Today Show when former major league baseball player and author Joe Garagiola came out to the barn to “interview” him. Canonero was brought out, and Garagiola stuck a microphone in his face and began asking him questions, such as, “Where’d you get that haircut?”

Canonero’s physical problems forced him to miss several days of training. Like at Churchill Downs and Pimlico, the cynics were out in full force. There was no way a horse in this condition could win the Belmont. “They still think we’re a bunch of crazy Indians,” Arias said.

But deep down Arias knew that this time Canonero would not be at his best. Veterinarian Dr. William O. Reed examined the colt and told Arias he was only 75% ready to go a mile and a half. Even Sports Illustrated tried to convince Arias and Baptista not to run. An editorial that appeared in the magazine a week before the Belmont read: “Perhaps sometime before the Belmont this Saturday, Canonero’s handlers will forego false national pride and scratch the horse. We hope so. He is in bad shape and has been for a week.”

Arias knew in his heart that Canonero probably shouldn’t run, but there was too much at stake, and the trainer still believed the horse could win. After all, this was a horse of destiny and how can you stand in the way of destiny?

All of Venezuela had embraced the horse as a national hero, and throughout the country came the cries of “Viva Canonero!” Plans were in the works to erect a statue of him at La Rinconada. Songs about Canonero were being played on the radio. At one civil registry office in Venezuela, a couple submitted the name Canonero Segundo (Canonero the second) for their newborn son. At Belmont, a film was made called “The Ballad of Canonero,” featuring a song of the same name. It was later shown on television and was named best sports film of the year at the 15th “Annual International Film and TV Festival of New York.”

It was too late to turn back now.

A group of about 2,000 Venezuelans made the trip for the Belmont Stakes, many wearing T-shirts reading: “Viva Canonero!” and “Viva Venezuela!” New York’s Puerto Rican community adopted Canonero, and Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics poured into Belmont Park by the thousands. The official crowd of 82,694 destroyed the previous record of 67,961. The new mark would stand for 28 years.

Hours before the race, radio broadcasters in Venezuela asked the people to honk their car horns and churches to peal their bells at the precise same moment. Right before the race the city of Caracas was like a ghost town, with its citizens glued to their televisions.

As it turned out, Canonero’s many maladies proved much stronger than destiny. The colt went to the front and ran as far and as fast as his battle-weary legs and body could take him. He tried gallantly, but could finish no better than fourth, beaten only 4 1/2 lengths by longshot Pass Catcher. Even as the Derby and Preakness winner began to tire turning for home, cries of “Canonero!” resounded throughout the huge grandstand. Jim French and Bold Reason, two colts Canonero had already manhandled, finished second and third, respectively.

The morning after the race, Dr. Reed examined Canonero and said the colt still was showing signs of extreme fatigue. Baptista looked at the defeat philosophically and told those close to the horse not to hold their heads down. “Be cheerful,” he said. “We have become rich and famous, the horse is all right, and the future is ahead of us.”

Baptista had turned down several lucrative offers for Canonero, but felt the time was now right to sell. Shortly after the Belmont, he sold Canonero to Robert Kleberg, owner of King Ranch, for $1.5 million.

Canonero did not run again until the following May, finishing second in the Carter Handicap, but proceeded to lose his next five races as well, with only a second in an allowance race to his credit. It was obvious he was no longer the same horse. His new trainer, Buddy Hirsch, tried blinkers, but that didn’t help. As a last resort, he summoned Canonero’s old jockey, Gustavo Avila, to come up from Venezuela to ride the horse in a 1 1/16-mile allowance race at Belmont. The colt showed some of his old spark, dashing to the lead and cutting out blazing fractions of :45 1/5 and 1:09 1/5 before tiring to finish a respectable fifth.

With the sleeping giant now showing signs of awakening, Hirsch and Avila agreed that a return to blinkers would help his concentration. Hirsch entered Canonero in the 1 1/8-mile Stymie Handicap on Sept. 20, 1972, where he would be facing that year’s Kentucky Derby and Belmont winner Riva Ridge, who was conceding 13 pounds to Canonero. Around the far turn, it was apparent that this was the Canonero of old, as he hooked up with Riva Ridge in a battle of Kentucky Derby winners. As he did with Eastern Fleet, Canonero locked horns with Riva Ridge all the way to the eighth and ran him into the ground, drawing off to a five-length victory. His time of 1:46 1/5 broke the track record by three-fifths of a second and equaled the American record.

There was still greatness in Canonero, who proved his spectacular Derby and Preakness victories were no fluke. But the Stymie was to be his final hurrah. Still plagued by various physical problems, he finished second in an allowance race in the mud and was retired to Gainesway Farm in Lexington, Ky.

Baptista managed to straighten out his business, but died in 1984 at age 57. Arias, despite the fame he achieved with Canonero, never was able to build up his stable, and his career plummeted to the point where he barely was able to eke out a living training one or two horses. Married with two children, he was forced to retire from training and took a government job, working as a technician for Consejo Nacional Electoral. But horses were still in his blood, and on weekends he’d go to La Rinconada to visit with friends and occasionally work with the horses just to be around them, as he had a youngster. Avila, known in Venezuela as “The Monster,” continued to ride successfully for several years and also rode for a while in the United States. After retiring, he became involved with real estate investments, and then was hired as a steward at La Rinconada. Arias also became a steward, and the two became a team once again. Avila retired, and at age 70, leads a private life. Arias also retired and can be found most days at the track.

Canonero never made it as a stallion and was sent back to Venezuela in Feb. 1981 to stand at Haras Tamanaco. The only stakes horse he sired there was the group II-placed El Tejano, who was ridden by none other than Avila.

Arias was always saddened that Canonero never made it as a stallion, feeling he wasn’t given the opportunity. “The quality of mares he was bred to was not appropriate for a horse they expected so much from,” he said.

Even after all these years, Arias admits his eyes still tear up whenever he thinks back on Canonero’s magical journey. “He was a giant in the United States, even though no one believed in him,” he said. “When we arrived in Kentucky, there were nothing but jokes. But Canonero was a battler and had such a big heart.

On Nov. 11, 1981, that big heart gave out, as Canonero was found dead in his stall. By then, the magnificent decade of the seventies was history, with Secretariat, Forego, Seattle Slew, Affirmed, Alydar, and Spectacular Bid all stamping their place in the record books. But few remembered that it was Canonero who paved the way for these media stars and the resurgence of the sport.

By the time of his death, the cries of “Viva Canonero” had faded to a mere whisper, and the horse who had electrified the racing world had slipped quietly back into the obscurity from which came.

Canonero’s Derby and Preakness trophies were given to La Rinconada, but they were not exhibited anywhere. The statue of him was never built. As the years pass by and new generations of racing fans emerge, the name of Canonero drifts deeper into memory, as do his amazing feats.

But after nearly four decades, it is time to remember Canonero, and a special time in racing when the entire sport was set ablaze by a horse they called the “Caracas Cannonball.”

View From the Verrazano

Blood-Horse Staff — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 18:10:00 GMT

On Sunday, I leave for Lexington, Ky. to shoot our next “And They’re Off” video and attend the Keeneland fall yearling sale. The last time I traveled to Lexington in September was in 2001 to attend “John Henry Day” at the Kentucky Horse Park and to do a book signing with Ron McAnally. My “Legends” series book on John Henry had been released that summer. Flying back the following day, as we approached Newark Airport, we flew right past the World Trade Center and I commented to my wife and daughter how beautiful the Twin Towers looked shimmering in the evening sun. Two days later, they were gone.

As the years distance themselves from events, it reaches a point where it is more meaningful to recall thoughts and feelings as they actually happened rather than write a retrospective of the event years later.

As we approach the seventh anniversary of 9/11, I thought, rather than rehash how one of the most cataclysmic events in American history affected the racing world, I would reprint a story I wrote of my visit to Belmont Park four days later on Sept. 15 in order to recapture the atmosphere and the emotions that prevailed at the time, as well my own observations and feelings.

View From the Verrazano

Driving over the Verrazano Bridge into Brooklyn on the morning of Sept. 15, it was apparent why the New York Racing Association decided at the last minute to cancel racing until Sept. 19. Any thoughts of Belmont Park or Thoroughbred racing were obliterated by the sight of the seemingly naked skyline of Lower Manhattan off to the left and the deathly shroud that still hung over it.

The Statue of Liberty, once nestled under the shadow of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, now stood under an ominous ashen cloud that stretched across New York Harbor all the way to New Jersey.

After the initial shock of seeing nothing where the Twin Towers used to stand, one had to marvel at how the mighty city could have both its arms ripped out and still retain its ability to embrace.

Throughout New York, millions of hands linked to form an unbreakable chain. And beneath that gaping space where the World Trade Center once filled the sky, many of those hands scraped and clawed through tons of steel, oblivious to the crippled structures standing precariously above them.

With pride and sadness competing for dominance in the mind and heart, there was little room left for celebrations other than the discovery of life among the ruins. So, New York Racing Association officials decided at 10 a.m. Friday that the cheers and the trophies could wait.
Thoroughbred racing, like most everything now, is a mere speck against the cataclysmic events of Sept. 11, and New Yorkers were not quite ready for any diversions to take their mind off the horrific wounds that they, and all Americans, had suffered.

But life did go on at Belmont Saturday morning, as horses and horsemen went about their daily chores. Unlike other athletes across the country, Thoroughbreds have been oblivious to the darkest day in American history. There were no billowing black clouds of smoke or haunting images to obscure their view. They still saw the same wide open spaces before them and felt the same crisp breezes blowing in their face. And on Wednesday, when Belmont reopens, just maybe, for a few hours, they will be able to help people see and feel something beautiful again after a week of unspeakable anguish.

“We understand we need to get back to normal, but unlike the other tracks that are racing, we're just so close to it,” NYRA president Terry Meyocks said. “There's so much tension around here, we felt it wasn't in the best interest of New York to conduct racing so quickly. We were going to race, but then baseball, football, golf, and NASCAR all canceled, and Friday was proclaimed a day of mourning. We’ve developed a good rapport with the communities over the years, and we realized that there's a lot more to life than racing this weekend. It just wasn’t the right thing to do. The employees and the horsemen are still pretty somber, and this will give them another weekend to be with friends and family.”

All around Belmont were sights and sounds that continued to pummel Tuesday’s disaster into our psyche. On the Belt Parkway, just outside the gates of Aqueduct, a funeral procession headed east, escorted by two police cars and a fire engine, strongly suggesting it was for one of the deceased firefighters. On the Staten Island Expressway, another police car escorted a dump truck, filled with debris from the World Trade Center, to the Great Kills dump.

At the Belmont stable gate, a sign was tucked into the window of the booth, showing the American flag, with the words “Pray For America.”

Media pins no longer wielded the same authority as before. “I can get that in a box of Cracker Jacks,” the security guard said. “Let me see the ID number on the back.” The guard, who wished to remain anonymous, later said, “You can imagine what it’s been like around here. It’s pretty morbid. But everyone has been showing solidarity. Everyone is proud to be an American. A lot of people were very upset when they originally announced they were going to race.”

Tony Pittelli, a security guard directing traffic inside the backstretch, was happy to see planes flying overhead once again. “The mood hasn’t been too good,” he said. “One of my sons lost his sister-in-law, and one of the riders here lost his son-in-law. His daughter and son-in-law had been married for two years and have a one-year-old baby. Unbelievable. It’s just terrible.”

Buzz Tenney, assistant to Shug McGaughey, can’t believe how quiet the backstretch has been. “It feels like it does when a meet is over and you’re just hanging around waiting to move to the next track,” he said. “We're all going through our work, but there’s been only one topic of conversation.”

As Tenney spoke, Tiznow, who has been stabled in their barn, walked down the shed with Ramon Arciga aboard. Last year’s Horse of the Year has been unable to return home to California following his third-place finish in the Sept. 8 Woodward Stakes. “We're stuck here,” Arciga said. “We were supposed to have left Wednesday, then again on Friday. Now they say Tuesday, but we're not sure when we'll be leaving.”

One barn that has been affected in a much different way is the Godolphin stable of Sheikh Mohammed. The Godolphin grooms are all Pakistanis, and they have been told by assistant trainer Laurent Barbarin to keep a low profile. “It’s a very difficult situation,” Barbarin said. “I spoke to them and told them to stay quiet. It's safer for everybody. But we’re all holding up very well.”

Another trainer, Bobby Frankel, was scheduled to return to California on Monday, following You’s appearance in Sunday’s Matron Stakes.
“It’s tough getting a commercial flight, so I’ll stay through the week and leave after I run Squirtle Squirt in the Vosburgh Saturday,” he said. Frankel ran into racing secretary Mike Lakow, who was driving out of the stable area, and said about canceling the races, “You definitely did the right thing.”

Neil Howard, who had entered Secret Status in Saturday’s Ruffian Handicap, was also forced to remain in New York. He had originally been scheduled to fly out of LaGuardia to Louisville on Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. “I'll just stay here for a while and point Secret Status for the Beldame. Even if we had won the Ruffian, how can you go in the winner’s circle and act happy?”

One person who has been doing everything he can to offer assistance is veterinarian Russell Cohen, who purchased two dozen work gloves from True Value and several cases of soda, then brought them to the fire house on 48th Street and Seventh Avenue, which had lost 14 firefighters – one third of its entire crew. He also brought other goods to a police precinct in the Bronx. From 48th Street, he walked down to Canal Street, offering his services in case the police needed any assistance with their horses.

"There’s nothing much we can do, but every little bit helps,” Cohen said. “I’ve done work for the ASPCA before, and was on the Animal Planet (network) once, so a lot of the people know me. I just found out that one horse owner, a member of a syndicate, was killed at the World Trade Center. And there’s probably more that we don't know about.”

So, Belmont Park sits back and quietly waits for the country to return to some sense of normalcy. Because of the timing factor, four of the five stakes scheduled this weekend have been canceled, while the Jerome Handicap will be run next Saturday.

Returning back over the Verrazano, smoke from newly ignited fires continued to rise from the ashes of Lower Manhattan, adding to the hell-like conditions. But beneath the smoke, the Statue of Liberty could be seen, now sparkling like an emerald in the late morning sun, reminding us that there is still a great, powerful city out there waiting to get on with its life.