Morvich and the Pimlico Futurity, 1921

re: Morvich and the Pimlico Futurity, 1921

class counts — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 15:37:25 GMT

Laurel...remember the D.C. International...Kelso ...Mongo ...Delaware Park...Mrs Richard C. duPont...Mrs. Walter M. Jeffors...Tempted...a kid jock named McCarron...Old Garden State Park...The Trenton Handicap...Smart...Bernie Bond...a front running Walter Blum...In the Mid-Atlantic region this was what horse racing was about. It was about great horses, great people, and a respect for the greatest sport of all. Until the region's states can agree on some sort of sane racing schedule, we the race fans, will be subjected to the same program currently thrown at us...SEE KEENELAND FOR NEW IDEAS!!

re: Morvich and the Pimlico Futurity, 1921

joe — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:27:53 GMT

Laurel was well on its way to seediness in the fall of 1983; my only track experience was beautiful Belmont Park. But I have very good memories of that pre-Breeder's Cup Day when "Devil's Bag" looked right into my camera heading to the charming old saddling enclosure. I still see him opening up over Hail Bold King in the stretch of the LaurelFuturity. There was something charming and "country fair" about Laurel-the backdrop of autumn foliage-yet championship that day in '83.

re: Morvich and the Pimlico Futurity, 1921

CRob87 — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 21:29:41 GMT

It's a real shame that the Laurel Futurity is no more. I'm from Ohio where racing is also dead nowdays, but always liked finding out who won each years Laurel Futurity.

It almost seemed to be the kind of race that would predict future stallion success considering the list of Champions who won the race and went on to be successful stallions.

I especially loved when it became a Turf race. I actually thought that after Barbaro won it that the race itself would continue on for years to come. I guess I was wrong.

It is a real shame !!!

I'm not too familiar with the problems in Maryland racing, but would like to know what it would take to bring it back permanently ???

re: Morvich and the Pimlico Futurity, 1921

Whatever — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:55:42 GMT

With all of Morvich's soundness problems I wonder what kind of sire he turned out to be. I mean; did he sire horses that were sound and capable of enduring long racing careers or did his offspring win a few races and retire early due to unsoundness/inevitable injury like their sire or did they make it to the racetrack at all.???? Just wondering because horses with bad knees usually produce horses with bad/poorly conformed knees like themselves. My point is that this is perhaps, I'll need to do some serious research, but unsoundness breeds more unsoundness and it may explain why the thoroughbred breed, through the decades, has progessively become weaker and weaker. This industry is losing top runners left and right to catastrophic breakdowns and nobody attributes this to the years and years of breeders ignoring obvious confirmation flaws due to a stallions lightening fast speed, even if that stallion was physically only capable of running a few times or nearly died on the track of a horrible breakdown themself only to be retired to pass on their tenderly brittle bone confirmation and unsoundness. Anybody care about this stuff or is it that speed rules and everything else is secondary. Wanderin Boy didn't take a BAD STEP, his leg gave out IMO due to past injuries that weakened his leg strength and of course extreme fatigue; when his leg gave out that horse was obviously exhausted to the point where if that jockey didn't have a whip to force him to continue running Wanderin Boy would have been naturally shortening his stride because of fatigue. When you run and get tired what do YOU do, push yourself to keep going faster and faster, what if your leg is hurting because you twisted it coming out of a turn did you keep pushing yourself to the max, is someone behind you forcing you to run on it. Nobody needs 8 years of veterinary school to figure out what happened to Wanderin boy, just some common horsesense.