Two Feel-Good Horses Hit Roadblocks

When I was in Florida in February, I thought I’d gotten a sneak preview of two returning Champions who figured to be the two feel-good stories of this year. They were stabled just 10 miles apart: War Pass, last year’s undefeated Two-Year-Old Champion Colt, and Three-Year-Old Filly Champion Rags to Riches, the first filly in 102 years to win the mile-and-a-half Belmont Stakes, the final leg of the Triple Crown.

At the Palm Meadows training track, Hall of Fame trainer Nick Zito was supervising the return of War Pass, who had dominated his opponents in four starts last year and was the early favorite for the 2008 Kentucky Derby. I witnessed War Pass tear through his breakfast and saw how much he had filled out and grown from two to three. He looked nothing short of magnificent, and he raced that way when he made his much anticipated three-year-old debut later that week in an allowance race at Gulfstream Park. He won easily despite the hammerlock jockey Cornelio Velasquez had on him.

The prep seemed ideal, and when War Pass entered the starting gate at Tampa Bay Downs as the 1-20 favorite in the Grade 3 $300,000 Tampa Bay Derby March 15th he appeared invincible.

That notion changed abruptly when the gates sprang open and War Pass bobbled slightly to avoid another horse. War Pass had raced on the lead in all five of his starts, but now he would have to do something new: settle among horses and come from off the pace. War Pass tried dragging Velasquez to the lead, but they alternated in third and fourth through the first turn and onto the backstretch.

Nobody could have envisioned what happened next. War Pass had nothing to offer as Velasquez tried to get him to advance on the horses in front of him. Instead, he quickly plummeted back, ultimately finishing last. Checking War Pass from head to toe after the race for any physical problems found none. There was mention of a slight fever in the week preceding the Tampa Bay Derby, but that was quickly dismissed. He was fine when he entered the starting gate. He either hated the track, or hated not being on the lead, or simply is not as good at the age of three as he was at two.

An undefeated champion was suddenly a question mark to not only win the Kentucky Derby, but to even be in it. His next expected start in the $750,000 Grade 1 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct April 3rd will be the defining moment of War Pass’s career. He will either prove that the Tampa Bay Derby was an aberration or fail to fire again. If that happens, he may never race again.

Not too many furlongs from Palm Meadows, trainer Todd Pletcher was supervising Rags to Riches’ return to racing at secluded Palm Beach Downs. After out-gaming subsequent Horse of the Year Curlin to win last year’s Belmont Stakes by a desperate head, Rags to Riches suffered a hairline fracture of her pastern (ankle) while she finished second by half a length to Lear’s Princess in the $250,000 Gazelle Stakes last September.

She had seemingly recovered. Pletcher let me spend an entire morning watching how he handles his massive 102-horse stable at Palm Beach Downs for a feature story I was writing. So I was able to not only watch Rags to Riches gallop, but also observe her cooling out afterwards before she was bathed outside her stall. She was walked again by her groom and found her breakfast, a stack of hay hoisted outside her door, waiting for her when she returned. She devoured it.

Pletcher said he was pleased with her progress and, not too long after my visit, she had her first workout. That went well, as did another. But Pletcher, who has won four consecutive Eclipse Awards as North America’s outstanding trainer, did not like the way she galloped on March 23rd. X-rays were taken and Pletcher discovered that her injury from the year before hadn’t completely healed.

Quickly, a decision was made. There was only one conceivable course of action and that was to retire her immediately. She will be bred to Giant’s Causeway this spring.

And as hard as that decision was on her owners, Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith, and her fans, it was even harder for not only Pletcher, but his entire staff as well. The decision to return her to racing as a four-year-old wasn’t made lightly. When she returned to training, she was regarded by Pletcher, his assistant trainers, her grooms and her exercise rider, as special - which she was.

And as difficult it is for all her fans, can you imagine what it was like for the people who handled her every day at the barn? They know that this is part of racing, but that doesn’t make it any easier to digest when you look in her empty stall. In the span of just eight days, everything had changed for War Pass and Rags to Riches.