Tag Archives: Florida

Hialeah

HIALEAH, Fl–Behind the rolled and faded elegance of the old Mediterranean clubhouse, shaded in the late afternoon by the long shadows of wispy Australian pines, at the edge of Hialeah Park`s tropical paddock stands a statue of Citation.

The great horse is a sentry guarding yesterday, a bronzed memory maybe even too distant for the wrinkled citizens who sit on webbed chairs and watch the odds dance on the auxiliary tote board.

On the second day of a new calendar, on the earliest Flamingo Day ever, Citation waits to review, as he has now for nearly four decades, the next generation of thoroughbreds.

They must pass him to enter the tunnel that will take them to the same track that launched Citation in 1948.

Others, too. They’ve nearly all been by, all the great ones. Seabiscuit. Nashua. Bold Ruler. Tim Tam. Carry Back. Buckpasser. Seattle Slew. Alydar. Spectacular Bid.

That is when there was order in the world. The Flamingo was the first grand prize of spring, run in April, and the road to Kentucky passed under royal palms.

Citation won the Triple Crown from here, his jockey Eddie Arcaro getting the ride after Flamingo winner Eddie Snyder drowned off the Keys on a fishing trip.

The future rushes at Hialeah in cluttered urgency. Sunshine real estate is too valuable to indulge an age that knew not air conditioning.

Hialeah has been dumped to the bottom of Florida racetracks, with the worst racing dates, because it is better business that way. It will survive or it will die, either way with none of the grace that made it a legend.

Hialeah’s private treasures are hidden from the shabby warehouses and garages of unzoned commerce by the elegantly swaying pines.

Little has changed since the trees, the track and the patrons were young except now you can buy one ticket on all 10 races for a million dollar payoff. Dreams never go out of fashion, the gimmicks just get wilder.

The 59th Flamingo is a blind guess. It is so wide open that three horses must be excluded. There is room only for 14, and the only credential necessary seems to be age. Every horse in the race has turned three years old the day before.

This is a discount Flamingo, cheaper and sooner and less conclusive than any before it.

The best of the crop, a horse named Forty Niner, trained by the antique treasure, Woody Stephens, will not run. “It’s just too early in the season to be running your good 3-year-old,” said Stephens. “You can’t tighten a horse up on New Year’s.”

Stephens enters one not needing tightening, one with his own middle name—Cefis—that will finish third.

  1. Wayne Lukas, winner of the last two Flamingoes, supplements a horse named Couragized and finishes fifth.

John Campo, the round, loud trainer from New York, races a vaguely familiar name, Cherokee Colony, son of Campo’s 1981 Kentucky Derby winner, Pleasant Colony.

Cherokee Colony breaks 12th and wins with a rush down the stretch by a length over the aptly named Sorry About That.

“I rode his father, too,” says jockey Jorge Velasquez. “I think he’s better. He’s more willing. He’s stronger and better looking, too.”

“Who knows if he’ll stay together?” asks Campo, who knows he is still four months from what is important.

Only once in the last 20 years has the Flamingo been run in a slower time than the winner’s 1:49 4/5, which figures to be 18 lengths off the record. The time can be extended to barely two seconds faster than Forty Niner’s last controlled workout.

There is no sense of anything ending among the principals, no group picture is taken, no program saved or tucked under the saddle blanket.

This may be the last Flamingo, certainly the last as a major stakes race.   A million dollars less is bet than the year before. Attendance is more than halved. And everyone says it could have been worse.

Hialeah owner John Brunetti issues a statement that says he hopes no one is fooled into thinking Hialeah can go on like this.

The famed flamingoes, stocked a half century ago by early owner Joseph Widener, are fed shrimp to remain pink, which, at the price of appetizers today, is not a cheap indulgence.

They still fly up from their rookery on the infield lake before the feature race , circle and return, their duty done for the tourists and for dinner.

Though the birds do not insist on cocktail sauce or mesquite barbeque, their diet is only one expense that burdens the dowager queen of horse racing, still the loveliest place in the world ot go broke.

This is the place where once slim women in wide hats and long gloves walked on the arms of men in white suits. They came by train from Palm Beach to see the horses run, most of which they owned.

The train from Palm Beach does not stop here any more, but the Metrorail does and unloads trios of old men whose socks are too high.

The winning horse’s chest heaves as if he just pulled the train down from Palm Beach as he is led down shed row under the live oaks that once dappled his father and Secretariat and Swale.

That may be a tear below Citation’s eye.

Or something left by a pigeon.

Sentiment, at the race track, is a live ticket.

Florida Derby Field Mighty Appealing

Date: Friday, March 1, 1985
Source: By Bernie Lincicome, Chicago Tribune.
Section: SPORTS
Dateline: HALLANDALE, FLA.
Memo: In the wake of the news.

Headline: FLA. DERBY FIELD MIGHTY APPEALING

HALLANDALE, FLA. – When last we looked in on the wonderful world of horse racing, Devil’sBag was in disgrace and Swale was dead, though it is yet to be determined whogot the best of the deal.

Swale will, at least, always be a champion, while Devil’s Bag suffersincessant blind dates trying to prove that his heirs will be as fragile as hewas.

In addition, Swale was, as a corpse, voted the best 3-year-old on four,if stiff, legs, verifying the eternal wisdom that it is impossible to beat adead horse.

And now the world begins to search for their replacements, the firstsignificant evidence to be made available Saturday in Gulfstream’s FloridaDerby.

Unlike the enormous interest generated by Devil’s Bag last year, or maybebecause of it, there has been little early hype for this season’s TripleCrown contenders.

The only excessive boasting to be done so far has been by the owners ofan animal named Mighty Appealing, who won four of five races as a 2-year-oldand arrived in Florida behind bumper stickers and T-shirts announcing, “GetThat Mighty Appealing Feeling.”

After the horse twice finished eighth in Gulfstream preps to the rear ofthe same horses that it will again meet in the Florida Derby, a bumpersticker appeared saying, “Get That Mighty Appalling Feeling.”Confidence is a cruel flaw in horse racing.

Better to expect the worst, like Phil Simms, the crusty trainer of IrishSur, winner of this year’s Tropical Park Derby but only the most casual ofthreats Saturday.

“Listen,” said Simms. “I don’t think I can beat Woody’s horse and Idon’t think I can beat Veitch’s horse, but I need some proof.”Woody is Woody Stephens, who retired Devil’s Bag and buried Swale. Veitchis John Veitch, hairless trainer of Dr. Carter, who chased Stephens’ horseslast year and caught neither of them.

These two men are again the principal humans involved in the next TripleCrown adventure, though their new roles are reversed.

Veitch has the Florida Derby favorite, Proud Truth, and Stephens has thesecond choice, Stephan’s Odyssey. They would be ranked in the same order ifthis Derby had a different first name, like Kentucky, and the drink of theday was made with mint instead of lime juice.

The two horses raced against each other 11 days ago in the Fountain ofYouth with Veitch’s horse winning by a neck.

“You always got to beat somebody,” Stephens shrugged.

Veitch also has a spare horse, just in case something sinister shouldhappen to Proud Truth. The horse’s name is Script Ohio, and it will not runagainst its stablemate, just as Swale never ran against Devil’s Bag.

“It’s kind of like having a fullback and a halfback,” said Veitch.

“They don’t have to be in the game at the same time.”

Proud Truth and Script Ohio are owned by John Galbreath, were bred andraised at Galbreath’s Darby Dan Farm and at least one of them was named afterthe clever band formation that has long delighted followers of Ohio Statefootball, of which Galbreath is possibly the most notable.

“They’re more like his children than racehorses,” said Veitch.The animals, not the Ohio State band, though there has been the odd tubaplayer who could qualify as both.

Stephan’s Odyssey has a suspiciously similar name to that of Stephenshimself, just one vowel off, and for those who want to believe it, ownerHenryk deKwiatkowski will even agree to such romantic gibberish.How nice it would be if, at age 72, and after the ordeal of Devil’s Bagand Swale, Stephens could win the Kentucky Derby with a horse who is hisnamesake.

But around the family table, deKwiatkowski reassures a nephew that thehorse was named for him. Blood is at least as thick as business.

No matter. Proud Truth and Stephan’s Odyssey are the horses to watch inthe first important stakes of the year.

“A double-barreled shotgun,” said Danny Perlsweig, trainer of Do ItAgain Dan, another horse named for someone else.

The best 3-year-old on paper will be on the same track, but not in thesame race as the horses of Veitch and Stephens.

It is called Chief’s Crown, trained by Roger Laurin, and it won theEclipse Award as the best 2-year-old of 1984, but has yet to set hoof on turfthis season.

Chief’s Crown will run only 7 furlongs Saturday in a race manufacturedfor him and named after the late Swale, winner of last year’s Florida Derbyas a pre-cadaver.

So much is thought of Chief’s Crown that, like Devil’s Bag, he hasalready been syndicated, but with considerably more caution.

Only half of the syndication has been dispersed for $20 million. Theother half will be sold when and if the horse finally does something tojustify greater investment.

Chief’s Crown has been bothered by a cough all winter, and not even theSouthern sun has been able to eliminate it, not an uncommon complaint fromhuman tourists who fail to find Florida cures even at larcenous prices.

As far as is known, however, during his lengthy recuperaton, Chief’sCrown has resisted wearing black kneesocks with flowered shorts.