Post Parade

POST PARADE

OCTOBER 15, 2013

Doing what's best

by Vance Hanson

The mantra of "doing what's best for the horse," often used by horsemen as a

riposte to criticisms that their champion steed is engaged in an

ambitiously-challenged campaign, is, at its core, an argument hard to refute.

Who else but those personally involved with the day-to-day care and well-being

of the animal in question is better to judge where its long-term interests lie?

The irony is that its usage is almost entirely limited to explaining why

horses are not running in a specific race or races. In nearly three

decades of following the game, I don't think I've ever heard the phrase used as

a bottom-line justification for running.

This observation has been triggered by the news that the connections of

Princess of Sylmar, the nation's leading three-year-old filly, have not

completely ruled out a trip to California for the Breeders' Cup Distaff,

reversing an earlier claim in the wake of her victory over dual champion mare

Royal Delta in the September 28 Beldame that her season was done.

A trip to the Breeders' Cup would normally be a no-brainer but for the fact

Princess of Sylmar would have to be nominated to the tune of $100,000 in order

to compete. The filly has earned more than $1.5 million in prize money this

year, but the fee can hardly be considered chump change, even for owners with

relatively deep pockets.

There would certainly be some things to gain by running, both tangible and

intangible. The Distaff's $2-million purse is easily the richest on offer for

fillies and mares in this country, and Princess of Sylmar is currently in the

form to have a good shot at winning the largest share. The prestige of the race

also can't be denied, with an honor roll overflowing with Hall of Fame names and

those of future inductees.

On the flip side, there is an incredible amount to lose. With consecutive

wins in the Kentucky Oaks, Coaching Club American Oaks, Alabama, and Beldame,

the latter over the nation's top older mare, Princess of Sylmar virtually sewed

up champion three-year-old filly honors weeks ago. One might dispute how

important championships are in the grand scheme of things, but they do give

racing some semblance of being an actual sport, nor do they look so bad on a

catalog page.

Over an unfamiliar track that has a history of being kind to horses with a

particular running style on Breeders' Cup day, Princess of Sylmar's secure hold

on a championship could be stripped in a matter of strides, and there are two

serious contenders to the throne hoping to overthrow its present occupant.

The speed-crazy Beholder, who is undefeated in four starts around two turns

at Santa Anita, is an obvious threat. Princess of Sylmar beat her by a

half-length in the Kentucky Oaks, but the title could easily be won by the

Richard Mandella trainee if given the opportunity to avenge that loss.

Close Hatches is a bit of a longshot, but would certainly be worthy of a

championship if she were to upset the Distaff. She is the only horse to have

beaten Princess of Sylmar this year (by 3 1/4 lengths in the April 6 Gazelle at

Aqueduct), and though she was a well-beaten seventh in the Kentucky Oaks, she

would have a 2-1 edge over that rival if she were to beat her again in the

Distaff, a race she enters off back-to-back wins in the Mother Goose and the

Cotillion.

The Breeders' Cup is undoubtedly great theater when the very best in training

face each other and divisional championships are decided. However, history shows

the series is not the be all and end all, and titles can and have been won long

before the big day's arrival.

If the connections of Princess of Sylmar ultimately decide to run her in the

Breeders' Cup Distaff, I hope they do so only because it is what's best for the

horse.

***

Hall of Fame baseball player Roger Maris was long perturbed at the suggestion

that his single-season record of 61 home runs, set in 1961, required an asterisk

in the record books as he needed 162 games to surpass the mark set by Babe Ruth,

who hit 60 home runs in just 154 games in 1927.

While that matter is best left for baseball fans and historians to argue

about, there are some records in Thoroughbred racing, particularly associated

with dollars earned, that should require an asterisk if not total revision.

On Sunday, jockey John Velazquez officially surpassed the retired Pat Day's

all-time money-earning record. Velazquez's mounts have now earned the tidy sum

of $297,922,320.

Ballooning purses over the past three decades -- really since the advent of

the Breeders' Cup -- have made such gaudy figures possible. However, inflation

over a much longer period has diminished the real value of each and every one of

those dollars.

Several years ago in this space, I wrote that Kelso would still be among the

country's all-time leading money winner if his earnings, accumulated in the

first half of the 1960s, were adjusted for inflation. If it was possible for me

to mathematically fine tune the earnings records of several past champions using

the Consumer Price Index tables, surely it is possible for the sport's record

keepers to do the same.

This is surely no indictment on the career of Velazquez, a worthy member of

the Hall of Fame who presumably has many great years of riding left. But for

this particular record to have any meaning requires the adjustment of earnings

by horses, trainers, and jockeys in the past better to reflect how much those

greenbacks would buy today.