Free-Legged: Exciting fight looms in Futurity
October 3, 2007,by Dean A. Hoffman
Dean Hoffman Columbus, OH —
Nothing has caused him to work up much of a sweat this season as he’s disdainfully brushed aside all challenges, turning contenders into pretenders.
Still, the filly Pampered Princess and the supplements Val Taurus and Green Day are certainly going to make the Futurity more interesting than another cake walk for Donato.
Still, you gotta like Donato. His class and consistency are remarkable, and so is the training job done by Steve Elliott. When you think of all the things that can go wrong with horses, a streak like Donato’s is quite amazing.
Horses can get sick. Horses can take a bad step and fill a tendon. Horses can get banged up shipping. Horses can be the best in a race and suffer interference.
Yes, all those things — and more — can happen to horses, but some horses have a way of overcoming calamities that can sideline a lesser horse. But never, ever underestimate the care that must be taken with a horse to avoid all the pitfalls along the way.
Good horsemanship plays an important role, but so does good luck.
I don’t hold it against Donato that he won’t be a Triple Crown winner because he skipped the Yonkers Trot. Lots of good trotters in the past 20 years skipped the Yonkers Trot, just as lots of good pacers skipped the Cane or Messenger. That’s vitiated the Triple Crown. Since 1980, there have been six Triple Crown winners and only two — No Pan Intended and Glidemaster — earned Horse of the Year honors. The Triple Crown in harness racing simply doesn’t mean what it does in the Thoroughbred world.
Will we see a surprise in the Kentucky Futurity? Who knows? If Donato gets the front, who is brave enough to challenge? That’s one of the great ironies of seeing dominant horses race. They are so intimidating that their opponents often duck for cover and hope to salvage second place. Only those with a suicidal tendency dare to look the big horse in the eye and make him work.
Drivers often reason that it’s better to finish second than try to rough it up with the favorite, only to have your horse curl up and back through the pack.
Still, there is a reason that they give the trophy after the race instead of before the race. There’s no such thing as a sure thing in horse racing.
And no one knows how quickly things can come undone better than Steve Elliott. He’s been in the game long enough to have seen it all. In fact, I was talking with Steve at Delaware with Hambletonian Society president Tom Charters.
Charters, who considers himself a “professional Irishman,” discussed with Steve what Irish poet William Butler Yeats once wrote about a person. “Being Irish,” wrote Yeats, “he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.”
Steve Elliott’s period of joy with Donato Hanover has been more than just temporary.
It should be an exciting Kentucky Futurity. May the best horse win.
If there is a surprise winner in the Kentucky Futurity, it certainly won’t be the first time. I remember how Trade Balance shocked the world of trotting by overpowering Muscles Yankee and Conway Hall in 1998.
Life is full of surprises. The Michigan football team learned that when it played Appalachian State. And a hundred or more horsemen, owners and breeders learned that last week at the Kentucky Harness Racing Hall of Fame ceremony in the historic round barn at The Red Mile.
The late David R. Johnston and Carter Duer were inducted, and their families were there to celebrate the honor. I had the privilege of introducing Carter Duer, and he told me beforehand, “Just talk as long as you want. The more you talk, the less I have to talk.”
It shouldn’t work that way, of course. The person giving the introduction is just a preview of coming attractions; the honoree is the main attraction.
Some people were making bets that Carter, who tosses words around as easily as if they were sheets of plywood, would say “Thank you” and sit down.
To the astonishment of those gathered, Carter spoke eloquently at length about a number of important subjects. He spoke from the heart and he hit all the right notes. I don’t think Bill Clinton at his best could have worked a room better than Carter did that night.
Who would ever have imagined that?
So there are lots of surprises in life. Maybe even in this year’s Kentucky Futurity. May the best horse win.