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May. 23rd, 2006 07:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysobelleAny sympathy for Charismatic?
By Furman Bisher | Tuesday, May 23, 2006, 05:13 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta’s consciousness of thoroughbred racing has never been so compassionately expressed ever before Barbaro. Barbaro, winner of the Kentucky Derby and about 100 yards into the second step of his pursuit of the Triple Crown at Pimlico, broke down and millions of Americans broke out in a compassionate response.
Tough stuff. If he had been a claimer, he would have been put away on the scene, but Barbaro was unbeaten and an odds-on favorite to bring home the most elusive trophy in horse racing. This was a matter of millions of dollars. Nothing was to be spared to save him for a career in the breeding shed. Which reminds me of a similar story, of a horse even further into his Triple Crown pursuit, but whose name has been blotted out in the keening and mourning for Barbaro.
Charismatic had won the Kentucky Derby at odds of 31-to-1 and followed that up winning the Preakness, though he didn’t go off the favorite there. The public still wasn’t convinced. He was about 50 yards from completing the classic sweep in the Belmont when he broke down, a bone in his left foreleg snapped.
“No, more like 30 yards,” his trainer, D. Wayne Lukas, said Tuesday.
Two longhots swept by him at the wire, Lemon Drop Kid and Vision and Verse, but even wounded, Charismatic completed the journey and finished third. Jockey Chris Antley leaped from the saddle, kneeled by his wounded mount and cradled the leg in his little hands. The leg was splinted at the spot and Charismatic was vanned to the barn, where, coincidentally, the same veterinarian who attended Barbaro was on duty, Larry Bramlage by name.
“His injury was not nearly as severe as this one,” Lukas said. “We were able to put his leg together with a lot less surgical procedure. They did a beautiful job. It was a tribute to the doctors.”
As Bramlage said of Charismatic later, “He’s through as a race horse, but he should be fine as a stallion.”
Once healed, Charismatic was retired to Lanes End Farm, where, for a pedestrian $10,000 stud fee, he covered 106 mares his first year. After three years, he was sold to a group in Japan and drifted out of sight and out of mind. His breeding was not classic, though his sire, Summer Squall, had finished second in the Derby and won the Preakness for Cot Campbell and Dogwood Stable. Neither would you consider Barbaro’s bloodlines classic, though his sire, Dynaformer, now ranks fifth on the general sire list this year.
Charismatic kind of got into the Kentucky Derby through the kitchen door. Just two months earlier he had finished second in a claiming race at Santa Anita, and second again in an allowance race. “He hadn’t shown me much in the spring, so when we brought him east, there wasn’t much left but the Lexington Stakes,” Lukas said.
The Lexington is a Grade 2, run at Keeneland, last possible entre to the Derby. Charismatic won by two lengths with Jerry Bailey up, and after the race, Lukas said, “Jerry told me, ‘If I wasn’t already committed to the Arabs, I’d ride him in the Derby.’ ”
That’s when Lukas turned to Chris Antley, who was trying to make a comeback after a long bout with drugs and making weight. Antley had a chance to be a national hero after so devotedly attending Charismatic, but Lukas again:
“They made such a warm, fuzzy story about Chris and how he had teamed with Charismatic. I’ll bet he never spent more than 10 minutes with him. He would show up in the paddock for the race, then disappear. I’d never seen him again until the next race. He was already back on the stuff.”
Antley, who grew up in Elloree, SC, would later die under mysterious circumstances involving drugs in California, a real tragedy in death.
Charismatic would have only moderate success as a stallion in Japan, and lately has been reduced to hauling pleasure riders about. A Kentuckian named Michael Blowen, devoted to caring for aging stallions, is trying to bring him back to this country. Surely to avoid the fate of Ferdinand, the 1986 Derby winner who wound up in the meat market.
But strange that Charismatic’s wounded state never aroused such compassion as Barbaro’s. The break in a foreleg would have little effect in breeding, whereas Barbaro’s rear leg must bear all that weight in mounting a mare, thus critical in performing as a productive sire. Charismatic was voted Horse of the Year. Barbaro may have been on his way, but that’s out of his reach now. Just to stay alive and produce healthy offspring is the best his connections can hope for.
By Furman Bisher | Tuesday, May 23, 2006, 05:13 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta’s consciousness of thoroughbred racing has never been so compassionately expressed ever before Barbaro. Barbaro, winner of the Kentucky Derby and about 100 yards into the second step of his pursuit of the Triple Crown at Pimlico, broke down and millions of Americans broke out in a compassionate response.
Tough stuff. If he had been a claimer, he would have been put away on the scene, but Barbaro was unbeaten and an odds-on favorite to bring home the most elusive trophy in horse racing. This was a matter of millions of dollars. Nothing was to be spared to save him for a career in the breeding shed. Which reminds me of a similar story, of a horse even further into his Triple Crown pursuit, but whose name has been blotted out in the keening and mourning for Barbaro.
Charismatic had won the Kentucky Derby at odds of 31-to-1 and followed that up winning the Preakness, though he didn’t go off the favorite there. The public still wasn’t convinced. He was about 50 yards from completing the classic sweep in the Belmont when he broke down, a bone in his left foreleg snapped.
“No, more like 30 yards,” his trainer, D. Wayne Lukas, said Tuesday.
Two longhots swept by him at the wire, Lemon Drop Kid and Vision and Verse, but even wounded, Charismatic completed the journey and finished third. Jockey Chris Antley leaped from the saddle, kneeled by his wounded mount and cradled the leg in his little hands. The leg was splinted at the spot and Charismatic was vanned to the barn, where, coincidentally, the same veterinarian who attended Barbaro was on duty, Larry Bramlage by name.
“His injury was not nearly as severe as this one,” Lukas said. “We were able to put his leg together with a lot less surgical procedure. They did a beautiful job. It was a tribute to the doctors.”
As Bramlage said of Charismatic later, “He’s through as a race horse, but he should be fine as a stallion.”
Once healed, Charismatic was retired to Lanes End Farm, where, for a pedestrian $10,000 stud fee, he covered 106 mares his first year. After three years, he was sold to a group in Japan and drifted out of sight and out of mind. His breeding was not classic, though his sire, Summer Squall, had finished second in the Derby and won the Preakness for Cot Campbell and Dogwood Stable. Neither would you consider Barbaro’s bloodlines classic, though his sire, Dynaformer, now ranks fifth on the general sire list this year.
Charismatic kind of got into the Kentucky Derby through the kitchen door. Just two months earlier he had finished second in a claiming race at Santa Anita, and second again in an allowance race. “He hadn’t shown me much in the spring, so when we brought him east, there wasn’t much left but the Lexington Stakes,” Lukas said.
The Lexington is a Grade 2, run at Keeneland, last possible entre to the Derby. Charismatic won by two lengths with Jerry Bailey up, and after the race, Lukas said, “Jerry told me, ‘If I wasn’t already committed to the Arabs, I’d ride him in the Derby.’ ”
That’s when Lukas turned to Chris Antley, who was trying to make a comeback after a long bout with drugs and making weight. Antley had a chance to be a national hero after so devotedly attending Charismatic, but Lukas again:
“They made such a warm, fuzzy story about Chris and how he had teamed with Charismatic. I’ll bet he never spent more than 10 minutes with him. He would show up in the paddock for the race, then disappear. I’d never seen him again until the next race. He was already back on the stuff.”
Antley, who grew up in Elloree, SC, would later die under mysterious circumstances involving drugs in California, a real tragedy in death.
Charismatic would have only moderate success as a stallion in Japan, and lately has been reduced to hauling pleasure riders about. A Kentuckian named Michael Blowen, devoted to caring for aging stallions, is trying to bring him back to this country. Surely to avoid the fate of Ferdinand, the 1986 Derby winner who wound up in the meat market.
But strange that Charismatic’s wounded state never aroused such compassion as Barbaro’s. The break in a foreleg would have little effect in breeding, whereas Barbaro’s rear leg must bear all that weight in mounting a mare, thus critical in performing as a productive sire. Charismatic was voted Horse of the Year. Barbaro may have been on his way, but that’s out of his reach now. Just to stay alive and produce healthy offspring is the best his connections can hope for.