Smarty Jones was retired to stud on Monday almost as suddenly as he captured the US's imagination last spring, when he rolled to victories in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes before sustaining his only loss at the Belmont Stakes in a gallant, but ultimately leg-wobbling defeat just yards away from capturing the Triple Crown.
Smarty Jones has bruising in all four fetlock joints, the equivalent in humans of sprained ankles. It was not a career-ending condition, veterinarians who examined him said, but one that Smarty Jones' owners feared might be aggravated.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"If anything else went wrong, it would break our heart," said Pat Chapman who, along with her husband, Roy, owned and bred the three-year-old Smarty Jones on their aptly named Someday Farm in Pennsylvania. "After all he's done, I couldn't live with myself if I thought we were putting him in harm's way. He doesn't owe us anything, and we owe him a lot."
The Chapmans acknowledged that it was a heart-rending decision to retire Smarty Jones, who won eight of nine career races and earned US$7,613,155, the fourth most of any thoroughbred. He also made famous three everyday horsemen: Chapman, a car dealer from Philadelphia; the trainer John Servis; and jockey Stewart Elliott.
Smarty Jones, with his catchy name and Triple Crown bid, had been a boon for racing. He attracted thousands of fans to his home base of Philadelphia Park for morning workouts, helped increase television ratings for the Preakness and Belmont Stakes, and inspired scores of children to write him letters.
But the Chapmans conceded that the economics at the elite levels of horse racing influenced their decision. In June, after Birdstone ran down Smarty Jones in the Belmont and kept him from becoming the first Triple Crown champion since Affirmed in 1978, the Chapmans sold 50 percent of the colt's breeding rights for more than US$20 million to Three Chimneys Farm near Midway, Kentucky.
While shopping the stallion rights to commercial breeders, the Chapmans insisted that potential partners allow them to race Smarty Jones as a four-year-old to pay back racing and the nonracing public that had turned Smarty Jones into America's horse.
But after consulting with veterinarians and the principals at Three Chimneys, they decided it would be more prudent and lucrative to send the colt to the breeding shed next season. The farm has yet to determine a stud fee for Smarty Jones, a son of Elusive Quality, but experts said it is likely to be between US$75,000 to US$150,000 a coupling.
Last week, after withdrawing Smarty Jones from the Pennsylvania Derby, Servis, the colt's trainer, acknowledged that several bruises had to be cut out of his hooves over the past five months, including one before the Kentucky Derby. But a subsequent nuclear scan showed more inflammation than had been suspected.
"We bring horses back from this all the time," Bramlage said. "It's not a structural problem, and the prognosis for full recovery is excellent. He needs to have an opportunity to move around in the field for a while. They have to have a break."
But the time off was likely to last several months, and the Chapmans and Three Chimneys opted for the almost certain prospect of having more than 100 mares awaiting Smarty Jones in the breeding shed, rather than the uncertainty of when, and how effective, the colt might be on his return to the racetrack.
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