Alydar, Runner-Up in Racing Rivalry, Has to Be Destroyed

Alydar was buried Thursday at Calumet Farm in Lexington, Ky., not far from the grave markers of Whirlaway and Citation, only hours after he had to be destroyed at the height of his breeding career.

In the 1940s, Whirlaway and Citation were Calumet’s Triple Crown champions, sweeping a series that eluded Alydar in 1978 only because he came along in the same year as Affirmed, who beat him by 1 1/2 lengths in the Kentucky Derby, by a neck in the Preakness and by a head in the Belmont Stakes.

“If it hadn’t been for our horse, Alydar would have been able to say, ‘Move over,

Secretariat,’ ” Patrice Wolfson said Thursday. Louis Wolfson and his wife campaigned Affirmed, the 11th and most recent Triple Crown winner. Secretariat swept the series in 1973.

A veterinarian gave Alydar a lethal injection Thursday morning. The 15-year-old stallion had kicked his stall door at Calumet Tuesday night, breaking his right hind leg above the ankle, and on Wednesday, with little hope for success, surgeons worked two hours to repair the injury.

With a metal plate and five steel pins in his leg, Alydar was uncomfortable with his cast and resisted his sling Thursday morning. He was tranquilized, and 15 minutes after the sling was removed, he slipped and fell, breaking the femur bone in the upper part of the right hind leg.

“This is a heartbreaker,” said J.T. Lundy, president of Calumet. “He was a game horse all the way. He fought right to the end.”

Alydar’s loss is one of many in a year that may rank as racing’s worst in terms of deaths and injuries to important horses.

Go For Wand, 100 yards from a possible victory in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, broke down and was destroyed at Belmont Park on Oct. 27, not long after a spill that resulted in the deaths of two other horses.

Grand Canyon, one of last year’s best 2-year-olds, was destroyed this summer after being stricken with an incurable hoof disease, and Sunday Silence, Easy Goer and Criminal Type head a long list of talented horses that missed the Breeders’ Cup because of injuries.

Two major stallions--Fappiano and The Minstrel--were destroyed on the same day in September because of injury and illness.

Alydar, the sire of Easy Goer and Criminal Type, lost seven of 10 races to Affirmed--one of his victories, in the Travers at Saratoga, was the result of a disqualification--but in the breeding shed he surpassed his racing rival by far. The leading stallion this year according to purses won, Alydar also sired Alysheba, the 1988 horse of the year; and Turkoman, a divisional champion. Alysheba won the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and Breeders’ Cup Classic, and Easy Goer the Belmont. This year, Criminal Type is a cinch divisional champion and a strong candidate for horse of the year.

Affirmed never got going in stud, and a few years ago was moved from Spendthrift Farm to Calumet, where he occupied a paddock next to Alydar’s.

Laz Barrera, Affirmed’s trainer, visited both horses a few days before this year’s Kentucky Derby. Barrera, in Kentucky Wednesday for some horse sales, was back at Santa Anita Thursday morning, when Wayne Lukas, Criminal Type’s trainer, told him of Alydar’s death.

“I had heard Wednesday that Alydar was in bad shape,” Barrera said. “When Wayne told me, it broke my heart. Alydar gave me a lot of headaches, but he was a great horse and this is a big tragedy.

“I’ll never see another rivalry like Affirmed and Alydar in my lifetime. Their races did so much for racing. They did more for racing than anything I’ve ever seen.”

Alydar, who was elected to the Hall of Fame at Saratoga Springs, N.Y., in 1989, earned $957,195 and won 14 of 26 starts, including the Champagne as a 2-year-old and the Florida Derby, the Flamingo, the Blue Grass, the Travers and the Whitney Handicap as a 3-year-old. He and Affirmed never met after the Travers, Alydar’s career quickly winding down after he suffered a training injury in the fall of 1978.

“All of my memories of Alydar are great,” said John Veitch, who trained the colt. “Every time he ran, he never gave up.”

After Affirmed and Alydar in the 1978 Triple Crown, there was no one else. Alydar outdistanced the third-place finishers in the Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont by 1 1/4, 7 1/2 and 13 lengths, becoming the only horse to run second in all three races. Against horses other than Affirmed, Alydar won 11 of 16 starts.

“We just ran into another great horse,” Alydar’s jockey, Jorge Velasquez, said at Hollywood Park Thursday. “Every time we’d get close to Affirmed, he kept coming back. I’m not sure if we got ahead of him in the (stretch run of the) Belmont. If we did, it was only by a half of a head, maybe. I’m very sad that he died. This is terrible. It’s a big loss for the industry.”