Troubles on the Farm : Sale of Strike The Gold Further Tarnishes Calumet Image
Strike The Gold, one of the favorites in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby, is a reminder of what has gone wrong with historic Calumet Farm. Should the Calumet-bred Strike The Gold win the Derby, the victory will further drive home to relatives of Warren Wright Sr. what a tragedy the farm has become.
Calumet Farm is 869 picturesque acres of rolling pastures that abut Keeneland, the track in Lexington, Ky. The farm was inherited by Wright in 1931 after his family sold its Calumet Baking Powder Co. for $40 million.
Fifty years ago, Whirlaway won the Kentucky Derby and swept the Triple Crown, launching a domination of racing by Calumet that is unmatched. After Whirlaway, the farm repeated in the Derby with Pensive in 1944, Citation in 1948 and Ponder in 1949. Citation also won the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes, sweeping the Triple Crown.
Wright was 75 when he died in 1950, but Calumet’s Derby winners and champions kept coming under his widow, Lucille, and their son, Warren Wright Jr. Their Hill Gail won the Derby in 1952, and Calumet’s list of Derby winners grew to eight--still a record--with Iron Liege in 1957, Tim Tam in in 1958 and Forward Pass in 1968, after the disqualification of Dancer’s Image for having run with an illegal pain-killer in his system.
All of those horses were also bred by Calumet, and all but Forward Pass were trained by the Jones boys, Plain Ben and his son, Jimmy. Besides its Derby winners, Calumet also campaigned Twilight Tear, a filly; Armed and Coaltown, who along with Whirlaway and Citation were voted horse-of-the-year honors.
Despite Forward Pass’ controversial victory, the stream of Calumet success actually stopped after Tim Tam. The farm’s assembly line of champions was no more in the 1960s and 1970s. Ben Jones had died and Jimmy Jones was retired, and it was no longer possible for a farm to flourish by just racing its homebreds. The buying and selling of horses had become an integral economic aspect of an expanding sport.
Under John Veitch, the son of a Hall of Fame trainer, Calumet made a belated comeback in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but in 1985, three years after the death of Lucille Wright (who had been married to Gene Markey), the farm bred only one horse that won a stake. In 1953, the number had been 15.
On the surface, Calumet appeared to be making another resurgence in recent years under trainer Wayne Lukas, with J. T. Lundy, the blunt-talking son-in-law of Bertha Wright, the widow of Warren Wright Jr., running the place. Alydar, after running second to Affirmed in those three classic Triple Crown races of 1978, had become a terrific sire--”A breeding machine,” Lundy called him--and his son, Alysheba, won the Derby in 1987, and another son, Criminal Type, was voted horse of the year last year as Calumet also took the Eclipse Award for outstanding breeder.
Behind the scenes, however, Calumet Farm was in a financial morass, and now the heavily mortgaged racing landmark is said to be more than $60 million in debt. The family is fending off questions about a potential bankruptcy. Alydar was being bred to more than 70 mares a year, about double the average for a stallion, and last year, at 15, he was destroyed after suffering an irreparable stall injury. Lundy recently resigned as president of Calumet.
The day Alydar was put down, Nov. 15, 1990, another of his sons, Strike The Gold, was winning a maiden race at Aqueduct, by 8 1/2 lengths in his third start. But instead of competing in the storied devil’s red-and-blue silks of Calumet and being trained by Lukas, he was running for three New York entrepreneurs and was saddled by Nick Zito.
Last August, before Strike The Gold had run his first race as a 2-year-old, Lundy told Zito that Calumet would be selling dozens of horses at auction, and that Strike The Gold would be available ahead of time.
The hitch was, Zito’s clients would also have to buy six yearlings with Strike The Gold in a seven-horse package.
“Strike The Gold was the best in the bunch, and Lundy knew that we liked him a lot,” Zito said the other day during a training break at Churchill Downs. “He held us hostage. We had to buy the other six in order to get the one we wanted.”
Zito would only say that the price for the seven was in seven figures. The six others--another son of Alydar, two fillies by Alydar, two Seattle Slew fillies and a filly by Danzig--are well bred and could also be runners, but right now Zito and his owners, Giles Brophy, William Condren and Joseph Cornacchia, are happy with Strike The Gold. The 3-year-old chestnut is going into the Derby off of a three-length victory over Fly So Free, who had won five straight before the Blue Grass Stakes April 13.
Besides that victory, there’s another reason Zito sees his chances as better than they were last year, when he finished ninth with Thirty Six Red, his first Derby starter. Thirty Six Red, a Brophy colt, had won the Wood Memorial two weeks before running at Churchill Downs.
“I’ve had three weeks between races with this horse,” said Zito, 43, a fast-talking, raspy-voiced New Yorker. “The Derby came up too soon for Thirty Six Red. If we had skipped the Derby, I know we would have won the Belmont (five weeks later). As it was, we still finished second (to Go And Go) and beat Unbridled (the Derby winner).”
Strike The Gold, who has won only two of seven starts, will be ridden by Chris Antley, who rode him for the first time in the Blue Grass. After his maiden victory, the colt wintered in Florida, coming from far back for a third and a second in allowance races.
“His style is to run from out of the clouds, and there’s nothing I can do about it,” Zito said.
Cahill Road, who beat Strike The Gold in that second race at Gulfstream Park, went on to win the Wood, but went lame in the race and is out of the Derby.
In the March 16 Florida Derby, Strike The Gold was second, a length behind Fly So Free, and Zito looked forward to the rematch with relish. He got it a month later, in the Blue Grass, and now there will be the rubber match Saturday, with Fly So Free still likely to go off as the Derby favorite.
Zito sees the Derby as a three-horse race--Strike The Gold, Fly So Free and Hansel. California-based horses--Ferdinand, Alysheba, Winning Colors and Sunday Silence--won the Derby four straight years before Unbridled, but Zito is throwing out Best Pal, Sea Cadet and the other West Coast contenders Saturday.
A California reporter pressed him about that.
“They’re wonderful horses with good credentials,” Zito said. “I just don’t think they’re as good as ours (in the East) this year. Hey, this is my opinion, and I’ve said it. You’re not going to shoot me for saying it, are you?”
Horse Racing Notes
Hansel, winner of the Jim Beam and the Lexington in his last two starts, worked five furlongs Tuesday in 1:00 4/5. Trainer Frank Brothers didn’t want the colt going any faster because he’ll run in the Derby two weeks after his Lexington win. . . . Subordinated Debt has dropped out of the Derby, leaving the probable field at these 16: Fly So Free, Best Pal, Hansel, Strike The Gold, Sea Cadet, Alydavid, Another Review, Corporate Report, Forty Something, Happy Jazz Band, Lost Mountain, Mane Minister, Paulrus, Quintana, Wilder Than Ever and Green Alligator. . . . Corporate Report remained in the field after bruising a heel in a workout on Sunday. . . . The weather is supposed to be dry with moderate temperatures through Friday, with the chance of thunderstorms on Derby day. . . . Another Review will have a new trainer--Johnny Campo--and a new jockey--Art Madrid--for the Derby. Campo replaces Andrew Elder and Madrid moves in after Richard Migliore rode Another Review in his three previous races. . . . Cash Asmussen, the former American jockey now based in France, will fly in to ride Happy Jazz Band. Angel Cordero, who rode Happy Jazz Band in the Wood, finishing third, has switched to Quintana for the Derby. . . . Lost Mountain, second in the Wood, worked five furlongs Monday at Belmont Park in :58 4/5 and is scheduled to arrive Churchill Downs today.
