Another Bright Moment for Horse Racing Is Darkened

Trainer Billy Badgett has been there. Go For Wand, the champion filly, died in Badgett’s fiancee’s arms in 1990 after breaking down in the stretch of the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Belmont Park.

After that race, Horatio Luro, the Hall of Fame trainer, gave Badgett this advice: “You’ve got to have the skin of an elephant to be in racing. Otherwise, get out.”

Trainer Tom Bohannan and jockey Mike Smith had their courage tested Saturday when Prairie Bayou, the winner of the Preakness three weeks before, suffered a shattered left front leg about halfway through the 125th running of the Belmont Stakes. As Go For Wand, embroiled in a long stretch duel with Bayakoa, had attempted to stagger toward the Breeders’ Cup finish line on only three good legs, Prairie Bayou kept running after his Belmont breakdown, throwing Smith and being pulled up by an outrider about five-sixteenths of a mile later. Within half an hour, with the compound fracture beyond repair, the frightened gelding received a lethal injection.

The same thing happened to Union City after he broke down during the Preakness and he became the first horse to die in a Triple Crown race since Black Hills in the 1959 Belmont. Swale, the winner of the 1984 Belmont, collapsed at his barn and died of unknown causes several days after the race.

Badgett, who did not have a horse in Saturday’s Belmont, tried to reach Bohannan and Smith after Prairie Bayou’s death. “I wanted to tell them to keep their heads up,” Badgett said.

Badgett was only able to reach Smith, who was not injured when Prairie Bayou unseated him. “Mike was pretty upset,” Badgett said. “But just like the rest of us, he’s got to realize that it’s part of the game.”

Badgett and trainer Ron McAnally noted that Prairie Bayou’s death was another jolt for a sport that has been reeling in recent years. McAnally trained Bayakoa, and cried along with Badgett and Go For Wand’s other caretakers after Bayakoa won the tragic race here three years ago.

“This (Prairie Bayou’s death) is just one more of those bad things that are knocking the game down,” McAnally said. “It’s been snowballing, and now it’s been on national TV again.”

The year of Go For Wand’s death, two other horses died as the result of a spill in another Breeders’ Cup race, and in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Sprint, at Gulfstream Park, Mr Brooks went down and had to be destroyed.

McAnally saddled Arinthod, the French horse who finished last in Saturday’s Belmont. Asked about Union City and Prairie Bayou, McAnally said: “It’s just a run of bad luck. I got to know the Prairie Bayou barn people pretty well when we were at Oaklawn Park earlier this year, with Paseana. They told me before the Belmont that he was sound. They said he had no leg problems.”

Both Saturday night and Sunday morning, Bohannan discouraged conversation about Prairie Bayou. One of the questions he would have been asked was about Prairie Bayou’s nonstop regimen, which included 12 races in the last 7 1/2 months and no layoffs.

In a statement from Bohannan that was issued by Belmont Park, the trainer said: “I don’t know what I could add to what Mike Smith and (owner) John Ed Anthony said Saturday, but this was a very sound horse. He never had any problems at all. He was very healthy and had never even been sick. As far as looks go, he was as good as a horse could get. He trained very well for this race. When he came back from the track in the mornings, the reports (from the exercise rider) were very positive.”

Bohannan, unhappy with condition of the track during one training day leading up to the Belmont, said Sunday that he had no criticism of the racing strip on Saturday.

Mack Miller, the trainer of Kentucky Derby winner Sea Hero, who earned the $1-million Triple Crown bonus with the help of Prairie Bayou’s breakdown, discussed the Triple Crown grind last week here.

“The three races so close together, and at those distances, are not good for the horses,” Miller said. “But they’re never going to change the distances or the timing. And if you’ve still got a sound horse after the Derby, you can’t stop.”

Said Badgett: “It’s hard not to get attached to these horses. Whether you train them, ride them or just rub them, you get attached. We’re in the business because we love horses. But when something like this happens, you’ve got to pull away, bite the bullet and go on.

“The scary thing about Prairie Bayou is that he was running easy, in a position (near the rear) in the race where he was supposed to be at that stage. There’s nothing positive about a breakdown, but at least he was on the backside when it happened, and most of the 45,000 people didn’t have to see it. My filly, it happened right in front of the grandstand, with 50,000 people watching. It seems like every time one of these things happens, it’s in a big race, in front of a big crowd.”

Horse Racing Notes

Colonial Affair, winner of the Belmont, is expected to run in the $1-million Travers on Aug. 21. . . . Trainer Scotty Schulhofer thought Colonial Affair might be a good prospect for the Belmont even before the colt ran as a 3-year-old. One day in Florida he said to Snake Cooper, jockey Julie Krone’s agent: “Don’t take off this horse. He’s going to win the Belmont.”