Harthill Was Best Bet for Horses in Need

Many years ago, Alex Harthill and I were having a drink at a bar near Arlington Park, in suburban Chicago.

“Doc,” I said, “did you ever think about writing a book?”

Harthill, the renowned 80-year-old veterinarian who died July 16 in Louisville, Ky., may have thought I was sniffing around for a ghostwriting job.

“Yeah, I’ve thought about it,” he said. “But if anybody ever writes it, it would be Joe Hirsch,” then of the Daily Racing Form.

“Of course, racing books seldom sell that well,” I said. “You’d have to drag out a few skeletons to get a lot of people interested.”

Harthill put his drink down on the bar and gave me a hard look.

“What skeletons?” he said.

Harthill’s reputation with his fists preceded him. Knowing that, I quickly changed subjects. In 1968, several days after the first Kentucky Derby I covered, Harthill punched out Billy Reed, a Louisville newspaperman, who was skulking around the backstretch at Churchill Downs. Reed, who had been knocked over a bale of hay, came back to the office with a shiner, and his colleagues chipped in and bought him a catcher’s mask.

What a way to break in at the Derby.

Dancer’s Image won the race, but three days later Kentucky racing authorities announced that the colt had tested positive for phenylbutazone, an anti-inflammatory drug that was later legalized in Kentucky and other states, including California. They gave the victory to Calumet Farm’s Forward Pass, who finished second. Harthill, who had been treating Dancer’s Image for an old friend, trainer Lou Cavalaris, was right in the middle.

Then and later, Harthill denied any culpability, but given the choice of a $500 fine or a 30-day suspension, he paid the fine.

I met him for the first time a day or two after the disqualification was announced. We got into his station wagon and took the underground tunnel that leads from the frontside of Churchill Downs to the barn area.

“You know where they made their mistake, don’t ya?” Harthill said. “They gave the horse the bute with a tablet instead of a syringe. They give it to him with a syringe, and it doesn’t stay in the system as long.”

I always believed that Harthill was part of the “they,” and years later I mustered enough courage to ask him about it again.

“I gave the horse bute after his final workout, the Sunday or Monday before the race,” Harthill said. “That was the only time that week he got anything from me. But hell, Lou and I went way back. If Lou had asked me to give the horse strychnine, I would have.”

In treating an estimated 20 Derby winners, Harthill was a big exponent of race-day medication. Lasix, now routinely given to most of the horses that run, was an experimental drug in 1964. Harthill treated Northern Dancer, a pulmonary bleeder, with the diuretic before his Derby victory.

For a half-century, if there was a problem with a premier horse, Harthill was odds-on to get the call. He was with five other vets in New York in 1975, as they vainly labored through the night on an operating table, trying to save Ruffian, the filly who had broken down in the match race against Foolish Pleasure, the Derby winner. Harthill had lost his New York license, over some irregularity, a few years before, but nobody was going to bar him from the door with a horse’s life in the balance.

Although heavily sedated, the gigantic Ruffian thrashed wildly, refusing help. Her competitive zeal was unchecked right to the end.

“She threw us around like little children,” Harthill said.

Harthill was at Pimlico in Baltimore, at trainer Charlie Whittingham’s side, working with Sunday Silence’s bruised foot in the days before he won the 1989 Preakness. At Churchill Downs in 1992, Harthill worked through the night on Derby eve, unsuccessfully trying to repair A.P. Indy’s foot so he could run. But for every horse who didn’t make it to the race, there were at least a half-dozen who not only ran but won.

I called Peter Fuller in New Hampshire on Thursday to ask him about Harthill. Fuller, now 82, owned Dancer’s Image and didn’t accept the disqualification willingly. He spent about $250,000 contesting Kentucky’s findings in the courts. Fuller’s final appeal was disallowed in 1973, and the purse, which had been sitting in a Louisville bank, accruing interest, was paid to Calumet.

“I had never heard that part about how the horse got the bute,” Fuller said. “Interesting. I was one of these guys who had the maxim that you hired a trainer you liked and then turned it over to him. Alex and I saw each other over the years, but we never talked about the Derby much. I hired Alex because Warner Jones said he had the Derby barn. Then I asked my trainer, Odie Clelland, about Alex, and he said I had the best guy around. So that was good enough for me.”

Jones was a friend and Kentucky breeder; Clelland was based in New England. Fuller, son of a former Massachusetts governor, never had another Derby starter. His daughter, Abby Fuller-Catalano, who was a 9-year-old, holding a rose and standing in the winner’s circle minutes after the Derby, has gone from a riding career to training horses in South Florida. Needless to say, her octogenarian father is paying attention.

“I’ve got a 2-year-old of hers that I’ll [recommend],” Fuller said. “He’s about to make his first start, and she says he could be a good one. His name’s Alvan The Great. Alvan was my father’s name. Wouldn’t it be great to get back to Louisville with that horse?”