Feature Race | Auction | Breeding | General | Hall of Fame | Harness | Interviews | Mixed Breed | New Players | Racing | Site Updates | Steeplechasing | Steward's Cup | Triple Crown
It Was a Chilly, Rainy Afternoon...
Original article written by Andy Gol posted 11 years 1 week ago------------------------------
myth [mith]
noun
1. a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, especially one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature.
------------------------------
There had never been a race quite like it before and there may never be a race quite like it again. Ten horses lined up on the turf for the 24th event of the day and it looked pretty much like any other. As the gates opened to the mile long race, there was no indication that two of the competitors would lead such famous and intertwined careers. Bluebells and Keep had around 70 maiden races they could have entered. The chance that they would end up in this same one was around .02%. As in, 1 out of 4,900. In the one minute and thirty-five seconds it took to complete, the two began one of the SIM’s greatest myths.
It was a chilly, rainy October afternoon in Kentucky. There was a slight drizzle that started about an hour before the first race that day at Premium Park and it was expected to last through the final stretch run. There were no stakes races on the schedule so the crowd was already expected to be sparse. As the outer track started to deepen slightly in color due to the rain, the few attendees that day huddled under Premium Park’s massive grandstand. The hardcore fans who did show up were there mostly to see the new batch of juvenile milers. It was the seventh week of that year’s race docket, so other than a couple slightly shorter dirt races, the entire schedule of races was devoted to juvenile milers.
For whatever reason, Premium Park didn’t attract many horses with that buzz-worthy combination of famous pedigree plus blazing early metrics. Sure, there were plenty of animals that turned in nice yearling works, but the lifers in the stands knew as well as anyone that most of those didn’t live up to expectations unless the pedigree matched. The one horse gaining the most attention that day was a dirt miler named Primrose Hill Set. She was out of a Steward-bred, Steward’s Cup winning mare and had worked four dirt furlongs under the somewhat mystical 46.00 time. It was the kind of mix that allowed for her connections to dream big things. It was a combination that lent itself to a good myth.
Primrose Hill Set got the biggest billing of the day, but the track’s organizers knew that with the rain in the forecast and the sheer volume of races, they should put her race a bit further up on the card than they normally would. So the already-famous filly ran in the 15th race that day. And she didn’t disappoint at all. A relative unknown named, appropriately, None jumped out to an early lead and set a furious pace. Primrose Hill Set’s jock was content to sit further back. If his filly was for real, she’d be able to surpass the upstart down the stretch. And that’s exactly what happened. The small, subdued crowd finally had a chance to let loose. Down over 10 lengths at the second call, Primrose had moved to just four lengths behind for the stretch run. She moved to the outside and breezed past None. Primrose won by half a length in an extremely fast time. While Primrose was a wonderful race horse, ultimately winning nearly $500,000 in her career, two much more unheralded fillies would steal the day just nine races later.
The most beloved horses are the ones that come from humble beginnings. They are the underdogs. They are doubted at every turn and ignored in the paddocks. But the ironic truth in the sport of kings is that the transition from underrated to supposedly unbeatable happens in the blink of an eye. And when a filly makes herself famous, she takes away every one of her progeny’s chances of making the same transformation. Every foal she produces will have to bear a potentially crushing weight that she never had to deal with.
Had things gone differently, Keep may have been one of those that is born with the weight of expectations. Her grand-dam was a horse named Hold, who was a Grade 1 winner in her day. She had 12 foals, including a turf sprinter by the name of Jaser who has made a decent impact on the turf sprint division as a sire of 111 winners. She also had a filly by the name of Save who seemed to prefer the bump up to a mile, but she only ever won a listed stakes. That’s still good, of course, but in the SIM, it’s not enough to build buzz, exactly. And after Save’s first three foals won a combined $130,000 on the track, no one thought the fourth progeny would change the game so drastically.
Bluebells’ story was eerily similar. Her dam, Cheers to the Sim, did have a Grade 1 victory as a juvenile, but everyone in the know realized that was probably a “soft” field she ran against. Not only did she not win a stakes race again, she went nearly two years before winning ANY race again. Her first two foals totaled three wins in their running days, all either maiden or claiming races. Her third progeny was leased for $70,000, which included the stud fee.
Keep ran out to an early lead in this maiden race. That wasn’t a surprise to the sharps in the crowd. Keep had posted blazing works as a yearling, which has a hit and miss record in terms of success on the track. But as Keep stretched her lead to 3 ¼ lengths ahead at the second call, it seemed this might be one of those cases where the works were deadly accurate. Bluebells, meanwhile, didn’t have the works to warrant much support. She was, by any measure, no more impressive than a thousand other turf miler juveniles with hopes and dreams way beyond their means. But a funny thing started to happen between the 2nd and 3rd call. While Keep extended her lead on the field, she was losing ground to Bluebells. The two fillies flew down the stretch neck and neck, bobbing all the way. They crossed the wire essentially together. The rest of the field finished 11 lengths back. Had that race been run 100 times, it would have had one of two different results and each one would have happened 50 times. It was the fastest filly turf mile race run that year. It was and still is one of the faster turf mile filly races run in the modern SIM era.
Had the story progressed in the same way Primrose’s did, no one would have thought much of that maiden race. Sure, the people who were there would remember the blinding speed and the unlimited potential the two racehorses displayed that afternoon. What has happened SINCE that race, however, has just added to the intrigue. Bluebells went on to win a Steward’s Cup race later that year en route to nearly $1.5 million in earnings. Keep won 10 stakes races in her career, but saved her most impressive work for the breeding shed. The last two juvenile filly Steward’s Cup winners were Keep’s. Always and Dandy have already combined for over $2 million in earnings. Bluebells, meanwhile, hasn’t been completely overshadowed as a mare. She produced this past year’s Turf Mile Steward’s Cup winner, A Darker Day. For those keeping score at home, in the last six Steward’s Cup Turf Mile races that Keep and Bluebells progeny have been eligible to win, they’re batting .500. If you add up what the two mares did on the racetrack with what their babies have done, it’s, well, mythical. They account for twenty-five stakes wins and around $6 million in earnings.
In retrospect, all of that seems somehow inevitable at this point. When Dandy and A Darker Day won their respective Steward’s Cups this past year, of course all of this was meant to be. But perhaps it’s fitting that Bluebells and Keep were never more brilliant than they were at Premium Park in Kentucky as maiden juveniles, starting a story together that was much bigger than either of them could make separately.
The definition of a myth says they are “with or without a determinable basis of fact”. As time passes, myths become more fanciful. The most impressive parts of the story become more and more incredible. So a dozen years from now, maybe the odds of Keep and Bluebells ending up in the same race will be 1 out of 10,000. And maybe that maiden race will transform into the fastest turf mile race in SIM history as the tale is retold. But as it stands, the only tweak to the story so far is the rain. Somehow, a rainy maiden race seems more romantic than the bright, crisp day during which the two brilliant fillies actually began their myth.