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Hall of Fame Profile: Chickadee
Original article written by Dan Kauffman posted 8 years 0 weeks agoHer bloodline was lacking. Her flat turf results were mediocre at best. Yet the gray filly Chickadee made the jump from obscurity to stardom ... literally.
Toward the end of Year 21, owner/trainer Eric Hamme -- who purchased Chickadee for the measly sum of $1,000 before her juvenile season began in Year 19 -- made the decision to put the turf miler/router into her first steeplechase race. And the rest, as they say, is history. Chickadee went on to win Champion Female Steeplechaser honors twice, turning Hamme's purchase into one of the biggest bargains in SIM history.
Chickadee was bred by Amy Springsteen. Her sire was Grey Swallow, and producing Chickadee was by far his biggest accomplishment ...as it was for dam Such Sweetsorrow, whose race record was 3: 0-0-0 and who didn't produce a single other foal who earned even as much as $25,000. Indeed, no one on Earth could have predicted Chickadee's future success.
That remained true deep into her 4-year-old season, well after Chickadee had been sold to Daniel O'Sullivan for $18,500, then to Hamme a little more than a year later. Certainly nothing about her flat turf career (11: 1-3-2) made her out to be a Hall of Famer -- her best flat race result was a second-place outing in the Grade 2 German Matron over 1 1/4 miles at Munich Park in Germany.
After a fourth-place effort in the Irish Darling Stakes, Hamme took a chance and entered Chickadee in a maiden special weight steeplechase race, covering 2 5/8 miles, at Timber Park in France on the final week of the Year 21 season. She took to the jumps like a duck to water, obliterating 11 challengers and winning by more than eight lengths.
Chickadee entered Year 22 as a 5-year-old with new hope, and the start of the season did nothing to diminish the excitement. First she won a 2 1/2-mile allowance race by three lengths at Jump Downs in Ireland in Week 4, then scored her first-ever stakes win, edging Lifeisahighway by a quarter-length for the victory in the Grade 3 Prix Buttes Chaumont Chase over 2 3/4 miles at Timber Park in Week 7. The third-place finisher that day was another future Female Steeplechaser of the Year winner, Channel.
The second half of Year 22 was not as kind to Chickadee. She ran fourth in the 2 1/2-mile Prix Auteuil Chase at Timber Park in Week 10, finishing behind multiple stakes winners Lifeisahighway, Secret Path and Dreaming Spires. She then was a well-beaten third behind winner Dreaming Spires and Secret Path in the Grade 3, 2 5/8-mile Prix De Lesseps Hurdle at Timber Park in Week 13.
Chickadee was given the rest of the year off, and entered Year 23 refreshed and recharged. It didn't take her long to show she was ready for bigger and better things, romping to a 6 1/2-length victory in the Grade 3, 2 1/4-mile Prix Jean Hurdle at Timber Park on opening week.
That started a string of four straight graded stakes victories as Chickadee became the world's premier filly steeplechaser. In Week 4, facing an open field for the first time, she turned back multiple stakes winner Fire Ablaze, a gelding, by a length and a half in the Grade 3, 2-mile Mother of All Chases Cup at Hurdle Park in Great Britain. In Week 7, she overcame the challenge of multiple stakes winner Defiant -- who would finish with 18 victories in her own standout career -- by a length and a half to defend her title in the Prix Buttes Chaumont Chase. Finally, in Week 10 against open company, she won by nearly three lengths over the gelding and multiple stakes winner Puerto Azul in the Grade 2, 3 1/4-mile Tough Guy Event at Hurdle Park.
Chickadee's winning streak came to an end with a close second-place finish a half-length behind Wavelength, a gelding and multiple stakes winner, in the Grade 2, 3 1/2-mile Prix Musee D'orsay Chase at Timber Park in Week 13.
Nonetheless, it was on to the Steward's Cup Steeplechase, run over 2 5/8 miles at Chaser Downs in Maryland to cap Year 23. The favorite was Caseys Shadow, an 8-year-old gelding who converted from a dirt sprinter early in his career and entered the Steward's Cup off an impressive Grade 2 win in the 3-mile Australian Hunt Cup four weeks prior. But in the biggest race of the year, Chickadee delivered the goods and wrote her name into the SC record book with a one-length victory over Caseys Shadow, wrapping up her first Champion Female Steeplechaser honor.
Chickadee remained in open company at Chaser Downs throughout Year 24 -- the final season of her racing career -- and started the year with consecutive victories over multiple stakes winner Canadian Canoe, another strong gelding. The wins came in the Grade 4, 2-mile Peaches and Pines Chase and the Grade 1, 3-mile Yankee Hurdle Cup.
Her final two races did not go as planned. Chickadee showed fatigue and finished a distant fourth in the Grade 1, 2 3/8-mile Dead Poets Challenge. Five weeks later, she entered the SC Steeplechase as the defending champion and made a strong bid to repeat, but this time, Caseys Shadow got the better of her by half a length, closing his own career with his biggest victory. Chickadee settled for second place and a second straight Champion Female Steeplechaser honor.
Chickadee finished her career with 10 steeplechase wins in 15 starts, including eight graded stakes wins, three Grade 1 wins and more than $800,000 in total earnings (including a little less than $50,000 in flat turf outings). Not too shabby for a filly who was never expected to amount to much -- until the day she made her first jump.