Hall of Fame - End of the Line

Original article written by Danny Daniels posted 13 years 1 week ago

Imagine that the world really does have an expiration date. What if you knew the date? What if you knew that on that date all humankind would cease to exist… what would you do? What if there was something you wanted to leave behind? What if there was something you wanted to accomplish, one last thing that would live on without you. What would it be?

That was the dilemma that our fair Steward faced in the Year of our Sim, Year Fifteen- the fall of 2003- as she contemplated the final year of The Sim. That’s right, The Sim was coming to an end. It’s hard for us to imagine that The Sim could ever cease to exist, but there was a time when that was an inevitable fact.

I’ll give Em’s own words to set the scenario:

“About a year and a half before the SIM "permanently" closed in fall 2003, (so spring 2002 ish), my Mom gave me a white posterboard that she brought home from her classroom. I stared at it for the longest time, then decided to fill it with the SIM Pedigrees. It was SIM year 11. At the time, Piece of the Moon was a 2yo, the brilliant Fading Dreams was still a yearling, etc. Anyway, I knew that the SIM had a deadline. It was around that time that I'd decided I wouldn't continue it in college, and marked Year 15 as the final Year of the SIM's existence. Before that time, I wanted to breed THE ultimate horse, the best horse you could possibly breed. I wanted him to be a combination of short and long, dirt and turf.

At my living room table, I sketched out the pedigree for End of the Line. I knew I would be getting a foal from Piece of the Moon, since Jon, Bri and I planned to rotate her, so that's where I started. I did dirt on top, found the SIM's best turf lines for the bottom, and I sketched out the entire pedigree with question marks in most of the name spots down to “End of the Line”. His was the only name I KNEW I had to have, so I reserved it.

End of the Line was the very last horse bred in the old SIM before it was taken offline. Literally the very last one! He has every single major SIM line from that time. He himself was a SIXTH generation pure SIM bred, meaning no real horses could be found six generations back. Now, of course, we have horses who are 8th generation SIM breds, but at the time that was really cool.”

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Now I imagine Em as part alchemist, part mad scientist and part mythologist. So, let’s revisit our Greek Gods metaphor. The Goddess “Em,” goddess of sport, the equine, and starlight, wanders the earth looking for the best horses, the greatest bloodlines to create her greatest hero. The one who will live on long after there is no one around to remember his name… Now that the legends are told, we know who she chose.

The names are as mythic as the horses they represent, names like Piece of the Moon, Goddess of Fire, Fading Dreams, Rydrew Princess, Fallen Goddess, The Scarlet Night, Unheard of, End Result, Legacy's End…

And Last: End of the Line

Would it surprise you that a horse who was the greatest router of his era was bred from two parents who never won a race over a mile and a sixteenth? Would it surprise you that neither ran beyond their juvenile year? In fact, between the two of them, they raced a grand total of seven times. End of the Line won ten grade one stakes races, alone. He won at distances ranging from five furlongs to a mile-and-a-quarter. He won on both dirt and turf. He probably would have been the greatest All Weather horse of all time, and would you have bet against him at a mile-and-a-half? Of course not. You’d be a fool to bet against a hero battling at the edge of time, the one whose very name symbolized the final great story… but then again, we know that history is littered with the failed imaginings of fools… just don’t let yourself be one of them.

And there are the horses left vanquished in his wake. Perseus had Medusa, Odysseus had the Cyclops, End of the Line had horses such as Pillar of Strength, Epic, Notorious, Colorado, Monet, Dr. Richardson, Out of Kindness, Del Mar, Indian, Desert Victory and Epic. Only Majesty and Tackle defeated him in his prime. His prime being a string of fifteen races (of which End of the Line won all but the above mentioned two) that stretched across a period of three years, during which he won almost five-million dollars. Winning thirteen of fifteen races is astounding by any stretch. Add to that the fact that all were either grade one or grade two stakes races… and none of them were walks in the park.

Here’s the interesting thing. In his illustrious career, despite the fact that he was the greatest dirt router of his time, End of the Line never raced in any of the Triple Crown races. Proving yet again that the hero’s journey, more often than not, is a convoluted road that twists and turns and drops off at unexpected points only to open into a path that we could never imagine… and that is the ultimate trick, the ultimate sleight of hand, the ultimate cliffhanger; just when you think the road has reached its end, it hasn’t.

Still, it’s hard to imagine that End of the Line, not only never won, but never raced a single Triple Crown race. However, it is to this that The Steward heaps praise upon Luis Polar, End of the Line’s owner. What a temptation it would’ve been for Luis to enter End of the Line in at least one of the Big Three, but the simple fact was that End of the Line wasn’t ready, and it took a great deal of patience and discipline to keep from trying to force the issue. Add to that the fact that Luis was a brand new trainer… how many could have resisted? Very few, would be my guess.

Of course, that’s another twist in the tale. Not only was Luis a new trainer at the time, he purchased the greatest horse of his era… one of the greatest horses of any era, for a mere one-hundred-and-ten thousand dollars in a dispersal sale. Again we see fate pushing the tide, twisting the story, making it even more unique, more special. It’s almost as if Luis were meant to own End of the Linel.

End of the Line started his career in modest fashion, winning only one race his juvenile year and not winning his first route until the third race of his three-year-old campaign. The race just so happened to be the second leg of the “Puerto Rican Triple Crown.” He also went on to win the third leg of the “Puerto Rican Triple Crown,” and the rest, as they say, is history… or in our case myth.

From there he strung one of the most mystifying, epic, dominant runs in Sim history, winning the Inglewood Derby, Strub Handicap, Suburban Handicap, Brooklyn Handicap, Whitney Handicap, Jockey Club Gold Cup, Clark Handicap, Gulf Stream Park Handicap, Bourbon Turf Classic, Stephen Foster Handicap, and the Chicago Million. Which brings us to his final race, The Year Nineteen, Steward’s Cup Classic, raced where else but The Louisville Downs. A race at the end of time and the final chapter of our story.

The End of the Line

The Year Nineteen Steward’s Cup Classic was a field of eleven that must have been one of the greatest in Sim History. Let’s set the stage, starting with the lineup: Monet, Dr. Richardson, Out of Kindness, Notorious, Del Mar, Indian, Radee, I Said Don’t Do It, Run, Epic and of course, End of the Line.

Now I want you to imagine yourself gathered at the end of time, the last day, the last race. This was it. This was to be the last race ever ran in the Sim, the End of the Line. Everything had culminated into this.

As the horses walked the paddock then onto the track and loaded into the gate, this was to be the end of our story. And no matter what fate had in store for us, this would be End of the Line’s last race. The last race in an incredible career, a career that could only be questioned on the basis that he had no Triple Crown wins, no Midsummer Classic, No Desert World Cup and, of course, no Steward’s Cup. He had never won any of the big races against which a legacy is measured. He would need this win to secure his place in the Hall of Fame… and it was against a field that included six horses who would win over three million dollars each, a field in which every horse either won or went on to win over a million- there were no ringers. It was a field of great horses that had won thirty-three grade one stakes races between them; including A Steward’s Cup, two Midsummer Classics, one Long Island Classic, two Desert World Cups and two Louisville Derbies. This was to be one of those epic battle that end things for all time…

But of course it didn’t. We know that now. And we know that End of the Line saved his greatest race for his last. He stormed the final furlong beating Monet by a length and secured his place in that special plateau reserved for heroes whose names live on, who people talk about when they reminisce… “you should’ve been there. There will never be another one like him…” And they go on and on and the legend grows, and those who weren’t there to see him race wish they were… because they know that the reminiscence is true… there will never be another like him. His is a story that can’t be recreated; The last horse, winning the last race at the end of time… or so we thought.

But what is a great tale without a little magic?

I sometimes wonder if racehorses know that they’re giving us gifts... and no I don’t mean two-dollar trifectas. I mean the gift of giving us that feeling of elation that can only come as our horse pounds down the final stretch, closing hard in that final furlong… that feeling that anything really is possible; and in our story, somehow the impossible happened. The End of the Line really wasn’t the end of the line. The world ended with a bang… and somehow came back…

Just as everyone thought that the world had ended, it began again, and End of the Line was right at the heart, with perhaps his greatest gift… a perfectly named colt named… Magician… and the magic returned. To date, End of the Line’s progeny have won over forty-nine million and counting. Some of the more famous include Magician, Something Better, Start of the End, The Odyssey’s End, Commendation and, of course, Buckingham.

You can still see him if your travel to the old world. You can travel across the Mediterranean Sea, just off the shore of Spain and France. You can cross the Tyrrhenian Sea to the boot shaped peninsula of Italy. You can travel through the streets of Rome on your way to Haras Ribot, where “The Great Horse” as he is known to the locals, is stabled. You can still touch him. You can still feel part of the myth. And if you want to travel deeper, you can sail out onto the Adriatic Sea, then set your course for Ionian Sea and at last you’re there… Greece, the land where so many great heroes were born.

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