Joe Clancy

The steeplechase season ended a week ago, OK a little more than a week ago but here we are at the end of a trip that began back in March at Aiken.

He’s up, he’s down. He’s awesome, he’s awful. He’s dominant, he’s dominated. Tax Ruling, America’s most up and down (no pun intended) steeplechaser solved a crazy Eclipse Award debate in the 2011  season’s final Grade I stakes Saturday.

The Colonial Cup is the decider. Since 1970, it’s the race that finalizes it all. This year, 12 horses, the last 12 standing, line up to secure a big check and clinch the Eclipse Award.

Kevin Boniface talked his son Fritz through the early stages of the Pennsylvania Hunt Cup’s maiden timber race. Fritz and Moonsox showed the way. Kevin might as well have been along for the ride.

Joe Aitcheson, Paddy Smithwick, Dooley Adams, Jerry Fishback, Tommy Walsh, Jeff Teter, Chip Miller, Blythe Miller, Matt McCarron.

When Good Night Shirt tried to run off during a hack last month, Jack Fisher didn’t think much of it. Ex-racehorses will do that sometimes and perhaps the Shirt had a flashback.

Bruce Brown ran sideways, snapping his fingers, yelling, winding up a mile from the clubhouse big screen. Jennie Brown stood her ground and shrieked.

Kiaran McLaughlin leaned over the back of a chair and stared at the TV, he could have been watching the 6 o’clock news. In a clubhouse box at the top of the stairs, one square over from Todd Pletcher and just down from his old boss Wayne Lukas, McLaughlin simply stared at the TV while bedlam rained around him.

Just a man and his horse. Traveling the world. Arthur Coontz and Giant Oak have been together for nearly three years, the Thoroughbred version of Lewis and Clark.

Euphony, Going Ballistic and Brownie Points are among his recent Oaklawn stars. He had a great run from 2000-02 with stakes winners Mr. Ross, See How They Run and Bedanken.