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Joe Clancy Six weeks into the steeplechase season, it’s well past time to reset the table so here goes an attempt as April comes to a close. Where’s the Queen?Breaking news…Breaking news…Breaking news… Well, sort of. The Mean Queen missed a flat start at Loudon Point-to-Point last weekend with what thus far appears to be a minor … Read more
Nik Juarez goes for runs near Monmouth Park racetrack all the time, but this one – at 3 in the morning – was different.
“What are you doing?” hollered a security guard.
“I’m running.”
“It’s 2 o’clock in the morning.”
“No, it’s 3 o’clock.”
“We’re closed.”
“I know. Can I just run around the parking lot?”
Thirty-six starts. Fourteen wins. Four seconds. Seven thirds. Closing in on $1 million in earnings. Five wins as a 4-year-old. Zero wins as a 5-year-old. Four wins as a 6-year-old. First graded stakes win at age 7.
Past performances . . . Mask . . . Gloves . . . Glasses . . . Digital recorder . . . Phone . . . Pen . . . Past performances . . . Mask . . . Gloves . . . Glasses . . . Digital recorder . . . Phone . . . Pen . . . Past performances . . . Mask . . . Gloves . . . Glasses . . . Digital recorder . . . Phone . . . Pen . . .
Past performances . . . Mask . . . Gloves . . . Glasses . . . Digital recorder . . . Pen . . .
“Joe, why do you run so much?”
My joke answer to that question from a neighbor, friend or family member typically goes something like, “So I don’t become an ax murderer,” and gets met with an odd pause before I laugh and say that I’m not really sure why. I didn’t run as a younger person, not regularly anyway, but I’m a regular now and managed to cross off the 1,000-Mile Challenge presented by iRun Local this week. The challenge idea took root in January when Tom Law and my brother Sean brought it up during our annual winter summit.
It started in February, maybe even earlier knowing some horse people. Owners, trainers, jockeys – probably even horses – fretted about the next race meet on the 2021 National Steeplechase Association calendar. And now there is nothing to fret over. The season started in March with a single race on the Cheshire Point-to-Point card near Unionville, Pa., feeling half-normal and half-not considering the Covid-torpedoed 2020 version, and drew to a close Nov. 14 near Charleston, S.C.
One more stop on the steeplechase train. The 2021 National Steeplechase Association season ends Sunday with the Charleston Steeplechase just outside Charleston, S.C., and there are plenty of reasons to pay attention.
For starters, the races for champion trainer and jockey are jeans-just-out-of-the-dryer tight.
Flip, Red Sail, Charlie Brown, Whitey, Peanut Butter, Paul Brown, John Warner, Yahtzee . . . it took what seemed like hundreds of horses to teach me how to ride one. That batch there included some ponies of various shapes, sizes and dispositions, a couple of lesson horses at Mary Warner’s Derbydown Farm in Pennsylvania and a racetrack lead pony.
Enjoy your steeplechase holiday last week? File an open weekend followed by a weekend with three race meets under “dumb things about American steeplechasing” and get ready for action from Montpelier in Virginia and Callaway Gardens in Georgia on Saturday, plus the Pennsylvania Hunt Cup on Sunday.
Roger Horgan knows you saw Letruska’s breeze at Del Mar Saturday morning. The one where the Breeders’ Cup Distaff favorite hooked up with another horse for much of the way and then let that rival-for-a-day gallop away in the stretch.
Horgan, the man with the reins in his hands, would also like you to forget about it.
