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Joe Clancy 
As brilliant as he is Gun Runner does not talk, so Three Chimneys Farm stallion manager Sandy Hatfield put his thoughts about retirement into words Thursday afternoon.
“Whatever you want to do is fine,” she said, paraphrasing the 2017 Horse of the Year’s opinion on turnout, a visit to the breeding shed and a life without a daily gallop or someone walking up with a saddle. “It’s not a big deal. Show me what to do.”
Bill Gallo started working at the National Steeplechase Association in 1977 and has seen the sport go through a variety of cycles. He talks about the competitive race for the 2017 Eclipse Award between All The Way Jose, Mr. Hot Stuff and Scorpiancer, takes a look ahead at the 2018 season and even goes way … Read more
Creased, scratched, faded, turned up on the corners and with a dime-sized hole in the center of the cover photo, the magazine saw plenty in its 44 years. But nobody had seen it for five years, maybe more, until Jack Clancy opened a plastic container in an unused room in my Fair Hill office last month.
Back in the 1980s at the University of Delaware’s student-run newspaper The Review, I didn’t cover the football team. I went to field hockey games, lacrosse games, the occasional baseball game, a basketball game or two (the team was usually woeful), some wrestling matches, a few swim meets.
When Charlie Colgan started working for the National Steeplechase and Hunt Association in 1971, annual purses hovered at $1 million and the circuit was reeling from a massive cutback by the New York Racing Association. By the time he retired in 2000, the sport had flipped its financial model – relying far more on a schedule of successful one-day race meets rather than opportunities created by racetracks and taken a variety of progressive steps forward.
Abstain, abstain, abstain.
If you’re paying attention to Eclipse Award votes this time of year, you’ll read that a lot. Voters and other interested racing fans will post their ballots for Thoroughbred racing’s annual championships and many will decline to vote in the champion steeplechaser category (instead typing Abstain in the first, second and third choice boxes). Not everyone, but many. The abstentions topped 40 individual voters in each of the past three years and will likely do so again this time around.
“Hi, I’m calling to order my calendars. I order them every year from you. You should know who I am and have all of my information.”
“I only need one this year. The person I bought the second one for passed away.”
“My mama drank tequila when she was pregnant with me, so I don’t hear so well. Can you speak up?”
“My friends owned some horses in California. I was their official jockey hugger. Now that was a good job.”
When you spend two days at Breeders’ Cup doing interviews and commentary for Horse Racing Radio Network you walk about 12 miles, talk to too many people to remember and emerge with little more than snippets of moments from 13 championship races.
Be proud of Gun Runner. You don’t have to own him, train him or even know him, but be proud of him. The chestnut 4-year-old isn’t the biggest horse in the world or the strongest or even the most handsome.
But he’s the best.
Chuck Fipke walked out of the Del Mar test barn Friday night and asked for a mint. “Anybody have a mint? Who has a mint? Can someone give me a mint?” People instantly reached for their pockets – a veterinarian, a writer, some family members, even Bo Derek.
