The first edition of Steeplechase Times – March 18, 1994 – featured a center spread headlined “The Big Three.” Three stars dominated preseason conversation and there they were, complete with photos by Barbara Livingston and past performances from Equibase.
The trio consisted of:
- Warm Spell, Dr. John Griggs’ Kentucky-bred chestnut flash who’d won three of five, including a two-race sweep at Saratoga, the previous season.
- Lonesome Glory, Kay Jeffords’ Eclipse Award winner of 1992 when he made history as a novice by winning in England and 1993 when he won the Breeders’ Cup by 8 1/2 lengths for trainer Bruce Miller.
- Mistico, the nearly black Chilean import who led the earnings list in 1992 and won two major stakes in 1993.
To that point, all three had never appeared in the same race. They ruled 1994, however, winning two stakes each, accounting for all five races worth $100,000 or more and taking the top three spots on the earnings list. Head to head to head, they raced together four times. Mistico won twice, the others once each.
Warm Spell finished with three total wins (to two each for the others) on the season, and a slight edge in the earnings race. He also added a crushing final chapter to the story as he was fatally injured in November’s Colonial Cup, which went to Lonesome Glory by a neck over Mistico. Warm Spell won a posthumous Eclipse Award.
Lonesome Glory went on to win steeplechase championships in 1995, 1997 and 1999 – the only five-time jump champion in American history. He died in a paddock accident in 2002 and three years later joined racing’s Hall of Fame.
Which leaves only Mistico, the oldest of the three and still going at 33 on Hubbard’s Crystal Springs Farm in Tularosa, N.M. The 320-acre farm, surrounded by mountains and scenery fit for a Georgia O’Keeffe painting, is home to Quarter Horse mares and foals, prime alfalfa hay and a little bit of steeplechase royalty – even if the nearest steeplechase course is 1,268 miles away. The high-desert retirement home is actually Mistico’s second, as he spent 10 years at Crystal Springs in Paris, Ky. When Hubbard closed that farm, Mistico made the trek west.
“It wasn’t even really a question, he had to go with us,” said farm manager Tom Goncharoff, who also relocated along with his wife Leslie and daughters Kristen and Rebecca. “We have half a dozen pensioners. They don’t owe us anything.”
And it’s a great life. Mistico (at left in photo taken by Goncharoff this week) lives with My Dashing Lady, a 22-year-old Quarter Horse broodmare who won a Grade 1 on the track and produced $1.3 million earner Noconi among others. They live outside, petty much all the time, munch on vast quantities of that hay, take turns eating from feeders on what might be the only board fence in New Mexico, watch young horses come and go and admire the views. In winter, there’s snow on the nearby mountaintops but barely any (ever) at the farm. In summer, the temperature can climb to 100 but there’s no humidity. The only bad days Mistico has are ones where he has to go to the barn.
“Shortly after we moved to New Mexico we had a hail storm and he had welts all over him and just looked rough,” said Goncharoff. “I felt bad for him so we put him the barn, gave him some Bute and let him chill out and relax. He hated being in the barn, absolutely hated it. Still to this day, he’s the same way. We’ve got to bribe him with grain to worm him or do anything. He likes to do things his way.
“He’s kind of a grouchy, gotta-do-it-my-way kind of dude.”
And that’s just fine.
Mistico more than earned his retirement, and his personality. Foaled in July 1986 and bred by Haras Matancilla, the dark bay made 11 starts as a 3-year-old in his native Chile. The son of Balconaje won the Group 2 Premio Alvaro Covarrubias and the Group 1 Chilean Two Thousand Guineas, then placed in four consecutive Group 1 races before being imported by Hubbard and trainer Henry Moreno.
For Hubbard and partners Dr. Ed Allred and J.R. Johnson, Mistico made six allowance starts in California in 1990. He lost them all. Switched to Dwight Viator the next year, Mistico found more success away from California – finishing third at Oaklawn Park, and winning a Keeneland allowance going 1 1/2 miles on the turf (at 26-1) in April. In a stakes at Dueling Grounds (now Kentucky Downs) two weeks later, he finished ninth of 10. Two more starts that summer at Arlington proved just as fruitless, and Goncharoff started mulling other plans. After the loss at Dueling Grounds, where the four-race card included two hurdle races and two turf races, the joke was that maybe Mistico would do better over jumps.
Goncharoff credited June Zent, wife of veterinarian Dr. Walter Zent, with the idea but the idea really wasn’t serious. Or was it?
Reluctantly, Goncharoff called his boss.
“We might want to consider running him over jumps,” he said.
Hubbard, the owner of Hollywood Park racetrack and as far removed from jump racing as anyone in racing, issued a clear response.
“Tommy,” he said. “I don’t know anything about racing over jumps, but go ahead. I guess you’ve got to call Jonathan Sheppard. He’s the only guy I’ve ever heard of.”
Goncharoff dug up a number for Sheppard, and by October, two months after running on the turf at Arlington Park, Mistico won his hurdle debut at Tryon, N.C.
In 1992, he made 10 starts – winning three and placing second five times while leading all hurdle horses with $155,187 earned. Sanna Neilson rode him twice, finishing second in the 3-mile Iroquois in May and winning the Colonial Cup in November. The Iroquois was restricted to amateur jockeys then and Blythe Miller was committed to Victorian Hill. Sheppard asked Neilson, whose mounts to that point had pretty much been slower, steadier timber horses, if she’d be interested. She jumped at the chance.
“I had never been on that caliber of a horse,” she said Thursday. “I can remember going up the hill the second time and thinking ‘we must have another time to go around.’ He was going so easily. I sat and waited and just waited a little too long and I got beat (second to Victorian Hill by 2 lengths).”
Neilson felt terrible, and called Sheppard – on a pay phone – to apologize. Sheppard said he might give her another chance someday. Mistico went on to win twice in September and finished second to stablemate Highland Bud in the Breeders’ Cup Steeplechase for Craig Thornton. For November’s Colonial Cup, Sheppard entered four horses. Thornton got on Ninepins, Miller took Double Bill, Jonathan Smart rode Yaw. Neilson, who credited Sheppard assistant Betsy Wells with a nudge, got a do-over aboard Mistico.
“What’s your plan Sanna?” Sheppard asked in the paddock.
“I’m going to sit right behind Victorian Hill and then I’m going to kick on.”
Mistico was more than up to the task, stalking Circuit Bar and Victorian Hill early, and blazing to a 6-length win.
To start 1993, Mistico won the Carolina Cup with Thornton in late March but reunited with Neilson for another go at the Iroquois. The race had relaxed its amateurs-only status, but Sheppard stuck with her. Mistico won by again, ousting Warm Spell by 2 lengths.
“I remember thinking I had never gone – successfully – that fast into a fence, and that was a 3-mile race,” Neilson said of the experience. “He was really an impressive-feeling animal. He was a machine.”
That was the last time she rode Mistico, who won the Iroquois again and the New York Turf Writers Cup (with Thornton) in 1994, but she remembers him. She went on to train steeplechase champions McDynamo and Pompeyo and a slew of other quality horses, all measured – at least a little – to this one.
“I had never sat on anything like that before, and maybe one or two since but not many,” she said. “Jonathan had so many nice horses and I worked for him off and on, but to actually sit on one in a race and know that’s what a really good one feels like helped me. It was a little bit of experience.
“He was a spring waiting to uncoil. Pompeyo (champion in 2001) reminded me of him. McDynamo (a three-time champion) was different. He was very relaxed.”
Mistico raced in 1995 and 1996, but never won again despite seconds and thirds in the Carolina Cup, A.P. Smithwick, Turf Writers (beaten a neck by Lonesome Glory), Colonial Cup, Atlanta Cup and another Iroquois. His last start came in the 1996 Smithwick at Saratoga and he was retired to Crystal Springs with a suspensory injury. He earned $517,347 over fences (third on the all-time list when he was retired and still 14th).
Goncharoff still marvels over the heady achievements, and the unlikeliness of it all.
“These horses take you to the most amazing places,” he said. “They’re so willing and just go along with what we come up with for them. It was a totally different world for us, but we loved it. It was so fun, just so fun.”
At first Goncharoff planned a second career. His daughters were riding, participating in pony club and other activities. A nice, quiet Thoroughbred might be perfect. Mistico had none of it.
“He was sound, the vet went over him and everything,” said Goncharoff. “But every time we put tack on him and had somebody ride him, he’d start limping. Take the tack off, sound as could be and off he would go.”
He became the Kentucky farm’s babysitter, earning the nickname “The Warden” in a field with young colts. Then it was a private paddock, and now it’s the good life in New Mexico.
“He’s great,” said Goncharoff. “Nothing bothers him – unless you want to put him in the barn.”
NOTES: Owner R.D. Hubbard only saw Mistico run twice – a fall at the last fence of the 1993 Turf Writers at Saratoga and a fifth in the 1994 Breeders’ Cup at Far Hills. The owner nearly pulled off a Hollywood Park steeplechase at the end of the 1994 season, only to be voted down by the California HBPA in September. Mistico would have been there for sure . . . Mistico competed in a deep stakes division populated by worthy horses. Lonesome Glory was an all-timer. Warm Spell was brilliant, but sadly didn’t last. Mistico could have easily been a three-time champion in other eras. Victorian Hill won 15 races and led the earnings list for years. Ninepins raced until age 13. Rowdy Irishman won two Iroquois and was as tough as they get. Each has a spot in the top 20 earners. They won 70 American jump races, and earned a combined $3.25 million. “That group of horses he was in against . . .” said Goncharoff. “We had no idea how good they were until afterward. It was an honor to be in there with them.”
More from Mistico’s career.
Color photo: The last fence of the 1994 Turf Writers (Barbara D. Livingston photo). Black and white photo: Mistico and Sanna Neilson pull away from Victorian Hill in the 1993 Colonial Cup (Deirdre Davie photo).
