When it comes to triple dead heats, most people think of the famous black and white image of the 1944 Carter Handicap, featuring Brownie, Bossuet, and Wait a Bit hitting the wire in full flight together at Aqueduct.
But that isn't the only time it happened.
In fact, at least 20 have taken place since 1940. That's according to a short item published in the Thoroughbred Times on Dec. 13, 1997.
The Times researchers had cause to look this up because on Dec. 7, 1997, there was another. The fourth race at Hollywood Park that day, an $8,000 claimer, was won by Tina Celesta, Chans Pearl, and Cool Miss Ann. The latter two made closing efforts, while Tina Celesta had stalked an early pace set by Foxy Monica in the race, which was seven and a half furlongs on the dirt.
Tina Celesta had been the betting favorite, with Chans Pearl the second choice and Cool Miss Ann 7-1. Chans Pearl was claimed out of the race away from trainer Rick Berry by Melvin Stute.
According to the Times, the finish was only the second triple dead heat on record in California at the time, with the other being July 3, 1957 — also at Hollywood, also in a claiming race.
The fourth race at Hollywood that day wasn't really supposed to be the highlight of the card. You'd have thought that would be reserved for the race that kicked off the day, the Grade 2 Bayakoa Stakes, where D. Wayne Lukas trainee Sharp Cat won in a walkover – the first known walkover in a major stakes in 17 years. Two other fillies – both trained by Ron McAnally – had been entered against the daughter of Storm Cat after the other nominees were removed from consideration because of injury or fear of competition.
McAnally scratched both of them, not wanting to run them on a muddy track and pointing toward a 1998 campaign. One of them, the Argentine-bred Toda Una Dama, won the Grade 1 Santa Margarita Handicap three months after the Bayakoa. The other filly scratched by McAnally, Alzora, a daughter of Seattle Slew, scored her first black type victory two years later in the last of her 23 career starts.
“That's the great thing about racing, you never know for sure what is going to happen,” said Hollywood Park steward Pete Pedersen told the Los Angeles Times that day. “Strange things happen and here you have two incredible things in one day. That's why you're in the business.”
As Stu Slagle noted in a 2017 Paulick Report commentary, all three victorious jockeys got to pose in the winner's circle (in this case winners' circle) after the dead heat, making for a truly unique moment.
Tina Celesta would go on to retire after 41 starts, finishing in the money 17 times for trainer Daniel Azcarate. She embarked on a breeding career in which she produced four foals and two winners.
Two years before her appearance in the triple dead heat, Chans Pearl placed in the Miss Yakima Handicap and was third in the Yakima Matron at Yakima Meadows, which shuttered in 1998. She continued in the claiming ranks into the following spring and was sold for $700 at the Barretts October auction. There is no official produce record in The Jockey Club's records for Chans Pearl and it's unclear where she went after Barretts.
Cool Miss Ann, who had a second-place finish in the Humboldt County fair's Les Mademoiselle Handicap to her credit the previous year, also went to the breeding shed, where she produced 11 foals, six winners. One of her foals, Kool Suggestion, finished third in the Ken Maddy Sprint and Sam Whiting Memorial Handicap.
The post This Week In History: A Triple Dead Heat appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
