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Original Seven-Figure Race Exceeded Expectations

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL–They are a dime a dozen nowadays, but back in 1981, the idea that a track would offer a $1-million purse for a Thoroughbred horse race was about as far-fetched as civilians building their own rockets for space travel.

As president and chief executive officer of Arlington Park, the late Joe Joyce conceived of and brought to fruition a race that would be called the Arlington Million, an event aimed at drawing the best horses to race over the renowned Arlington turf course not just those based domestically, but also from Europe. A race that would attract not only the best equine athletes, but also the most gifted jockeys and the most successful trainers.

“The concept of having a million-dollar race and making it international, that germinated and it was done in a short period of time,” Arlington's Richard L. Duchossois told ESPN's Thoroughbred Classics program. “Joe Joyce traveled around the world, Nick Clarke from the International Racing Bureau, everyone combined their thoughts and ideas and it became an instant success and immediately put Arlington back on the map.”

On Aug. 30, 1981, the dream became a reality. The inaugural Million drew the sort of field its creators could only have dreamt about. Representing the United States was 6-year-old John Henry from the California barn of Ron McAnally, who had won the first of his five divisional Eclipse Awards as this country's top grass horse with four Grade I victories in 1980. The former claimer had picked up in 1981 where he left off the previous season, winning his first four starts, including the GI Santa Anita H. on the dirt and the GI San Luis Rey S. and GI Hollywood Invitational H. on the grass. He was the pin-up horse that could help put the Million on the map, the one the organizers would have wanted most. Bill Shoemaker, who'd ridden him only once prior–a victory in that year's GIII Sword Dancer S., then run at Belmont Park–was in for the ride.

The domestic challenge also included the Rokeby Stable-owned Virginia-bred Key to Content, who earned his way into the Million courtesy of a narrow defeat of Canada's Ben Fab in that year's GI United Nations S. at Atlantic City Racecourse. George Martens had the riding assignment for MacK Miller. Leslie Combs' Rossi Gold was the local hero, having won the GII Stars and Stripes H. and Swoon's Son H. prior to the Million, for which he was the 19-5 second choice in the wagering with Pat Day at the controls.

Four horses were lured from Europe for the Million, the best-backed of which was French-based Argument (Fr), that country's reigning champion 3-year-old, whose first trip to the States yielded a narrow victory in the 1980 GI Washington D.C. International S. at Laurel with Lester Piggott up. Winner of the 1981 G2 Prix d'Harcourt and G1 Prix Ganay, Argument was a 7-1 chance with Angel Cordero, Jr. in the irons.

Piggott had the call in the Million atop 3-year-old filly Madam Gay, one of three females in the field, who had won the 1981 G1 Prix de Diane ahead of a runner-up effort behind Shergar in the G1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond S. at Ascot.

In addition to the world-class riders already mentioned, the 1981 Million also featured jockeys named Delahoussaye, Samyn, Brumfield, Toro, Pincay Jr., Cauthen and Hawley. The stars had come to play, as hoped. And, as it turns out, the stars were aligned for a truly memorable two minutes and change of theater.

WATCH: John Henry noses out The Bart in Arlington Million I

A History-Making Day…

Broadcast by NBC to a worldwide audience in 27 countries, the Million was run on turf heavily affected by week-long rains. McAnally expressed some concern about the underfoot conditions, but John Sullivan, the trainer of 40-1 The Bart liked the way his charge had galloped over the track in the days leading up to the race.

Legendary track announcer Phil Georgeff exclaimed, “The flag is up,” as was his custom, and the inaugural Million field was sent on their way. Key to Content was kicked straight into the lead by Martens, but Eddie Delahoussaye asked The Bart to keep close to that one early and the duo had things mostly to themselves over the soggy going through a half-mile in :50 1/5. Shoemaker had John Henry positioned in about eighth spot with some cover as they turned up the backstretch. By the time they had reached the midway point, John Henry had found his way down to the inside as The Bart continued to hound Key to Content from the outside. Delahoussaye could wait no more and allowed The Bart to claim the pacesetter with a little more than 2 1/2 furlongs from home and set sail for the wire.

With Georgeff's trademark, “Here they come spinning out of the turn!” ringing through the grandstand, John Henry was finding his best stride and came out and around Madam Gay at the three-sixteenths pole with every chance if good enough. The Bart carried a clear advantage into the final eighth of a mile, boxed on gamely and looked to have the race won to the naked eye as John Henry came with one desperate final lunge. Georgeff was unwilling to call a winner, but NBC rolled the dice, declaring that The Bart had gotten the better of the photo. The picture told a different story and the Arlington Million was off to a flying start.

The 'Against All Odds' statue overlooking the Arlington paddock | Coady

“Right when we got about six jumps before the wire, I could see it was John Henry,” Delahoussaye told Thoroughbred Classics. “I looked out the corner of my eye, I knew who it was. I had a feeling if any horse was going to beat him, it was going to be him. I was right, unfortunately.”

For his part, Shoemaker wasn't convinced John Henry had gotten the better of the bob.

“Eddie was galloping out, I was trying to catch up with him, I was going to try to save $20,000 [of the purse money],” 'The Shoe' told Thoroughbred Classics. “I couldn't catch him.”

Shoemaker told the Associated Press after the win: “This is the greatest race I've ever ridden in. He's a great horse and this was a great field.” The finish of the inaugural Million is memorialized in the 'Against All Odds' statue that overlooks the Arlington paddock.

John Henry was upset in the 1983 Million by Tolomeo (Ire), but became the only two-time winner of the race with a more decisive victory in 1984.

The name has changed. The purse is now six figures, not seven. It figures to be the final renewal, sadly, at least at Arlington. But the memories of those 10 furlongs on that final Sunday of August now 40 years in the rear view will never be torn down.

The post Original Seven-Figure Race Exceeded Expectations appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Pessin Savors an Honorable Success

She's the one, all right. The one and only, in fact–at least up until now. Who knows? Perhaps Neil Pessin's exemplary achievements with Bell's the One (Majesticperfection) might yet reward him with another Grade I winner or two. But after a lifetime in the game, and 36 years since saddling his first winner, he's neither expecting nor even desiring to transform the intimate scale of his operation.

“You know, I don't get jealous of anybody,” Pessin says. “I'm very happy with where I'm at. I've been successful with the numbers I've had. And I take my hat off to the big guys. I mean, I couldn't do what they do. I couldn't have hundreds of horses and keep track of it all, take care of it all. And I don't want to. I'm very happy with 10 to 16 horses. Yes, it is a numbers game. And the more horses you have, the better your shot of getting one like 'Bell'. But I also know you go through a lot of horses doing that. Some of those guys have 200 2-year-olds-and if five of them can run, those five will make a name for you. But I wouldn't like doing it that way. That wouldn't be me.”

As it is, the GII Honorable Miss H. success of Bell's the One at Saratoga last week took her trainer to a new high in year earnings (currently $724,298, the work of 11 winners from just 58 starters), with five months still to go; and keeps her on track for a return to the Breeders' Cup, where she made the podium last year after winning the GI Derby City Distaff S. on the postponed Kentucky Derby card.

Moreover you have to wonder whether a mare like this–now a stakes winner at two, three, four and five; and a graded stakes winner at three, four and five–might have got lost in a factory system.

In principle, Pessin is too modest to accept that proposition. “Good horses overcome a lot,” he says. “I don't want to say I've made her a good horse, because she's made me look like a better trainer. I think good horses run wherever they are. I can't take a lot of credit for her ability, because I think it's just natural with her. I think it's 90% the horse, and 10% the trainer.”

That said, he concedes that Bell's the One has always had her idiosyncrasies. Yes, she won her first four races, but her preparations had hardly been those of a point-and-press professional.

“A well-measured neck” victory in the Honorable Miss | Sarah Andrew

“The last two weeks before her first start, four different times she just pulled up galloping and we had to lead her off the racetrack,” Pessin recalls. “But we've gotten to where we can manage her quirks now. Going to the racetrack in the morning we'll let her stop and look and decide when she wants to go. It's an extra 15, 20 minutes every day, just to get her to the racetrack. But that's also because I allow her to do that. We're in no hurry. We can take our time with them.”

Pessin was talking from his summer base at Arlington, where he had just been lamenting with fellow horsemen the looming desecration and destruction of one of the jewels of the American Turf. But then you might argue that Pessin, raised and apprenticed in the pre-industrial era of horsemanship, is himself no less representative of a precious, threatened heritage. For his father was that most accomplished of veterinarians, Dr. Arnold Pessin, while his professional mentor Ronnie Warren had rounded off the input of names as storied as LeRoy Jolley and Woody Stephens.

Old school stuff, right? “Yes, and I'm still pretty old school myself,” Pessin says candidly. “So I take the horses first, and me second. And I've never asked a client to send me a horse. If they want to call me, then if I have room I'll take the horse. But I've never actually hustled to get horses. Just one of the ways I was brought up.”

And that upbringing was hands-on throughout. His father was such a highly regarded diagnostician that even people who weren't clients or friends would tend to consult him about their better horses. And Pessin was at his side through boyhood, watching and learning. He would run X-rays through all the various solutions before putting them in the dark room. With appropriate supervision he could even perform castrations.

“So I learned a lot about soundness,” he says. “And also why you don't do a lot of things that people do… I can only speak to my experience. I can't speak to what other people do. But my vet bills are very low. My dad was always of the view that the less you can do, the better. If a horse has a problem, we'll look at it, see what we can do, but nine times out of 10 he'll end up at the farm. You know, 90 days cures a lot. The other things you can do are usually temporary fixes. And then you have to give them 90 or 120 days, and you blew 90 days trying to get them right.”

Pessin and his star mare | Coady

Though just into his 60s, Pessin is also well placed to corroborate a suspicion that the modern breed is less robust than it was formerly. His late father's remarkably diverse portfolio–he is best remembered, perhaps, for building the Kentucky Training Center (now The Thoroughbred Center) and the Dueling Grounds Race Course (now Kentucky Downs)–also embraced Winchester Farm, where he stood the likes of Olden Times, Candy Spots and Prove It. And Pessin feels that the 21st Century Thoroughbred, whether through inbreeding or mass commercial support of unproven sires, has suffered much physical dilution.

“We used to breed for conformation, pedigree and disposition,” he remarks. “Now they correct foals with surgery, so you don't know what you're breeding. You might think you've got two correct horses, when actually you got two horses that toe out so bad they'd trip you if you walked by. I think that's part of the problem with so many horses not making it to the races.

“And then, on top of that, cannon bones are half the size they used to be. The stallions we stood, I couldn't fit my two hands round their cannon bones. Now I can easily touch my other hand with my fingers. So I think between those things–foal surgeries and bone density–you can't train a horse as hard, or run as many times, as they used to. The major prep for the Derby used to be the Derby Trial, five days before. And they used to run in between the Derby and the Preakness. They'd run some of those 2-year-olds 20 times! Do that today, you'd go to jail.”

This was the environment Pessin so loved that his father told him to work the backside before he went to vet school, just to get it out of his system. (“It's almost out now,” he jokes. “But there's still just a little bit in there.”) In New York he hotwalked for Stephens, groomed for Jolley, watched nights for Joe Canty; and then he was appointed assistant to Warren, “an excellent horseman and good caretaker who did quite well all over the country.”

Nowadays, everything has become about volume. Unproven rookies cover five times as many mares as breed-shapers like Danzig, while “super trainers” corral more horses from a single crop than did Hall of Fame trainers past across a decade. Pessin, as we've already heard, feels no resentment on his own behalf. But he does feel that many others are wanting only in opportunity.

A nose win in last year's Derby City Distaff gave Bell's the One her Grade I | Coady

“There are a lot of horsemen out there, young and old, who nobody's ever heard of because they never get the chance of a good horse,” he says. “You can't take a bad horse and make him into a good horse. You can take a good horse and make him into a bad one, but you can't improve a bad one that much.”

So while he accepts that the idea is impractical, not least after seeing legal challenges to The Jockey Club's attempt to limit stallion books to 140, he does think wistfully back to the days when a trainer would be confined to 40 horses at one track, and for the most part obliged to saddle them in person.

At the same time, those limits did allow trainers to test the resilience of what Pessin has just identified as a stouter breed anyway. So now we instead have mega-trainers, with huge slack in their numbers, nonetheless suffering high attrition.

“Back then, horses were a little more sturdy,” Pessin reflects. “And they were trained hard. If a horse stood up to it, fine; if he didn't, you moved him out and another one was waiting to come in. The philosophy of those trainers was if you can't train, you can't run. And with good horses, that's pretty much true. And good horses were what they were looking for. They weren't looking for a maiden 10. But if you were to train like that today, you wouldn't have anything left in the barn. At least, I wouldn't. The big guys probably could do it, but I'd need to watch a little more closely.”

By the same token, nobody has more appreciation for the endeavor of cheaper horses. “If they're giving 110%, you can't ask them for any more whether it's a $5,000 claimer or a Grade I stake,” he says. “You got to respect that horse and love that horse because they're laying it on the line for you.”

Bell's the One Sunday at Saratoga | Sarah Andrew

But the horses with physical capacity to show that desire tend to cost more. Pessin has due gratitude, then, to the owner of Bell's the One, Bob Lothenbach, as a model patron who has also given him the chance with improved raw materials. Pessin was in the Minneapolis businessman's scouting team when drawing his attention to a filly in the Brereton C. Jones draft at the Fasig-Tipton July Sale of 2017.

“She wasn't the most correct horse in the world,” Pessin admits. “But I think that's why we got her for $155,000, instead of $400,000. But she was just very athletic, in the way she moved, and that's what drew me to her.”

Bell's the One has since become a suitably old-fashioned achiever, with a nine-for-19 record in banking $1,126,825. Pessin feels she has seldom been adequately recognized, but you can absolutely set your clock by her. In her last nine works, she has been clocked behind only three horses out of an aggregate 437 others over the same half; and she is unbeaten over six furlongs. For once, however, she was top of the bill as odds-on favorite for the Honorable Miss.

“Her whole career, she's hardly ever gotten respect, no matter what she does,” Pessin says. “But at Saratoga I was very confident in her, and I stated going into the race that she was the best horse. If there was any pressure, it was pressure I put on myself. But she'll usually back me up, and she did.

“The first quarter-mile I was hoping she wasn't too far back, because they didn't go that fast and she was about 10 or 12 off of it. But when they got to the three-eighths pole, she was about five or six off, and I felt as long as he could get the outside I could be pretty confident. Because once she gets in a head duel, it's hard to beat her. She's very gutsy. So while she only won by a neck, I felt it was a well-measured neck.”

So let's salute this admirable mare, and the man who has drawn out her talent–especially as, typically enough, the Grade I prize they shared last year could not really receive due public celebration.

Arlington Park | Horsephotos

“It would have been nice to have the crowd there,” Pessin says. “But it really wasn't bittersweet at all: it was still a Grade I, still at Churchill, still on national television. And I was just very happy to have won. Normally I can call photos, but that one I could not and nor could Tom [Amoss, trainer of runner-up Serengeti Express (Alternation)]. I just felt lucky to come out on the right end of it.”

Bell's the One will now rest for two or three weeks at Chesapeake Farm, Lexington, before training up to the GII Thoroughbred Club of America S., at Keeneland in October, as a springboard to Del Mar. By that stage, sadly, Pessin may have left Arlington Park for the final time.

“It's hard to believe there's even a possibility of a wrecking ball going through that grandstand,” he says. “But give up? Hell, no. You don't give up so long as there's any flicker of hope. It's such a beautiful place, it would be such a shame to see it go by the wayside.”

So much more than bricks and mortar, after all, has already been smashed in our Turf heritage. Let's just be grateful, then, for the remnants that endure in sturdy horses like Bell's the One, and self-effacing horsemen like her trainer.

The post Pessin Savors an Honorable Success appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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ITHA: Refusal To Apply For 2022 Arlington Race Dates ‘Disappointing But Not Surprising’

The Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association issued the following press release on Thursday:

Continuing their campaign to sabotage future gaming opportunities at Arlington Park, track executives are refusing to apply with the Illinois Racing Board for race dates in 2022.

Arlington officials are well aware of interest from other parties in continuing racing at the state's flagship racing facility, as at least one group of investors has publicly disclosed its plan to purchase Arlington and continue live racing there. But if Arlington does not apply for 2022 dates by tomorrow, thereby preserving an avenue for a future owner of the track to pursue racing, then any new owner of the track will not have the option of racing there next year.

Under Illinois law, a dates application for the next year must be filed by Aug. 1. With Aug. 1 falling on a Sunday this year, the deadline moves up to Friday, July 30 – the last IRB business day before Aug. 1.

“Churchill Downs is writing the book on bad faith, so this latest move is disappointing but not surprising,” said Mike Campbell, president of the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association.

Since 2018, when it announced its intent to purchase its ownership interest in Rivers Casino, Arlington owner Churchill has devoted itself to eliminating the threat of competition that gaming at Arlington might pose to nearby Rivers. Churchill refused to apply for a license to develop Arlington as a racino, even though its lobbyists had spent two decades lobbying Illinois lawmakers for that privilege, and then insisted it would sell the track to another entity that would use the property for a purpose “higher and better” than horse racing.

In February, Arlington Heights Mayor Thomas Hayes told ABC7/WLS-TV in Chicago: “I think it's clear why [Churchill] did not choose to open a casino at the racetrack property – because it would directly compete with their majority interest in the Rivers Casino.”

ITHA President Campbell added: “Churchill's commitment to stopping any gaming at Arlington from competing with Rivers is the worst kept secret in Illinois. Company executives have practically contorted themselves to explain and justify their anti-competitive behavior while carefully avoiding any acknowledgment that their true motive appears to be eliminating the threat of competition from Arlington.”

With at least one group of reputable and credible investors poised to purchase Arlington to continue horse racing and pari-mutuel wagering – the highest and best purpose, without question, for one of the finest racing venues in North America – Arlington President Tony Petrillo told a local media outlet that Arlington has a racing dates application in its possession but probably will not file it.

“It's clear that Churchill Downs cares exclusively about corporate profit and that all other considerations are incidental,” Campbell said. “All we can do in this case is hope that Churchill will recognize the utility, for the sake of its interest in selling Arlington Park to the most capable bidder, of filing the dates application to preserve the possibility of future racing at the track.”

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Report: Arlington Employees Receive Layoff Notices

According to a report in Chicago's Daily Herald newspaper, Churchill Downs Incorporated (CDI), the owner of Arlington Park, has sent official notices to employees informing them they will be laid off 14 days after the final day of the meet, which is Sept. 25.

CDI has not committed to racing beyond the end of this meet and has put the track up for sale. The layoff notices are a discouraging development after CDI applied for 2022 Illinois racing dates. A date request is not binding and does not have to mean that CDI intends to keep the track open.

The Daily Herald obtained a copy of a memo sent to employees by Arlington President Tony Petrillo, which read: “As it was announced earlier this year the Arlington Park Racecourse, LLC has been placed on the market for sale which will result in the closure of Arlington International Racecourse. Consistent with these plans, employment separations presently are expected to begin on or about Sept. 25, 2021. The entire Racecourse facility is being permanently closed in conjunction with the expectation of the sale.”

Nick Micaletti, the business agent for Teamsters Local 727, which represents 50 Arlington employees, including valets and the starting gate crew, held out hope someone would come in, buy the track and keep it open for racing.

“It's a reality now, whereas before it was, well, hopefully somebody comes in and buys it and does the right things and helps Illinois horse racing,” Micaletti told the Daily Herald.

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