Colonel Liam, Domestic Spending Dead-Heat In A Turf Classic Thriller

A pair of Grade 1-winning 4-year-olds – Colonel Liam from the barn of Todd Pletcher and the Chad Brown-trained Domestic Spending – hit the wire together in Saturday's Turf Classic Stakes at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., producing the first dead-heat in the 35-year history of the Grade 1 grass fixture run immediately prior to the Kentucky Derby.

Colonel Liam, ridden by Irad Ortiz Jr., seized command from front-running Smooth Like Strait in the final sixteenth of a mile in the nine-furlong race, but Flavien Prat and Domestic Spending were in full flight after boring through a narrow opening in mid-stretch and switching to the outside. Domestic Spending was gaining ground with every strike and just caught Colonel Liam when the photo finish camera clicked at the wire. Time of the race on a firm turf course was 1:47.99.

Smooth Like Strait was a neck back in third, with Count Again 1 1/2 lengths further back in fourth in the field of nine older runners, edging Digital Age, Ivar and Cross Border in a photo finish, Masteroffoxhounds and Ride a Comet completed the order of finish.

Owned by Robert E. and Lawana Low, Colonel Liam paid $2.80 to win as the 7-5 favorite. Klaravich Stables' Domestic Spending, sent off at 5-1, paid $5.80 for a $2 win bet.

Umberto Rispoli guided Smooth Like Strait to the lead and set soft fractions of :24.40 for the opening quarter mile and :49.17 for the half. Colonel Liam was sitting in third position, saving ground along the inner hedge, with Domestic Spending near the back of the field and off the rail in the run down the backstretch.

Rounding the stretch turn after six furlongs in 1:12.83, Ortiz switched Colonel Liam to the outside and drew up alongside the front-runner at the furlong pole, the mile clocked in 1:36.22. He edged past that stubborn rival and looked to be on his way to victory.

Domestic Spending, meanwhile, had just two horses beat turning into the stretch. Prat had to guide his mount through a narrow opening, drawing alongside Brown stablemate Digital Age, switched to the outside and Domestic Spending kicked into high gear as both Smooth Like Strait and Colonel Liam were drifting out in deep stretch.

Photo finish for the Turf Classic win

For Colonel Liam, the win was his fourth in a row, dating back to his first stakes victory in the Tropical Park Derby at Gulfstream Park Dec. 26. He then scored a rich victory in the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational Jan. 23 and came back to win the Grade 2  Muniz Memorial at Fair Grounds on March 20.

The 4-year-old colt by Liam's Map, a $1.2 million 2-year-old purchase at the Ocala Breeders' Sales Co.'s April sale, has now won six of eight career starts. He was bred in Kentucky by Phillips Racing Partnership.

Domestic Spending, a 4-year-old Kingman gelding bred in England by Rabbah Bloodstock Limited,  has won five of six career starts, including the Saratoga Derby Invitational last Aug. 16 and the Grade 1 Hollywood Derby at Del Mar Nov. 7. The Hollywood Derby was the most recent start for Domestic Spending, who trained at Palm Meadows in South Florida over the winter.

First run in 1987 after Churchill Downs installed a turf course, the Turf Classic has been won by three horses that would go on later in the year to Eclipse Award honors: Bricks and Mortar in 2019 (also voted Horse of the Year), Wise Dan in 2013, and Paradise Creek in 1994. It has been a Grade 1 since 1996.

The Turf Classic field drives toward the finish at Churchill Downs, with Domestic Spending (red and white cap) and the gray Colonel Liam dead-heating for the win

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‘If You Can’t Split ‘Em, Dead Heat ‘Em!’ Putting Up The Wrong Numbers At Miles Park

For those racing fans old enough to remember, the recent Kentucky Downs race where the placing judges initially put up the wrong numbers of the first- and second-place finishers brought back memories of that same mistake on a dark and stormy night at Louisville's venerable Miles Park 46 years ago. There was one key difference: The error at Kentucky Downs this week was caught (and corrected) before the race was declared “official,” while the bad numbers at Miles Park were only changed hours after the “official” sign was posted, too late for those in attendance who held tickets on the real winner.

On July 4, 1974, during what turned out to be Miles Park's last full year of racing, the popular half-mile oval deep in Louisville's West End was enjoying good-sized crowds and handle for the one day (Saturdays) and five nights it raced. Opened in 1956 as a harness track, it was re-named in 1958 for noted businessman and horse-owner J. Fred Miles, but to its loyal patrons it was always called “Smiles” Park. I was helping to put myself through law school at the University of Louisville by working in the track's clubhouse dining room as a $20-a-night mutuel clerk.

That year was a traumatic one for Louisville — on April 3, 1974, a tornado had devastated several sections of the city, killing eight people. But barely a month later, Cannonade won the 100th Kentucky Derby before a record attendance including Princess Margaret representing the Queen of England.

At the end of the Churchill Downs spring meet, Miles Park took over on the Kentucky circuit for its traditional six weeks of racing. On Thursday, July 4, 5,344 fans turned out for the holiday night's nine races. The feature race, with a $5,000 pot, was the “Spirit of '76 Purse,” an “about” one-mile allowance test for older horses.

As the crowd roared, a 17-1 shot, Git, a 7-year-old gelding ridden furiously by Jesus Rosello, prevailed by a nose over Julia's Dash … or did he? Sometime after the race was made “official,” an embarrassed Frank Muth, one of the placing judges, informed the stewards that the wrong horse had been posted as the winner – that Julia's Dash's nose had reached the wire first, not Git's.

After a stewards' hearing the next morning, Mr. Muth and his two fellow judges, Bernard “Bernie” Berns and John Francis Dugan, were each fined $100 and suspended the final week of the meeting. (Mr. Berns unsuccessfully appealed his sanction to the Kentucky State Racing Commission and went to his grave insisting that Git had won the race.)

A press release and published ruling emphasized the integrity of the veteran officials and, eventually, as the story was re-told through the years, the mistake was blamed on the rainy weather, an outdated photo-finish camera, and a printed photograph that Mr. Muth – as good a racing official as ever lived – had called for that night that, to the naked eye, bordered on an optical illusion (see photo).

Frank Muth

Replacing the departed trio of judges was a new set abruptly pressed into service: assistant racing secretary Donnie Richardson, clerk of scales Jerry Botts, and racing secretary Warren Wolf. To their chagrin (and without their agreement), in a move that today would be labeled “transparency,” their full names were announced to the next night's crowd. Messrs. Richardson, Botts and Wolf got an immediate challenge in their new positions: In the first race, as fate would have it, there was an extremely close finish.

Understandably, the replacement judges took considerable time to study the printed photo. As the minutes wore on, the impatient bettors, mindful of the previous evening's debacle, began to ever more loudly chant in unison: “If you can't split 'em, dead heat 'em!  IF YOU CAN'T SPLIT 'EM, DEAD HEAT 'EM!   IF YOU CAN'T SPLIT 'EM, DEAD HEAT 'EM!!!” – until the result was finally posted on the tote board to thunderous Bronx cheer applause.

In those seemingly less-complicated times, no lawsuits were filed because of the placing judges' mistake, not even by Git's colorful owner, Henderson, Ky., automobile dealer George “Hoolie” Hudson, who, in later years, admitted that he more than made up the $2,000 difference in the purse redistribution with the bets he had legitimately cashed on his $37.60 “winner.” The fans' anger may have been assuaged, too, by the wise decision of track management (led by perspicacious general manager John Battaglia) to give out thousands of passes for free admission, food, and other giveaways.

After ill-conceived decisions to try Quarter Horse racing, a winter meet in late 1974, and even a gray, dud-of-a-new-name, Commonwealth Race Course, little Miles Park closed for good the following year. But its memories have endured for anyone lucky enough to have worked there during some wonderful summers, when everybody was young and our futures were all in front of us – even on the night the judges put up the “officially” wrong numbers.

Bob Heleringer is a Louisville, Ky. attorney, former racing official (placing judge), and is currently writing a second edition of his legal textbook, “Equine Regulatory Law.”

The Courier-Journal published the mis-read photo finish

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Del Mar Rarity: Tranquility Lake Dead-Heat First In Stakes Since 1973

The dead-heat for the win between Proud Emma and Message in Friday's Tranquility Lake was the first in a stakes event at Del Mar in nearly a half-century and only the third all-time at the seaside track near San Diego, Calif.

The first such occurrence was in the 1968 Del Mar Derby, when Prince Hemp and Glory Hallelujah couldn't be separated by the photo-finish camera. The most “recent” was in the second division of the 1973 Rancho Bernardo when the co-winners were Dollar Discount and D.B. Carm.

The dead-heat victory in a stakes was the first for Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert, who has been winning them at Del Mar, and lots of other Thoroughbred places, for over three decades.

It was also a first, and a double-dip benefit for jockey Flavien Prat, aboard Message for Baffert. Peter Miller trains Proud Emma, who was ridden by Mike Smith.

It was the 11th stakes win of the meeting for Prat, two short of the track's single-season record for jockeys with eight more black-type events on the calendar. It also moved Prat back into a tie with Umberto Rispoli atop the rider standings with 36 wins each.

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