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20 Years Celebrating the Legendary Tiznow

As the calendar turns to 2022, the final crop of foals from legendary racehorse and sire Tiznow will become yearlings. Soon-turning 25, Tiznow has sired over 80 blacktype winners including 14 Grade I/Group 1 winners after nearly two decades as a cornerstone stallion at WinStar Farm.

This year, the successful sire enjoyed his first full year of retirement. WinStar Stallion Manager Larry McGinnis said that Tiznow still shares a similar routine to the other stallions in the stud barn.

“He does get a bit more leeway because he's a teacher's favorite,” McGinnis admitted. “If there's a day where he wants to stay out in his paddock, we'll feed him outside. I think he has developed a little bit of a bravado as he's gotten older. He does try to intimidate the young boys as they go through. He does what he wants, when he wants and it will be like that for the rest of his life.”

Such a lifestyle is nothing new for Tiznow, who was well documented on the racetrack for doing most everything on his own terms. McGinnis said that attitude never wavered throughout the blaze-faced bay's career at stud.

“Tiznow is the smartest horse I've ever been around. When we first got him, I noticed that. He looks a lot and nothing fazes him. One time we had him on a tour and a girl got stung by a bee right next to him. She screamed bloody murder and he just stood there. He has never shown that he's afraid of anything.”

Tiznow and McGinnis have developed a special bond as they've shared the past two decades together at WinStar. Before Tiznow's arrival, McGinnis was the assistant manager at Prestonwood Farm as the property transitioned into WinStar Farm.

“They told me that we had a stallion coming in and asked if I wanted to be stallion manager,” he explained. “I didn't realize that the horse coming in was Tiznow.”

Tiznow was no shoo-in to become a successful Kentucky stallion when he first arrived at WinStar, but the grit and determination the California-bred son of Cee's Tizzy showed during his illustrious career on the racetrack was soon reflected in his offspring.

He was the leading freshman sire of his crop after producing 2005 GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies winner Folklore and 2009 GI Dubai World Cup winner Well Armed. His success continued throughout his career with the likes of 2008 GI Travers S. hero Colonel John, 2008 GI Belmont S. winner Da' Tara and 2016 GI Breeders' Cup Mile victor and now WinStar sire Tourist.

Tiznow prepares for the 2001 Breeders' Cup Classic | Horsephotos

“Tourist is pretty much like his dad-even-keeled,” McGinnis explained. “Nothing much gets him wound up. I've rarely seen one of Tiznow's progeny that didn't have composure and know how to handle things without getting excited about it.”

Tourist and Crestwood Farm's Tizdejavu are the only sons of Tiznow standing in Kentucky today, with several more at stud in regional markets. If his top performer this year in GSW Midnight Bourbon someday joins a stallion program, the colt could be the last of Tiznow's sons to begin a career at stud.

And yet, Tiznow still has his last few crops waiting to show their worth on the racetrack. Fittingly, his final crop that arrived this year came 20 years after the unforgettable day at Belmont Park when Tiznow won his second straight GI Breeders' Cup Classic.

Owned by Cees Racing Stable and campaigned to a champion 3-year-old and Horse of the Year season in 2000 by trainer Jay Robbins, Tiznow returned to the Breeders' Cup in 2001 to defend his Classic title with only one win to his resume as a 4-year-old.

Even his regular rider, Hall of Fame jockey Chris McCarron, couldn't be certain of Tiznow's true ability as they approached the starting gate.

“There was always some question in your mind of if he peaked as a 3-year-old,” McCarron said. “But the way he trained, I knew there was more. It was just a question of which Tiznow was going to come to the party. Fortunately, he rose to the occasion on the most important day of his life in the 2001 Breeders' Cup Classic.”

Sent off as a 7-1 gamble behind the top pick in Juddmonte homebred Aptitude as well as European invaders Galileo (Ire) and Sakhee, Tiznow stalked in third position for most of the trip until McCarron looked out of the corner of his eye to see Sakhee coming to their outside. The pair fought neck and neck down the stretch and as the wire grew closer, Sakhee bobbed his head in front.

“I had it in my mind that I was not going to hit him with the stick,” McCarron explained. “I wanted to let him be the boss. When Sakhee went by me by a neck I thought, 'Well, I've got nothing to lose. I might as well see if he'll respond from a little tap.' So I tapped him once left-handed and I felt him accelerate. He went back on and overtook Sakhee right in the shadow of the wire.”

The roar of the crowd swelled as race caller Tom Durkin exclaimed a line that will forever be held in racing's history book, pronouncing that Tiznow had won it for America.

Tiznow towers over rival Sakhee as he edges past the wire first in the 2001 Breeders' Cup Classic | Horsephotos

“I don't really know if in my notes previous to that if I was going to say that Tiznow wins it for America,” reflected Durkin. “I don't know, but it was in my subconscious somewhere. Some would argue that it was a rather jingoistic thing to say, but that was the story. Tiznow was carrying an American banner and he was trying to beat a foreign horse, so that was a big story there.”

The 2001 Breeders' Cup was the first international sporting event following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks six weeks earlier. SWAT teams lining the rooftops and security check-ins made for a very abnormal day at Belmont Park.

“When Tom Durkin screamed Tiznow wins it for America, that was a really happy day,” McCarron recalled. “With the devastation and the tragedy of 9/11, people were really longing for something to make them happy. It just so happened that the Yankees won the World Series that year and then when Tiznow wins it for America, that was kind of the icing on the cake.”

Tiznow retired after earning the title of the first and only horse in history to claim back-to-back Breeders' Cup Classics, leaving cherished memories in the hearts of racing fans as well as those who knew him best.

Today, McCarron looks back fondly on Tiznow's days in training when the opinionated and super-sized colt protested from being led into a stall and had to be turned around and backed in, as well as his most memorable antic during his final workout ahead of the 2001 Breeders' Cup when he refused to move forward on the racetrack, standing stoically for 35 minutes before finally moving ahead and putting in a blazing mile-long work.

“He had a very strong will and didn't do anything unless he was ready to do it,” McCarron said. “He was quirky, but what I learned from him was tremendous. He taught me a lot about the relationship between a person and a horse. Once I learned, I tried to figure out what made him tick and just let him be the boss. That's what he wanted, so I just followed his lead and fortunately, we had a lot of success together.”

These days, as both Tiznow and his rider enjoy the laid-back life of retirement in the Kentucky Bluegrass, it isn't uncommon for McCarron to stop in at WinStar. Along with visits from his old friend, Tiznow is still a fan favorite during the tours at WinStar and of course, he is happily looked after by McGinnis and the rest of the WinStar stallion team.

“He's just been kind of a rock,” McGinnis said, reflecting on his two decades with the stallion. “He helped my career out as much as Distorted Humor and Speightstown did. If it wasn't for them, I'd just kind of be a regular Joe. Tiznow was a good, useful sire that was a California-bred and really, if you think of it, shouldn't have been a stallion, but he made himself one by winning two Breeders' Cup Classics. I'm not sure if anybody is ever going to do that again.”

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‘Breakfast At The Breeders’ Cup Returns To TVG Oct. 29

As the countdown to the Breeders' Cup World Championships on Nov. 5-6 from Del Mar begins, the popular morning workout show “Breakfast at the Breeders' Cup” returns on Friday, Oct. 29 on TVG, America's horse racing network.

The show will run from Friday, Oct. 29 through Thursday, Nov. 4 and air from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. ET daily. It will feature contenders working as well as the latest news and exclusive behind the scenes coverage. Todd Schrupp, Simon Bray, Christina Blacker, Caton Bredar, Michelle Yu, Mike Joyce, Scott Hazelton and Joaquin Jaime will be live on-site at Del Mar, Santa Anita, Keeneland and Churchill Downs.

TVG will also be premiering several new features showcasing Distaff contender Letruska as well as George Leonard and Kirk and Judy Robison, the owners of Jackie's Warrior who will compete in the Sprint. There will also be a feature on Tiznow commemorating the 20th anniversary of his triumph in the 2001 Breeders' Cup Classic.

The post position draw will be held on Monday, Nov. 1 and will air from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. ET. Todd Schrupp, Simon Bray, Caleb Keller and Joaquin Jaime will be on site with pre-coverage of the Breeders' Cup post position draw which will be hosted by Nick Luck and Britney Eurton.

The Players' Show, a live, wagering-focused telecast, will return on Nov. 5 and 6 and will be available to stream on the WatchTVG app. The Players' Show will also be simulcast at tracks, simulcast centers and off-track betting venues around the world.

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This Side Up: Grounds for Optimism

Surface tensions in our business have run pretty deep in recent years, nowhere more so than at Santa Anita. After a failed revolution, with a synthetic track, they eventually backed into a terrifying breakdowns crisis. Racing in California still has its problems, of course, not least the cloud currently over its premier barn–which, after that curious hesitation last week, instead gives its most controversial resident a home game Saturday in the GI Awesome Again S. But given our community's fury right now with another racetrack proprietor, who this week cashed in a jewel of the global Turf, it's only right that we take a pause and give due credit to The Stronach Group for rising magnificently to what felt absolutely like an existential challenge.

Once again a postal address in Arcadia, named for the Eden of Ancient Greece, can aptly formalize this nostalgic idyll; once again, the dismal confines of the present can be transcended between those art deco stands and timeless mountains. Simultaneously, moreover, across the nation at Gulfstream, The Stronach Group is raising the curtain on another fall meet, and on an intervention in the racing surface that may ultimately prove no less critical to the survival of our sport.

One of the dispiriting things about the schism between turf and dirt, which appears only to have widened since the synthetic experiment at Santa Anita, is the way it mirrors the kind of polarization that has embittered political discourse in the social media age. As the first North American racetrack to offer all three surfaces, side by side, Gulfstream demonstrates that there can literally be a third way. At a time when so many of us just retreat into our echo chambers, deploring those with whom we disagree, it's good to be reminded that tolerance, co-existence and pluralism aren't just high-sounding aspirations but a useful practical framework that enables us all to thrive.

With hindsight, we can all see that an upheaval as radical as the synthetics experiment at Santa Anita should not be forced on people overnight. The kind of flexibility now available at Gulfstream allows horsemen to adapt to evolving demands–whether in the way we breed horses, or train them, or bet on them; or in the terms and conditions laid down for the consent of an ever more urban society.

Gulfstream's new Tapeta surface, shown last week | Ryan Thompson

First and foremost, sure, its new Tapeta option has a supremely practical function. Most obviously it will give the grass track respite, as became essential following the final demise of Calder; and it will very quickly pay for itself, in handle, when tropical weather moves races off the turf. In the longer term, however, it will also give everyone a chance to calibrate their responses to the challenge of training Thoroughbreds in the 21st Century; to explore those gray areas, between our adamant prejudices, with the best interests of the horse in mind; while still granting the industry time to make the serving of those interests commercially sustainable. These, surely, are boons that might be profitably extended to many other racetracks.

A handful of tracks, of course, did manage to bed down synthetics successfully; but hopefully we all learned a lot from factious misadventures elsewhere. For instance, we learned how expertly such surfaces must be manufactured and maintained, especially when exposed to extremes of climate. (And, in that context, its game-changing stats suggest that Tapeta gets a lot closer than some predecessors to meeting the welfare objectives that now feel more vital than ever.) But it proved nearly as important to overcome the misapprehension that synthetics could ever serve as a direct substitute for dirt, or even as a fair compromise between dirt and turf.

Animal Kingdom successfully transferred synthetic form to a Kentucky Derby win | Horsephotos

Yes, even in that brief window we did see protagonists like Animal Kingdom and Pioneerof the Nile achieving a smooth transition between surfaces. Nobody, however, could pretend that a Kentucky Derby run on synthetics would remain seamlessly the same race as the one that has accrued such a venerable history. And I think many of us learned that an equivalent heritage, in many other cherished races, deserves a lot more respect than was shown. At the same time, diehards have since been put on notice that it doesn't matter how valid and noble are the traditions of dirt racing, if tracks don't get their act together after the exemplary fashion of Santa Anita in the past couple of years.

Now nobody, as you may well have noticed, insists more tediously than me on the importance to the breed of integrating the Classic bloodlines of Europe and America; and measuring the transferability of class between their racetrack environments. But that's precisely because different disciplines draw on different genetic assets. For the full package, for the refinement and expansion of the breed's capacities, you require constant exchange.

As it is, there will be European bloodstock agents at Tattersalls next week–spending appalling amounts of other people's money–who disparage American bloodlines as excessively oriented to speed, a laughable misrepresentation of everything except their own ignorance. And there are parallel myopias in commercial breeding over here, of course, as anyone trying to stand a high-class turf stallion in Kentucky will tell you. If they are not careful, then, both camps will end up suddenly trying to salvage something of what they have discarded. Come that day, they may well find themselves sitting side by side on a plane to Japan.

Certainly it's only a matter of time before sustained Japanese investment in the kind of class that will soon dominate the breed is endorsed in Europe's greatest prize, the G1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. Perhaps that landmark will be aptly achieved in its 100th running, on Sunday, when two Japanese-breds have the chance finally to end an exasperating sequence of near-misses.

Sakhee ran Tiznow to a nose in the 2001 Breeders' Cup Classic off an Arc win | Getty Images

On the face of it, this race is a world apart from the Grade I prizes contested at Belmont this weekend. But don't forget how Sakhee won the Arc, by six lengths in muddy ground, just 20 days before running the dirt monster Tiznow to a nose in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic. Nor that Sakhee's dam was a Royal Ascot winner by Sadler's Wells out of a Ribot mare. Some people explained it to themselves that he had bridged the great divide simply by a congenial climate and those generous turns at Big Sandy. In reality, a track that accommodates the nine furlongs of the GI Woodward S. round a single turn does so as a showcase for the ultimate dirt asset: the ability to carry speed without respite. And that, to me, is exactly why the Woodward roll of honor features so many horses that became important influences at stud.

Gun Runner could not have made a better start, in his bid to consolidate that heritage, and is represented in the GI Champagne S. on the same card by one of his early flagships in Gunite. (No surprise, mind, to see him followed here by Wit {Practical Joke}, whose jockey consumed way too much gas in trying to retrieve a slow start at Saratoga last time.) Gun Runner, of course, is only the latest to promote Candy Ride (Arg) as a sire of sires. So let's not forget that the day John Sikura found him running a mile in 1:31 flat in Argentina, this future patriarch of American dirt was running on… grass.

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A Look Back: New York Racing and 9-11

For New York-based trainer Pat Reynolds, it was supposed to be a quiet day, as quiet as it gets at the New York racetracks. September 11, 2001 was a Tuesday, a dark day in New York, and Reynolds was hoping that he could cut his day short after working one of his better horses at the time, Peeping Tom, that morning at Belmont Park. Instead, he was soon heading head first into a nightmare.

Just a few minutes after the first plane had struck the World Trade Center, someone called Reynolds into his office and told him to turn on the news. He sensed immediately that the buildings were under attack, a terrible feeling and one that hit home. Reynolds's wife, Laura, worked in the North Tower, the first one struck by an airplane.

“I went nuts,” Reynolds said. “It's one thing when you read about something like this in the paper, something happening to somebody else. This was a personal disaster.”

The usually punctual Laura Reynolds was running a few minutes late to work that morning and never reached her office. It was not until about 3 p.m. that afternoon that she was able to find a working phone to call her husband and tell him that she was safe. Still later that afternoon, she finished the long walk from lower Manhattan to the couple's home in Flushing, Queens, and fell into her husband's arms.

It is just one of the stories that emerged that day from the New York racetracks and Belmont Park, which is about a dozen miles from what was the World Trade Center. The whole country, and New York in particular, was shaken to its core that awful day, and the New York tracks didn't escape the horror and heartache. Everyone has their story, where they were when the planes hit, who they knew that was killed, how they dealt with the shock and grief.

For New York racing, it was a time to mourn and to hit the pause button, but it was also a time to look ahead. In less than seven weeks, the Breeders' Cup was set to be run at Belmont and no one wanted to give in and cancel or postpone the event. Everywhere, there was a sense that the proper response was to put your head down and get through this.

It didn't exactly start out that way.

With no racing scheduled for that afternoon, jockey Richard Migliore thought he was going to have an easy day. He started off the morning working a few horses at the track and then got in his car to head home. As he was pulling into his driveway, he got a call from a friend telling him what was going on. He went inside his home and began watching the coverage and then decided he wanted to take a look for himself. Along with trainer Dennis Brida, he drove back to Belmont and went up on the roof to get a clear view of what was happening. Migliore and Brida had the entire roof to themselves.

“You could see the smoke and everything else that was going on,” he said. “It appeared to me that one of the towers fell. I said to Dennis that the tower just fell. He said, 'No, I think something just blew up.' As the smoke and dust started to settle, you knew that a tower had fallen. It was surreal. It was madness. I'll never forget being on the roof at Belmont when the first tower fell.”

Among the handful of tracks scheduled to run that Tuesday, all canceled. Belmont was scheduled to resume racing on Wednesday, Sept. 12. Migliore heard rumors that NYRA was going to rush back into action. In what now seems like a tone-deaf move, four U.S. racetracks actually ran on Sept. 12 and 26 were in operation on the Friday after the attacks.

“There was talk there was going to be racing immediately because people thought we had to get back to some sense of normalcy,” said Migliore, whose wife, Carmela, lost a cousin, Charles Lucania, in the attacks. “Then, of course, smarter heads prevailed. It was decided that we had to take a step back.”

In the executive offices, NYRA President Terry Meyocks knew that some important decisions had to be made and made quickly.

“We discussed with the trustees and with our management team what was the right thing to do,” he said. “We knew we needed to take some time off. At the same time, we knew that the Breeders' Cup was coming up and that we had to move forward.”

Belmont resumed racing on Sept. 19, eight days after the attacks. The day began with a moment of silence before Sam Grossman played a rendition of “America” on his bugle. There were 5,436 fans in the massive stands and many seemed to have their minds elsewhere.

“I remember having mixed emotions that day,” said Migliore, who won the day's third race. “The jockey's room has always been my comfort zone. Everything else could be going wrong in my life and I could walk into the jockey's room and just escape. I could have a huge argument with my wife and when I walk into that room, it's the furthest thing from my mind. There was a sense of relief that I was going to get back to what I do. Yet, it still didn't quite feel right. It almost seemed trivial. Big deal. I got to ride in a few horse races. There was something a hell of a lot more important going on, and only a few miles away from where we lived.”

Two nights later, the Mets entertained the Atlanta Braves and the sporting world as a whole began to return to normal. But the Breeders' Cup remained a concern. With horse coming in from all over the country and the world, there were so many moving parts and so many concerns.

“We had a good rapport with local, New York City and state police,” Meyocks said. “We worked with them as to how to proceed and whether or not we could have a Breeders' Cup. We felt it was prudent to go ahead and run the Breeders' Cup. We felt confident we could do it. Basically at the end of day, we felt it was the right thing to do.”

Forty-six days had elapsed since the attacks on the World Trade Center, but reminders were everywhere when horsemen, jockeys, track management and fans started to file into the track.

“I remember going into the infield before the races,” said Jerry Bailey, who would win the GI Breeders' Cup Sprint that day aboard Squirtle Squirt. “All the jockeys gathered and they took pictures of us holding American flags. I looked up at top of the grandstand at Belmont and remember seeing snipers up there with their rifles. I thought to myself, is this the way it is going to be from now on? It struck me how different things had become.”

“The Breeders' Cup was crazy because of all the security,” Migliore recalled. “You look up on the roof and there's snipers everywhere. Everywhere you went, there were bomb sniffing dogs. They put up those big cinder block buffers so someone couldn't drive a car into the lobby.”

The day went off without a problem and it finished up with a win by the American-based Tiznow by a nose in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic over European shipper Sakhee. As he so often did, announcer Tom Durkin captured the moment perfectly, calling out “Tiznow wins it for America!”

“We all took a lot of pride in how well the Breeders' Cup worked,” Meyocks said.

As for Reynolds, he's been training ever since that fateful day. The first trainer of Big Brown, he's had some good years, but also some slow years. He's learned to deal with it.

“This is a wonderful sport and something I've spent my whole life doing,” he said. “But when it comes down to human life, everything else is secondary. That day, it put everything else into perspective.”

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