Alydar

Alydar (USA) 1975 Chestnut Colt Raise a Native (USA) x Sweet Tooth (USA), by On-and-On (USA)

Ordinarily, being an “almost-champion” is not enough to secure a Thoroughbred a place among racing’s legends. Occasionally, however, a horse comes along whose performances are so compelling that the lack of an official title scarcely matters. Such a horse is Alydar, whose rivalry with the indomitable Affirmed lifted both colts into the realm of greatness.

Almost from birth, Alydar stood out from among the foals bred at the legendary Calumet Farm in 1975. An exceptionally handsome youngster, he had a dominance and charisma that set him apart from the others. And his looks were backed by regal bloodlines. His sire, Raise a Native, had been retired to stud due to injury after only four starts, yet had shown such brilliance that he shared the two-year-old championship of 1963 with Hurry to Market, winner of the prestigious Garden State Staes. Alydar’s dam, Sweet Tooth, was not quite so brilliant, but she was stakes-placed at two and a good allowance winner at three and four. She was from one of Calumet’s best families, that of Blue Delight, which had already produced 1952 champion three-year-old filly Real Delight, Kentucky Oaks winners Bubbley (1953) and Princess Turia (1956), and 1968 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Forward Pass.

By the time Alydar entered serious training early in his two-year-old season, his stable had even more reason to be optimistic. The colt’s older half sister, Our Mims (by *Herbager) had placed in the Demoiselle Stakes and Tempted Stakes at two and was showing improvement as she continued to mature. (She would eventually be crowned the champion American three-year-old filly of 1977.) And the colt himself was showing signs that he would be more precocious than Our Mims. By June 1977, Alydar was ready to go.

Trainer John Veitch had intended to enter the colt in a maiden race in early June, but an off track forced a change in strategy. Instead, Alydar made his debut in the Youthful Stakes at Belmont Park on June 15. Although not quite so ambitious a spot as it might seem on the surface – early two-year-old stakes races are often populated by maidens and one-time winners – it was still tough enough; Alydar was the only first-time starter in a field of eleven. Further, the entries contained one name with which Alydar’s connections were to become very familiar – that of Affirmed, who three weeks earlier had broken his maiden first time out.

The extra experience certainly worked to Affirmed’s advantage; he broke alertly, assumed the lead at mid-stretch, and was ridden out by Angel Cordero Jr. to win. Alydar had a less easy trip. Slow to break, he was trapped behind a wall of horses going into the first turn. Once free he rallied, but it was a case of too little, too late: he finished fifth, beaten about five lengths.

Alydar came out of the race in good order and was wheeled back in a maiden special weight nine days later. This time the experience he had gotten in his maiden effort paid off, for he broke with his field and made an authoritative move on the turn to win handsomely in 1:04-1/5 for the five and one-half furlongs. Behind him were the future graded stakes winners Believe It, Sauce Boat, and Junction, so the quality of the field was quite high.

The Calumet colt returned to stakes competition in his next start, the Great American Stakes on July 6. Affirmed was also in the field, but despite the results of the Youthful Stakes, the brilliance of Alydar’s maiden win and the fact that Affirmed had to concede him five pounds (122 to 117) under the conditions of the race were enough to make Alydar a 4-5 favorite. Affirmed, it seemed, could get no respect; he wasn’t even the second choice, as a Kentucky invader named Going Investor took that spot with the bettors.

Whatever reasons the bettors had for latching onto Alydar in the Great American, they were right. Affirmed took the early lead but proved no match on this day for Alydar, who surged past him going into the homestretch and won by three and one-half lengths. Alydar’s time of 1:03-3/5 missed the track record for five and one-half furlongs by only three-fifths of a second.

Affirmed was not around for Alydar’s next start, the Tremont Stakes, but Believe It was back for another tilt with the Calumet comet. The son of In Reality had been training well and was regarded as a colt with a future by most of the horsemen at Belmont. He ran well in the Tremont, too, putting the speedy Jet Diplomacy away at the eighth pole, but could not hold off Alydar’s stretch drive. Alydar’s margin at the finish was only a length and a quarter, but he was not fully extended while covering the six furlongs in 1:10 flat.

The next stop for Alydar was Monmouth Park, where he faced only four rivals for the six-furlong Sapling Stakes (gr. I). The only concern was how he would handle the sloppy track; he passed that test with flying colors, winning comfortably by two and one-half lengths over Noon Time Spender. The Calumet colt then shipped up to Saratoga for the Hopeful Stakes (gr. I) on August 27, in which he would once again cross paths with Affirmed. The latter colt had added wins in the Hollywood Juvenile Championship (gr. II) and the Sanford Stakes (gr. II) to his resume and was a solid second choice to Alydar in the wagering. Weight would not be a factor as all starters would carry 122 pounds.

Both Affirmed and Alydar stalked the early pace set by Tilt Up, with Alydar tracking about two lengths behind his chief rival. Coming off the turn, both colts swept by Tilt Up and the match race was on. Alydar cut Affirmed’s margin to a head at the eighth pole, but the Harbor View Farm colorbearer answered the challenge and was edging away at the finish to win by half a length. The time of 1:15-2/5 for the six and one-half furlongs was a new stakes record.

The rivals were back just two weeks later for the Futurity Stakes (gr. I) at Belmont. As good as their joint performance in the Hopeful had been, this was even better. Locked together for the final furlong, the race came down to a desperate head bob at the wire. The verdict was Affirmed by a nose. The final time for the seven furlongs was a strong 1:21-3/5 on a track that had not been playing all that fast.

Alydar and Affirmed got a month off before their next meeting, the Champagne Stakes (gr. I). John Veitch used that time to make some changes, replacing jockey Eddie Maple with the more aggressive Jorge Velasquez and putting blinkers on Alydar in hopes of getting the colt’s mind on business earlier in his races. Whether it was the changes or the fact that the track came up sloppy that made the difference, Alydar tracked closer to the early pace than he had previously and was able to roll by Affirmed in the final one hundred yards of the one-mile Champagne and won by one and one-quarter lengths.

At that point, the scorecard for Affirmed–Alydar read 3-2, Affirmed’s favor, but Alydar’s two victories had been the more convincing, leading John Veitch to conclude that Alydar might well have been voted champion juvenile male had the two colts stopped right there. Instead, both were in the field for the Laurel Futurity (gr. I) on October 29, two weeks after the Champagne. Again, Alydar was focused early and stayed lapped on Affirmed during the early going while racing inside, but this time the Calumet colt was forced to split horses to challenge for the lead and was not able to get a strong single run to carry him past his rival. The two runners locked horns coming out of the final turn and battled down to the wire, with Affirmed the victor by a slowly shrinking neck. That was it for Affirmed’s season, as Laz Barrera took the unquestioned two-year-old champion to Southern California to prepare for the following spring’s racing.

Despite the loss, Alydar seemed aggressive and fresh after the Laurel Futurity, leading Veitch to decide to try to recoup the colt’s fortunes by running in the nine-furlong Remsen Stakes (gr. II) at Aqueduct on November 26. The decision backfired. On a sloppy, speed-favoring surface, Believe It was able to cruise on the lead and had enough left in the stretch to hold Alydar’s closing run safe by two lengths. The loss probably cost Alydar the honor of being co-highweighted with Affirmed on the Experimental Free Handicap; as it was, he was rated at 125 pounds, one pound below the champion.

Sent to Florida to begin his preparation for the 1978 Triple Crown events, Alydar made his three-year-old debut in a seven-furlong allowance race at Hialeah on February 11. The big colt simply toyed with his seven rivals, winning by two lengths that could have been much more. His next stop was the historic Flamingo Stakes (gr. I), in which he got his revenge on Believe It. The In Reality colt had dusted his rivals for the early lead by the three-eighths pole but had nothing left to hold off Alydar, who won by four and a half lengths over Noon Time Spender as Believe It dropped back to a leg-weary fourth. The final time of 1:47 flat for nine furlongs was just a fifth of a second off Honest Pleasure’s stakes record.

Believe It was back for another go at Alydar in the nine-furlong Florida Derby (gr. I) on April 1, this time with a change of tactics. Instead of trying to seize the early lead, Believe It stalked off the pace under restraint and went after Alydar as the latter colt swept to the lead off the far turn. He got alongside the Calumet colt at the eighth pole, but a couple of taps of Velasquez’s whip settled the issue; Alydar surged forward and won by two lengths, again in 1:47 flat.

Having established himself as the king of the Eastern three-year-olds, Alydar went north to Keeneland for a final Kentucky Derby tuneup in the Blue Grass Stakes (gr. I). Because of failing health, Calumet Farm’s owners, Admiral Gene Markey and his wife Lucille (widow of former Calumet owner Warren Wright, Sr.), had been unable to attend Alydar’s races although they had followed his accomplishments with keen interest. Keeneland’s president, Ted Bassett, made arrangements for the Markeys to have special seating near the far turn of the racetrack. In one of the most sentimental moments of the 1978 racing season, Jorge Velasquez rode Alydar out of the post parade long enough to give the elderly couple a special view, telling Mrs. Markey, “Here’s your baby, my lady.”

After that entrance, anything but a major win would have been a sad anticlimax. But Alydar did not let the sentiment down, storming down the homestretch to win by 13 lengths in 1:47-3/5 for the mile and one-eighth. Following the race, Veitch had the winner’s trophy hand-delivered to the Markeys, from whence it rode home to Calumet cradled in one of Lucille Markey’s arms. It was the first and last time the Markeys would ever see Alydar run in person.

The Kentucky Derby (gr. I) is always surrounded by intense media attention, but the 104^th Derby probably had more than its share thanks to the presence of Alydar and his old rival Affirmed, who had been just as dominant in California as Alydar had been in the East. The conventional wisdom was that Alydar had faced the better competition, however, and the Calumet colt went off as the 6-5 favorite. Affirmed was the second choice in the wagering at 9-5. Unbeaten Sensitive Prince was the third choice at 9-2, and Believe It was at 7.40 to 1.

While Affirmed skipped along in a good stalking position not far off the early pace set by Sensitive Prince, Alydar seemed to have trouble getting untracked, falling as much as seventeen lengths off the pace. Churchill Downs is notorious as being a track that many horses seem to dislike, and Jorge Velasquez would later say that Alydar had been uncomfortable with the surface. Still, he had worked his way up to fourth by the mile pole even before unleashing a formidable final kick – but too late. Affirmed had been four lengths to the good of Alydar with an eighth of a mile to go, and he still had a length and a half of that margin at the wire. Believe It was third in a gritty performance, one and a quarter lengths behind Alydar.

It was on to Pimlico and the Preakness Stakes (gr. I) for all three of the Derby’s top finishers. While Affirmed pursued a maintenance regime designed to simply keep him at his Derby level of fitness, Alydar trained much more sharply than he had at Churchill Downs, signaling that the track would not be an issue this time. He was much sharper on race day as well, never falling more than six lengths off the pace. Affirmed, however, had taken the lead as the field straightened into the backstretch and had been allowed to cruise on a moderate pace. What Alydar found up front when he unleashed his run on the turn for home was a fresh opponent who was determined not to yield. The rivals battled furiously throughout the lane; each one made repeated surges, yet the one could not draw off and the other could not head him. At the wire it was Affirmed by a neck in a final time of 1:54-2/5 for the mile and three-sixteenths, two-fifths of a second off the stakes record.

Veitch made two crucial decisions prior to the Belmont Stakes (gr. I), the final leg of the American Triple Crown series. First, he determined that Alydar must stay much closer to Affirmed in the early stages of the Belmont and not permit Laz Barrera’s colt to cruise on an easy pace as he had in the Preakness. Second, he took the blinkers off Alydar, feeling that Velasquez would get a sharper response to any request for a burst of speed without them.

There was certainly no letup in training for Alydar between the Preakness and the Belmont. While Affirmed continued his maintenance works, Veitch sent Alydar the full twelve-furlong Belmont distance on June 1, ten days before the Belmont. The colt worked the distance in 2:43-1/5. Four days later, Alydar went through six furlongs in 1:12-3/5; a final three-furlong pipe-opener the morning before the Belmont itself went in :35 flat.

Only three other horses lined up to face the Big Two in the Belmont – Believe It, third in the Preakness as well as the Derby, had given up the chase and headed off to seek easier targets elsewhere – and none of the three had any realistic hopes for more than picking up third money and providing the answer to future racing trivia questions. (For the record, Darby Creek Road ran third.) None of the trio had the speed to prevent Affirmed from grabbing both the rail and the early lead, and the dual Classic winner was able to stroll through an opening quarter in :25.

Velasquez knew better than to let Affirmed clip off :25 quarters in front for long, however. He urged Alydar up to join his rival on the lead. Affirmed got his second quarter in :25, all right, hitting the half mile marker at :50, but there was no more easy cruising ahead; Alydar was rushing to him and the battle of the ages was on.

For a full mile, Alydar and Affirmed went at each other like two gladiators, each seeking a soft spot in the other’s armor for the killing thrust. The pace heated: the third quarter went in :24, the fourth in 23:2-5, the fifth in :24-1/5. Between calls, Alydar appeared to inch his head in front, sending the crowd into frenzy. But Affirmed fought back, recapturing the lead with fifty yards to go. The two straining colts threw everything they had left into the final strides, Alydar surging desperately, Affirmed striving just as desperately to hold that surge safe. The two flew under the wire as one, but only one could have the victory, and the finish line camera clearly showed Affirmed as the winner by a short head.

Alydar had been beaten, yet in his defeats had shown more of greatness than many horses that have earned the title of “champion.” Likewise, Affirmed had covered himself with glory, winning what had been the most difficult Triple Crown of all against a rival such as none of the other ten Triple Crown champions had ever faced. And, in a piece of bad news for the rest of the sophomore division, both colts emerged from the grueling Triple Crown campaign in excellent shape mentally and physically.

While Affirmed awaited the Saratoga meeting, Alydar came back to the races on July 22 at Arlington Park, where he faced an undistinguished field of four rivals for the Arlington Classic (gr. II). It was essentially a paid workout for the Calumet colt, who won by thirteen lengths while clicking off ten furlongs in 2:00-2/5. He then returned to Saratoga, where he faced older horses in the Whitney Handicap (gr. II) on August 5. Seven good stakes winners faced the big colt, headed by J. O. Tobin, who had conquered the great Seattle Slew the previous year and was on his way to a co-championship in the sprint division in 1978. Alydar was giving actual weight to the entire field excepting J. O, Tobin, who was carrying 128 pounds against 123 on Alydar but was getting two pounds by the scale of weights. It could have been twenty pounds and not made any difference to judge by Alydar’s performance; the son of Raise a Native simply ran off and hid from his field, winning by ten lengths in 1:47-2/5 for the nine furlongs.

After watching Affirmed struggle to beat Sensitive Prince in the Jim Dandy Stakes (gr. III) a few days later, Veitch felt that Alydar just might have the champion’s number at last as the two colts prepared for the Travers Stakes (gr. I) on August 19. The meeting drew a record crowd of over 50,000 to Saratoga as racegoers savored the possibility of another magnificent race between the two grand chestnuts.

Sadly, the race proved anticlimactic. Affirmed assumed the early lead, tracked closely by Shake Shake Shake on his inside. The two colts left room on the rail, and Velasquez steered Alydar into the gap, moving to the leaders as they reached the final turn. Shake Shake Shake began dropping back as Alydar came up, leaving Affirmed with a lead of perhaps three-quarters of a length over Alydar. It was not enough for what Pincay did next; he reined Affirmed over to the rail, making contact with Alydar’s right foreleg and forcing the Calumet runner to pull up sharply. Alydar drifted out to mid-track before getting in gear again, finishing second without being unduly pressed by Velasquez, who filed an immediate foul claim as soon as he got back to the scales.

There was no question that a foul had been committed; Pincay had cut Affirmed across Alydar’s path without having the room to safely do so. Why he did so was anyone’s guess, though many felt it was to shut off Alydar’s momentum before he could pass, since Alydar’s victories over Affirmed had both come when Alydar was able to roar by his rival in a single strong run. An infuriated Laz Barrera tried to put the blame on Velasquez, claiming that he had no business trying to bring Alydar through on the rail, but the films clearly showed that Alydar was already lapped on Affirmed by the time the latter came over. The stewards’ decision was easy, if unpleasant: Affirmed was disqualified and Alydar was declared the official winner of the Travers.

The conclusion of the race was hardly satisfying to anyone, and Veitch hoped for a fairer assessment of both colts’ form in the Marlboro Cup (gr. I) on September 16, when the three-year-olds would meet Seattle Slew at the top of the 1977 Triple Crown winner’s game. Five days before the race, however, Alydar showed signs of lameness in his left foreleg following a mile workout. X-rays revealed a fracture on the left wing of the coffin bone, ending the colt’s season.

Up to that point, Alydar had proven unusually sound and durable for a member of the Raise a Native tribe, and the vets were cautiously optimistic as to his chances of being able to race as a four-year-old. Retirement was briefly discussed, but in the end Mrs. Markey expressed her wish that the colt should continue racing if possible.

That being settled, Alydar went back into training once the vets had pronounced his injury healed. He had added both muscle and aggressiveness over the winter, and Veitch found himself with a horse eager to run in March when he had planned on waiting until July to race the big fellow. Alydar won the debate, going to the racetrack on March 31 in a seven-furlong allowance. Running easily, the horse won by seven lengths but came out of the race lame in his right foreleg. X-rays came back negative, and Alydar resumed training in a few days.

Shipped to Oaklawn Park for the mile and one-sixteenth Oaklawn Handicap (gr. II) on April 13, Alydar went to the post as the highweight under 127 pounds. He raced well but without his usual brilliance, just failing to catch the lightly weighted San Juan Hill (114 pounds) by a diminishing nose. The colt next went in the seven-furlong Carter Handicap (gr. II) at Aqueduct on May 5. This effort was sharper; over a distance really too short for him, Alydar just failed to run down the year’s eventual champion sprinter, Star de Naskra, by a neck. That made Alydar’s performance in the Metropolitan Handicap (gr. I) a real puzzler; instead of continuing the improvement he had shown in the Carter, Alydar showed more early speed than he normally did but then fell back, finishing a bad sixth behind surprise winner State Dinner.

Veitch could find no sign of illness or injury after the Met Mile and decided that perhaps Jorge Velasquez had kept the colt too close to a quick early pace. Accordingly, he replaced Velasquez with Jeff Fell for Alydar’s next race, the Nassau County Handicap (gr. III) on June 17. Over a sloppy track, Alydar ran like his old aggressive self and drew off to win by three and three-quarters lengths in a brilliant time of 1:46-3/5 for the nine furlongs.

That appeared to bring the colt up perfectly for the Suburban Handicap (gr. I) on July 4, but Alydar was unable to quite recapture the form he had shown in the Nassau County and ran third to State Dinner and Mister Brea. He was only beaten a length and a quarter all told, but the common feeling was that these were horses who should not have given him any trouble at his best form. Still, nothing seemed wrong physically, and Veitch decided to continue training the colt with the Brooklyn Handicap (gr. I) in mind. But on race day, Alydar came up with a puffy right hind ankle; X-rays showed a hairline fracture of the outside sesamoid. It was an injury that could possibly have healed well enough for further racing, but this time Veitch and Calumet farm manager Melvin Cinnamon decided that it was time to send Alydar home for good. The big chestnut left racing with 14 wins, 9 seconds, and 1 third from 26 starts and earnings of $957,195.

With his excellent racing ability and blue-blooded pedigree, Alydar was expected to be a success at stud. He was. His first crop contained 1983 champion juvenile filly Althea and multiple grade I winner Miss Oceana, who between them lifted their sire to the top of the American freshman and juvenile sire lists. That gave Alydar the initial reputation of being a “filly sire,” but he later set the record straight by siring five champion sons in Turkoman (1986 American champion older male), Easy Goer (1987 American champion two-year-old male), Alysheba (1987 American champion three-year-old male and 1988 American Horse of the Year), Lindo Shaver (1990 Japanese champion two-year-old male), and Criminal Type (1990 American Horse of the Year). (For good measure, he also sired 1989 Irish champion three-year-old filly Alydaress, giving him seven champions in all.)

Alydar was one of the earlier sires to see his books increase well beyond the traditional forty-mare book that top stallions had been held to for decades. The trend had been towards slowly increasing books for some time – a number of good sires of the 1980s were covering up to sixty mares – but Alydar was routinely covering over ninety mares a season; in 1989, he cracked the century mark with 104 mares, including several that were bred on South American time. The driving force behind the heavy use of the stallion by the standards of his time was Calumet’s increasingly precarious financial situation under the management of J. T. Lundy, husband of Lucille Markey’s granddaughter Cindy Wright Lundy. (Mrs. Markey, who died in 1982, had been predeceased by her only son, Warren Wright, Jr., and control of the farm passed to the younger Wright’s widow and children on Mrs. Markey's death.)

Although Alydar came to no apparent harm from his busy schedule (which also included matings with Quarter Horse mares from the mid-1980s on), the heavy bookings aroused much criticism in horsemen’s circles. But that was as nothing compared to the firestorm that arose after the stallion was found in his stall on the night of November 13, 1990, with a fractured right hind leg. Surgery to repair the fracture went well, but later Alydar fell while trying to get used to his cast, fracturing his femur. This time, no surgery could save him. He was buried in Calumet’s famous equine cemetery on November 15, 1990.

Suspicions immediately arose that Alydar had been deliberately killed for the insurance money on his life, $36.5 million dollars. Although no direct evidence involving deliberate injury by Lundy or anyone else was ever uncovered, many still believe that the stallion’s death involved foul play. The truth will probably never be known. In an eerie coincidence, on the day of Alydar’s death, a maiden chestnut colt from his 1988 crop took command in the stretch at Aqueduct to win a one-mile race. Six months later, that colt, Strike the Gold, charged down the stretch to win the 1991 Kentucky Derby.

Alydar’s final crop was foaled in 1991. Overall, he sired 707 Thoroughbred foals, of which 77 became stakes winners. He was the leading American sire of 1990 and a good sire of broodmares. Regrettably, he did not prove a good sire of sires. Easy Goer died young after siring four crops and was a more inconsistent stallion than his sire; Alysheba disappointed greatly and was sold to Saudi Arabia, though he has since attained a rising reputation as a broodmare sire. Turkoman proved a useful sire of winners but never got anything truly first-rate, while Criminal Type was a failure in Japan; Strike the Gold was exported to Turkey after failing to impress in Kentucky. The last hope for Alydar as a sire of sires appears to be his grade II-winning son Benchmark, a rising star in California whose son Brother Derek won the 2005 Hollywood Futurity (gr. I).

Alydar was named to the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame in 1989. Unlike most of the horses enshrined therein, he was never officially a champion. But official titles pale beside his legacy of speed, stamina, and courage. He was one for the ages.

Text © 2006 by Avalyn Hunter

Artwork © 2005 by Pat DeLong. Used by permission and may not be copied or distributed without the express consent of Pat Delong. For information regarding purchases, reproductions, or licensing, please contact Pat DeLong at patdelongart@aol.com..