|
Bardstown
A member of the famed Calumet Farm stable, Bardstown probably ranked second only to 1947 Horse of the Year Armed as the best gelding ever campaigned in the stable’s devil’s-red-and-blue silks. A 1952 son of the fine sire *Alibhai and the 1944 Horse of the Year, Twilight Tear, Bardstown was compromised throughout his career by unsoundness but nonetheless compiled an outstanding record. One wonders what he might have done had he been more physically durable. Unfortunately, Bardstown apparently inherited the physical problems of *Alibhai, who broke down in training as a yearling and never raced. Many of *Alibhai’s best runners, such as the West Coast star Cover Up, were troubled by soundness problems, as was *Alibhai’s best maternal grandson, Graustark. Another source of potential unsoundness in Bardstown’s pedigree was Twilight Tear’s maternal grandsire Blue Larkspur, who was sidelined by a bowed tendon at age three and had to be retired after only three starts at four due to reinjury. A chesty, wide-bodied horse with the powerful build of a sprinter, Bardstown first began hinting at his ability as a juvenile with the Calumet string at Hollywood Park under Jimmy Jones’ care. One work in particular stuck in Jones’ mind, when Bardstown worked from the gate with a useful-looking colt named Trentonian and beat him handily. But soon afterwards Bardstown began developing ankle trouble and was sent back to the farm to have both front ankles fired. While there, he was also gelded thanks to a nasty temperament. Bardstown rejoined the racing string in Chicago in the summer of 1955. Jimmy Jones began working him with the goal of starting him at the Arlington Park meeting, but before Bardstown could make it to the starting gate disaster struck. The gelding pulled up from a routine breeze in obvious distress with a hind end injury. The exact nature of the problem was never diagnosed and may have been either a fractured pelvis or a crack in the spine itself, but whatever it was, Bardstown had to be taken from the track in a horse ambulance. It was six weeks before he could even walk the few steps needed to get into a van to be taken back to Calumet and close to six months before he could again be seriously trained. The horse’s injury, whatever it was, eventually healed, though Bardstown was left with one peculiarity: he could not back up. He also leveloped a very low-headed style of moving, perhaps to accomodate the old injury. He was still idling in a Calumet paddock while Jimmy Jones took the Calumet racing string up to New York in the fall of 1955. Jimmy’s father Ben “B. A.” Jones stayed in Kentucky with the other Calumet horses, and one night phoned Jimmy at his hotel room in New York. A would-be buyer had turned up for Bardstown and was offering $10,000: did Jimmy think Calumet should sell? For some reason, Bardstown’s juvenile workout against Trentonian came back to Jimmy’s mind. Trentonian had turned out to be quite a useful stakes horse since then, and Jimmy Jones couldn’t shake the idea that Bardstown might have some real ability. Yet the repeated injury problems made him wonder if the horse would ever make it to the races at all. He finally suggested that B. A. go.ahead and gallop the horse, then give him a quarter-mile breeze the next day to see if his physical problems would recur under mild pressure. B. A. called back two days later to say that the gelding had passed both tests, and in January 1956 Bardstown once again rejoined the Calumet racing string, this time down at Gulfstream Park in Florida. Bardstown finally made his first start in March of 1956, and though he didn’t win, he did finish in the money. He broke his maiden at Garden State Park later that spring and by summer was winning in allowance company at Chicago. That encouraged Jimmy Jones to enter the horse in the Equipoise Mile, and Bardstown won nicely to notch the first stakes victory of his career. He ended up winning five stakes events at four including a track record-setting performance in the Buckeye Handicap at Cleveland’s old Randall Park track and a defeat of the high-class Summer Tan while conceding four pounds in the Trenton Handicap. Bardstown racked up $173,050 for the season and ended up ranked third behind Horse of the Year Swaps and the previous year’s Horse of the Year Nashua among the handicap males of 1956 – not bad for a horse that had started the year as a four-year-old maiden of questionable soundness. Bardstown carried his form into the early part of his five-year-old season, winning the Widener, Gulfstream Park, Tropical, and Appleton handicaps and running second to the speedy Summer Tan in the McLennan Handicap during the Florida winter season. However, his bad ankles began showing wear and tear and he was able to race only once outside Florida in 1957, finishing second behind Third Brother in the Camden Handicap. Still, he had won four of six starts that year, so what his campaign lacked in quantity, it certainly made up for in quality. In fact, the Blood-Horse put him atop the handicap ranks with 130 pounds in its annual Free Handicap, ahead of the official handicap champion Dedicate. 1958 was an off year for Bardstown, but he did return to racing to win the Quaker City Handicap (his only win of the year) and place in four other handicaps. He finished his career as a seven-year-old by once again dominating the winter season in Florida, winning the Widener, Tropical Park, and Orange Bowl handicaps. However, he was injured again after winning three of five 1959 starts and this time was unable to return to training. He retired with eighteen wins, seven seconds, and one third from thirty-one starts for earnings of $628,752 and was pensioned at Calumet, where he died in 1972. He was buried in the famous Calumet Farm horse cemetery, joining his dam Twilight Tear. If not officially a champion himself, he was nonetheless a worthy son of his splendid mother. © 2005 by Avalyn Hunter |
