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Big Jag
A massive, brawny horse with questionable knees and an indifferent pedigree, Big Jag was an unlikely candidate to become a top racehorse or a fan favorite. He did both with power, panache, and a heart as big as his native state of California. Bred by Julius Zolezzi, Big Jag was foaled in to the union of Kleven and the Affirmed mare In Hopes. As Kleven is by Alydar, the mating united the great rivals Affirmed and Alydar in Big Jag’s pedigree. Such ancestry would tend to suggest stamina as its trump card, but Big Jag apparently took after Kleven’s broodmare sire *Tudor Minstrel rather than after Affirmed or Alydar. Winner of the 1947 Two Thousand Guineas, *Tudor Minstrel did not stay much beyond a mile, but he was an extremely fast horse and bequeathed speed to his descendants. It took Big Jag until the age of five to show much of that speed, however. Trained by Tim Pinfield, he did not start at all at two, and at three and four he made little impression; like many another hulking runner, he needed more time than average to mature, and his bad knees forced some gaps in his training. But beginning at the 1998 Del Mar meet, Big Jag started to get good. He collected his first stakes win in the restricted On Trust Handicap and ended up winning two more restricted stakes sprints for California-breds before the year was out. His best performance was in the California Cup Sprint Handicap, in which his first run got stopped cold in traffic. Big horses are seldom quick and even more seldom able to make two full-out runs in a race, but Big Jag did, coming on to win. By this time, Big Jag had become the star of the Pinfield stable, but he was more than just a star. Despite the fact that he was not an easy horse to train and needed a lot of patience, he was a family pet. His regular exercise rider was Pinfield’s wife and assistant, Debbie, who traveled with the big horse wherever he went. (Tim Pinfield later credited Debbie with deserving “at least sixty percent of the credit” for Big Jag’s success.) He was regularly indulged with his favorite treat, peppermints. And every day, he got a pint of the Irish brew Guinness with his feed. The following year, Big Jag was among the country’s leading sprinters. He opened his season on January 3, 1999, in the El Conejo Handicap. Although at a marked disadvantage in trying to get his burly frame underway in the five and one-half furlong race, Big Jag nonetheless uncorked an impressive three-wide move down the stretch. He could not quite catch the front-running Kona Gold, losing by two and a half lengths, but it was still a good effort for the big horse’s return to competition. Big Jag and Kona Gold met next in the Palos Verdes Handicap (gr. II) on January 30. Once again, Kona Gold bolted from the gate like a scared rabbit to set blazing fractions, reaching the first quarter in :21-2/5 and the half in :43-4/5. But this time, under the handling of regular rider Jose Valdivia, Big Jag was in a perfect stalking position. The pair hit the sixteenth pole as a team, and at the wire it was Big Jag by a head for his first graded stakes win. The time was an excellent 1:08. Big Jag and Kona Gold met for a rubber match in the San Carlos Handicap (gr. II), which was run on the Santa Anita Handicap (gr. I) undercard. The seven-furlong distance was more to Big Jag’s liking, and the big fellow responded with a half-length win over his arch rival. Then he went for his third straight grade II win in the six and one-half furlong Potrero Grande Handicap. Bruised feet kept Kona Gold in the barn, but Big Jag had to overcome stiff resistance from Gold Land and Son of a Pistol to claim a neck victory and the title of champion sprinter for the Santa Anita winter/spring meeting. His runner-up finish in the El Conejo had been his only loss in nine straight races dating back to August 1998. The gelding was freshened after this tough series of races and did not reappear until the Del Mar meeting, where he turned in two subpar efforts in the Bing Crosby Handicap (gr. III) and Pat O’Brien Handicap (gr. II). He was in better form at Bay Meadows, where he won the listed Bay Meadows Breeders’ Cup Sprint by three-quarters of a length over Men’s Exclusive, and he wrapped up a repeat title as California’s champion state-bred sprinter by winning his second consecutive California Cup Sprint Handicap a few weeks later. Big Jag’s next stop was the Breeders’ Cup Sprint (gr. I) at Gulfstream Park, where he once again met his old rival Kona Gold. He ran well despite encountering traffic problems, but neither he nor Kona Gold were able to withstand Artax, who tied Mr. Prospector’s twenty-six-year-old track record for six furlongs to win by half a length over Kona Gold, Big Jag a fast-closing third. The Pinfield runner then traveled halfway around the world to take on international competition in the Hong Kong International Sprint (HK-III) on December 12. Racing on turf for the first time and at a distance shorter than he truly favored (five furlongs), Big Jag again encountered traffic problems but turned in his characteristic stretch drive to grab third money in the last stride. With that race, he became a millionaire, finishing the season with $1,082,532 in the bank. The gelding had earned another vacation following his two long trips, and he did not reappear until the 2000 Palos Verdes Handicap at Santa Anita, in which he finished second behind his old rival Kona Gold. Then Big Jag headed for Dubai. There, on March 25, he tallied the biggest victory of his career in the world’s richest sprint race, the Dubai Golden Shaheen. Run on the undercard of the Dubai World Cup, the $1 million Golden Shaheen attracted a fine international field, but Big Jag showed a partiality for the relatively deep surface at Nad al Sheba and had little difficulty defeating Bertolini by four lengths in track record time. However, the travel took its toll, and Big Jag did not win another stakes for of the remainder of the year. He followed the Golden Shaheen with a fourth in the Metropolitan Handicap (gr. I) in May, resurfaced in July to run seventh in Hollywood Park’s Triple Bend Handicap (gr. II), and was out again until December. Invited to the Hong Kong Invitational Sprint for the second consecutive year, Big Jag finished 2000 with another seventh-place finish. The following year, at the age of eight, Big Jag was back in action. A good second in the Palos Verdes Handicap behind Men’s Exclusive showed he had lost little if any of his old speed, and he was invited back to Dubai to try to defend his title in the Golden Shaheen. But fate intervened as the big gelding shattered a sesamoid in his left foreleg while preparing for the race. Only quick action by Debbie Pinfield kept the injury from being even worse; sensing the horse’s change in stride, she pulled him up immediately. Miraculously, none of Big Jag’s fractures were displaced, giving some hope that the horse could still be saved. Nonetheless, Big Jag was so severely injured that there was no question of shipping him back to California for treatment. Instead, he remained at the Dubai Equine Clinic, a world-class veterinary facility founded by Dubai’s ruling Maktoum family to care for their own stables. Surgery to repair the injury went well, and over the summer Big Jag made steady progress. He was still getting plenty of the human attention he loved, and although he could not have his Guinness (alcohol is not permitted within Dubai, an Islamic country), he enjoyed a daily doughnut and a can of Pepsi with just as much relish. The Pinfields flew regularly to Dubai to check on the big fellow, and as he continued to improve, they began to dream of taking him home to California for retirement. But their dreams were shattered when laminitis developed in the good forefoot in mid-September. The disorder did not respond to treatment, and after the horse lost both his appetite and the ability to stand for more than brief periods, the sad but necessary decision to end his life was made on September 24, 2001. Big Jag won $1,800,329 in a career that spanned thirty starts in three different countries. He won thirteen races and placed in eight others. Fittingly, he is remembered in his native state with the Big Jag Handicap, first run at Bay Meadows in September 2002. © 2005 by Avalyn Hunter |
