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Creme Fraiche
On the surface of it, Creme Fraiche would have seemed an unlikely candidate to become one of the best and most consistent distance runners in American racing since Forego. His sire, Rich Cream, was generally considered a sprinter based on his world record-setting performance in the 1980 Triple Bend Handicap at seven furlongs and overall was not outstanding as a sire; his dam, Likely Exchange was tough and liked a distance of ground but had an unspectacular pedigree. Nonetheless, Creme Fraiche overcame any supposed limitations in his pedigree to become the first gelding to win a Triple Crown race since Clyde Van Dusen in 1929. In reality, there was more to Creme Fraiche’s background than appeared at a casual glance. As Rich Cream set a track record for nine furlongs at Hollywood Park, he was clearly capable of stretching out at least to intermediate distances. Likely Exchange liked even more distance, scoring her biggest win in the ten-furlong Delaware Handicap (gr. I). The Delaware was the only graded win of Likely Exchange’s career, but she placed in several other graded events and continued racing until age seven, winning twenty-three of seventy-two starts. With both parents waiting until age five to produce their best performances, it was hardly surprising that Creme Fraiche did not prove a top-class juvenile, though he did win three of five starts including the listed What a Pleasure Stakes. He did not shine in the early part of his three-year-old season either, but by the end of the year he had racked up five graded stakes wins. The most important, of course, was the Belmont Stakes (gr. I); he was the first gelding ever to win the historic race, and he also became the fourth of trainer Woody Stephens’ record five consecutive Belmont winners. (The others were Conquistador Cielo, 1982; Caveat, 1983; Swale, 1984; and Danzig Connection, 1986.) He also won the American Derby (gr. I), the Super Derby (gr. I), and the Jerome Handicap (gr. I) to finish the season among the leaders of his crop. With his fellow 1985 Classic winners Spend a Buck and Tank’s Prospect both retired (along with the other top three-year-old male of 1985, the multiple grade I winner Chief’s Crown), Creme Fraiche was expected to be a leading contender among the older males of 1986. He did well enough, winning the first of his two consecutive Jockey Club Gold Cups (gr. I) and two grade II races, but lost the Eclipse Award to Turkoman, a late-developing son of Alydar. Although Creme Fraiche defeated his rival in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, Turkoman’s grade I wins in the Widener Handicap (in which Creme Fraiche ran fourth) and the Marlboro Cup Invitational Handicap, plus a solid second in the Breeders’ Cup Classic (gr. I), decided the issue in the latter’s favor. Creme Fraiche ended the year having won three of thirteen starts with placings in six graded stakes events for seasonal earnings of $933,507. The following year, Creme Fraiche scored grade I wins in the Jockey Club Gold Cup and the Meadowlands Handicap, but the divisional championship went to Ferdinand, who was in the voters’ eyes at the right time when he scored a thrilling nose decision in the Breeders’ Cup Classic over champion three-year-old male Alysheba. Creme Fraiche ended 1987 with four wins from fourteen starts, his other victories being the W. L. McKnight Invitational Handicap (gr. II – his only victory on turf in twelve tries during his career) and an allowance event. He also placed in four grade I races during the year and finished the season with earnings of $1,323,666, making his 1987 campaign the most lucrative one of his career. After 1987, Creme Fraiche seemed to lose a step. He won both the January and December editions of the listed Tropical Park Handicap but no graded races at six, and at seven, his lone black type was a third in the W. L. McKnight Invitational Handicap. The hard-knocking gelding was not persevered with after that race, retiring to owner Betty Moran’s Brushwood Farm in Pennsylvania with a record of seventeen wins, twelve seconds, and thirteen thirds from sixty-four starts. He had won fourteen stakes and placed in twenty-five others, and his lifetime earnings came to $4,024,727. Creme Fraiche was not forgotten, however. Although he was never ridden or used for any other type of work after his retirement, he received a steady stream of visitors, and especially loved those bearing his favorite treats – mints – which he would eat right out of their hands. But in October of 2003, Creme Fraiche was unexpectedly stricken with laminitis in all four feet. His condition went downhill rapidly, and after veterinary consultation indicated nothing more could be done for him, he was humanely destroyed. He is buried at an annex of Brushwood Farm, near the graves of some of the farm’s cherished broodmares. In some ways, Creme Fraiche was an anachronism. Although he did win graded stakes at a flat mile, he clearly relished distance and liked twelve furlongs better than ten. Unfortunately, even in the 1980s graded races on dirt at more than ten furlongs were becoming scarce, and there is now only one grade I race on dirt left on the North American calendar at a distance of a mile and a half: the Belmont Stakes. Creme Fraiche was also handicapped by being unable to translate his best form to grass racing, where distance races are more common. Nonetheless, he compiled an honorable record in a day and time when the racing conditions were not really to his advantage, providing a glimpse of the great stayers of the past.
© 2005 by Avalyn Hunter |
