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Flatterer
Flatterer was just another foal when he arrived in the spring of 1979. His sire, Mo Bay, was a multiple graded winner on the track but far from a first-class racer or sire before being exported to Brazil in 1980. His dam, Horizontal, was still more plebeian. She was a cheap sprinter, never winning beyond six furlongs in thirty-six starts. She was also long-necked and low-slung with a bad set of ankles, and to her trainer, William E. Wolfendale III, the $4,000 offered for her by the partnership of William Pape and Hall of Fame steeplechase trainer Jonathan Sheppard was a more than fair price. From such roots came one of the greatest American steeplechasers of all time. Horizontal produced three foals for Pape and Sheppard, all winners of no great moment, before Flatterer came along. Nothing particularly distinguished Flatterer as a youngster, unless it was an unusually fluid way of going. Otherwise, he was a rather nondescript dark bay or brown, a description that can fit any number of horses. He was no more distinctive in his early performance than in his appearance. He did not race at two, and he won but four of eighteen starts with four placings as a three-year-old, none in black-type races. His performances may have pleased Sheppard’s longtime friend George I. E. Harris, who had bought a share of Flatterer and another colt bred by the Sheppard-Pape partnership early in 1982, but could hardly be called earth-shattering. Ten of his races had been for claiming tags of $32,000 to $50,000, with no takers. In truth, Flatterer was simply too slow for flat racing at anything but the lowest level. He was sound and honest but had no great burst of speed he could call on and usually had to run flat-out from start to finish just to keep up with the others. Sheppard soon concluded that to keep Flatterer in flat races would mean dropping him down in class and eventually losing him, and he thought the gelding might be suited to jumping. So he proposed to his partners that Flatterer be tried as a steeplechase prospect. They agreed. Flatterer won his first race over fences in April 1983, racing at the Atlanta meet with Sheppard’s stable jockey John Cushman in the saddle. Sheppard was not too impressed with his charge’s first performance in spite of the victory, feeling that the horse jumped rather timidly, but apparently the gelding gained confidence rapidly. As the season progressed. Flatterer became the first horse to take American steeplechasing’s Triple Crown when he won the American Grand National, the Temple Gwathmey Steeplechase, and the Colonial Cup that year. He was an easy choice as champion steeplechaser, a rare feat for a horse in his first season of competition over fences. Cushman retired in early 1984 due to a knee injury, leaving the mount on Flatterer to Jerry Fishback. Fishback had been Sheppard’s stable jockey in earlier years but had retired in 1979 and came out of retirement specifically to ride Flatterer. The gelding lived up to Fishback’s high opinion of him by winning four major ‘chases: the Delta Airlines-Bear Stearns Steeplechase, the New York Turf Writers Cup, the Brook Steeplechase, and a second edition of the Colonial Cup, setting a course record in the last-named event. He also helped generate great interest in steeplechasing through his keen rivalry with the excellent fencer Census. Although Flatterer defeated Census four of the five times they met, all five of their meetings were hotly contested, and it was no surprise that the two rivals finished one-two yet again in the voting for the Eclipse Award. Flatterer, however, had a much easier time against Census in the voting than he ever did on the course, winning in a landslide. Unfortunately, Census bowed a tendon and was on the sidelines for all of 1985, and Flatterer himself was also out until early summer due to a lesser leg injury. Although he won only two major races -- the Temple Gwathmey (under 170 pounds) and his third consecutive Colonial Cup -- he also ran second in the Midsummer Steeplechase and third in the New York Turf Writers, and his record was enough to earn him a third title as champion steeplechaser. At seven, Flatterer showed himself better than ever with a season-opening victory in the Atlanta Cup Steeplechase. Carrying 173 pounds, he defeated the good fencer Steve Canyon by an easy seven lengths while conceding him twenty-nine pounds. He next won the National Hunt Cup under 176 pounds, an American record for a steeplechase victory, while conceding twenty-six to forty pounds to his rivals. Again, he finished first by seven lengths, and Sheppard decided to wait for the weight-for-age Colonial Cup rather than finding out just how much more weight the handicappers would load on Flatterer to try to bring him back to his rivals. But plans changed when Sheppard received an invitation from the Societe des Steeple-Chases (the French equivalent to the National Steeplechasing Association) for France’s premier steeplechase, the Grande Course de Haies d’Auteuil. The weight assignment would be only 141 pounds – a feather compared to what Flatterer had been carrying – and the purse amounted to $140,000 at the exchange rate then in place. Sheppard decided to accept the invitation, and Flatterer flew to France, arriving at Chantilly four days before the race. Although the field contained only seven horses, its quality was of the highest. France’s top-ranked hurdler Gacko was there, as was the grand Irish mare Dawn Run, winner of both the Champion Hurdle and the Cheltenham Gold Cup in England. Another entrant was Le Rheusois, winner of the race in 1985. Despite recent rains that had softened the course, temperatures were well into the nineties, and Flatterer had to deal with a jockey change as well; Fishback could not make the weight for the race, and English jockey Richard Dunwoody was chosen as his replacement. Gaye Brief fell at the warm-up fence, and this was only a precursor to tragedy, for Dawn Run fell at the twelfth fence and broke her neck. Flatterer avoided the trouble, stayed up with the leaders through the remaining fences, and was battling it out with Le Rheusois over the last fence, with Gacko another length back, but could not keep up with Le Rheusois in the stretch. The French horse won by five lengths with Flatterer having a comfortable margin over Gacko for second. It had been a game effort and an exhausting one, with Flatterer undone by the humid heat as much as by the winner’s class and speed. Flatterer returned home with honor if not a victory and was rested with the idea of running him in the inaugural Breeders’ Cup Steeplechase. Census, now recovered from his bowed tendon, was expected to be there, and Gacko flew in from France specifically for the race. Flatterer was unable to make the race, however, scratching at the last minute due to lameness. In his absence, Census turned in a terrific performance and won while Gacko finished sixth. Flatterer’s lameness turned out to be due to a muscle spasm in his left hip, and he responded well enough to treatment to be back under tack for light work a week after the Breeders’ Cup Steeplechase. The Colonial Cup, three weeks after the Breeders’ Cup, was expected to feature the long-awaited rematch between Flatterer and Census, but this time it was Census’ turn to scratch as his old tendon injury flared up again. Nothing else in the race proved able to mount even a token challenge to Flatterer, who won by seventeen lengths in new course record time. It was his fourth consecutive Colonial Cup, an unprecedented feat, and it put the seal on his fourth consecutive Eclipse Award. Only two other horses, the great geldings Kelso and Forego, have ever succeeded in winning the championship of the same division for four consecutive seasons, and only Forego had done so after the institution of the Eclipse Awards in 1973. The American champion went abroad again in 1987, this time with the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham, England as his target. Fishback, who was familiar with the tricky Cheltenham course from having ridden there in 1985, was in the saddle and rode the horse to perfection, but Flatterer plowed through the last fence and was unable to catch front-running See You Then in the stretch, falling one and one-half lengths short. Once again, Flatterer returned home having acquitted himself honorably among the world’s best hurdlers even though he had not won. Sheppard decided that the Iroquois Steeplechase, run at Percy Warner State Park near Nashville, Tennessee, would be the gelding’s next target. The $100,000 race was limited to amateur riders at the time, so Sheppard called on the leading English amateur Tim Thomson-Jones to ride Flatterer. Flatterer was not quite himself for his prep race, a handicap at the Middleburg Spring Races in mid-April, though his burden of 178 pounds over deep going surely cannot have helped. He finished a tired third to Gogong, who was getting twenty-eight pounds from him. In the Iroquois, however, Flatterer turned the tables. He cantered home by five lengths with Gogong a well beaten fifth. The champion returned to Sheppard’s farm in Pennsylvania for the summer, remaining in light training with an eye to running in the Breeders’ Cup Steeplechase at the end of October. Misfortune intervened, however, as Flatterer came up with a slight ligament tear in his left front ankle. The injury responded well to therapy, but it flared again after a prep race on the flat at the Great Meadow course. Again Flatterer went through therapy, responding well enough that Sheppard thought he could run in the Breeders’ Cup. But eight fences into the race, jockey Richard Dunwoody felt something give way, and he pulled the horse up before the ninth fence. His judgment proved sound. Flatterer had a bowed tendon on his left foreleg, ending his career in what Sheppard later called the saddest day he had ever had in racing. Flatterer retired to Sheppard’s Ashwell Stable in Pennsylvania having won twenty-four of fifty-one starts over six seasons of racing, with seven seconds and five thirds, and was named to the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame in 1994. He won twenty races from twenty-seven starts sanctioned under NSA rules, and the only horse to have bettered his record of four Eclipse Awards as champion steeplechaser is Lonesome Glory, who earned five such awards while racing from 1992 through 1999. Flatterer was definitely a horse whose record needs no flattery. © 2005 by Avalyn Hunter |
