Forego

Forego (USA) 1970 Bay Gelding   Forli (Arg) x Lady Golconda (USA), by Hasty Road (USA)

A huge (close to seventeen hands) runner with suspicious ankles and the devil’s own temper, Forego was slow to develop, but once he came into his full ability, his only real competition was with the handicappers. One of the last great weight carriers in American racing, Forego routinely packed loads of 130 pounds and up, weights that send modern trainers (and a good many of his own time) screaming off to other races offering lesser burdens. But Forego never ducked weight or competition. He faced the best and worst of everything, and for four consecutive years consistently demonstrated the finest qualities of the Thoroughbred.

Forego was better bred than many famous geldings. His sire, *Forli, was one of the finest racehorses ever seen in Argentina, winning that country’s Quadruple Crown series in 1966. Undefeated in his native country, *Forli was then exported to the United States, where he won an exhibition race and the Coronado Stakes in impressive style before a shocking defeat in the Citation Handicap. Despite having broken a bone in one foot in the stretch, *Forli still summoned the class and courage to finish second, but he never ran again. He sired fifty-nine stakes winners including champion Thatching, but none better than Forego.

Lady Golconda, the dam of Forego, also had some talent, winning a minor stakes at two. She was a daughter of the 1954 Preakness winner Hasty Road, and her female line traced back to one of Calumet Farm’s best families, that of 1934 champion two-year-old filly Nellie Flag. Ordinarily, a colt with this kind of pedigree would not be gelded, but Forego had several problems that helped tip the balance. First, as already mentioned, he had bad ankles, probably inherited from his sire *Forli. Second, even as a young horse he was notably heavy-topped. Finally, *Forli was extremely ill-tempered and studdish, with his mind more on breeding than racing. This problem, along with his oversized build, may well have been inherited through his broodmare sire Hasty Road, who was a large, massive horse with a nasty temper.

Regardless of the source of Forego’s liabilities, they were enough to get him gelded. Trainer Sherrill Ward did not try to rush the huge youngster, and Forego did not make his first start until early in his three-year-old season. He earned a good reputation after running second in the Hutcheson Stakes (gr. III) and the Florida Derby (gr. I), but clearly needed some improvement if he was to catch up with the leaders of his crop -- a chestnut rocket named Secretariat, and the Santa Anita Derby (gr. I) winner, Sham.

Despite the fact that Forego had yet to win a stakes race, he had shown enough promise for owner Martha Gerry (who raced in the name of Lazy F Ranch) to take a shot at the Kentucky Derby with him. This was Forego’s only race against Secretariat, and the big gelding finished fourth, some ten lengths behind the eventual Horse of the Year. However, his race was better than it had looked as he had been slammed into the rail on the far turn. Forego and Secretariat both raced on Belmont Stakes day, but Forego’s appearance was in a mile and one-sixteenth allowance event, which he won in 1:40-4/5, just one-fifth of a second off the track record. On the same day, of course, Secretariat set a record of 2:24 in the Belmont Stakes for a mile and a half on dirt that has yet to be beaten.

The late-developing Forego finally got his first stakes win in the Roamer Handicap (gr. II) at Aqueduct, a few weeks after Secretariat’s retirement to stud. He followed up with a win in the Discovery Handicap (gr. III) and finished the year having won half his eighteen starts -- a grueling campaign by any standards. The races that were to make him a legend, however, were still in the future.

Forego finally came into his own at age four. After victories in the Widener (gr. I), Gulfstream Park (gr. II), and Donn (gr. III) handicaps in Florida and in the Carter Handicap (gr. II) in New York, Forego picked up the first of his weight assignments of 130 pounds or more in the 1974 Metropolitan Handicap, getting 134 pounds for the race. He finished second (conceding twenty-two pounds to the winner, Arbees Boy), but for the rest of his career, he would pick up weight and carry it without flinching. He earned his first victory under 130 pounds or more in the 1974 Vosburgh Handicap, carrying 131 pounds, and in thirty-nine starts at age four and up he carried 130 pounds or more no less than twenty-four times, all in stakes races.

Forego earned the first of his three Horse of the Year titles in 1974, along with titles as champion older male and champion sprinter. Besides the races already mentioned, he also won the Brooklyn Handicap (gr. I), the Woodward Stakes (gr. I), and the Jockey Club Gold Cup (gr. I), and he placed in three other graded events. He finished the year having won eight of thirteen starts with only one unplaced effort and, in an amazing display of versatility, had won major races at distances ranging from seven furlongs to two miles. Small wonder that trainer Ward referred to Forego as a “fast stayer.”

From his five-year-old season onwards, Forego required increasingly careful handling due to his bad underpinnings, and even with the best of care he could not make it to the Jockey Club Gold Cup, traditionally the season-ending event for the country’s top older males. But he won the Woodward Stakes for four consecutive years (1974-1977), and he won the Brooklyn Handicap in three consecutive years (1974-1976), a feat matched only by the great handicapper Discovery in 1934-1936.

In the 1975 Brooklyn, Forego broke the long-standing (and long-disputed) track record for a mile and a quarter of 2:00 flat set by Whisk Broom II in 1913, going the distance in 1:59-4/5 while carrying 132 pounds. He also repeated in the Widener and Carter handicaps in 1975 (carrying 134 pounds in the latter event) and scored additional victories in the Suburban Handicap (under 134 pounds) and the Seminole Handicap (gr. II). Forego also just missed catching champion three-year-old male Wajima in the Marlboro Cup Invitational Handicap (gr. I) by a head while conceding the younger horse ten pounds, and behind him in third was the formidable California runner Ancient Title, his closest rival for championship honors in the older male division. Although Forego had to miss the Jockey Club Gold Cup due to a pulled suspensory tendon, his campaign of six wins from nine starts earned him his second consecutive titles as champion older male and Horse of the Year.

Forego changed trainers as a six-year-old, coming under the care of Frank Whiteley, who had also conditioned the great filly Ruffian. The son of *Forli could make only eight starts in 1976, but one of them was the race many observers rate as his greatest performance -- that year’s Marlboro Cup Invitational, in which he was asked to concede the speedy three-year-old Honest Pleasure twenty-one pounds. Despite Forego’s huge burden of 137 pounds and a sloppy, speed-favoring track which the front-running Honest Pleasure clearly relished, Forego just got up in the last stride to nail Honest Pleasure by a head. No horse had successfully carried more weight over a distance greater than a mile since Discovery won the 1935 Merchants’ and Citizens’ Handicap under 139 pounds. Forego was done for the season, but his other five victories included his third Brooklyn Handicap (under 134 pounds), his third Woodward (under 135 pounds as the race had been changed from weight-for-age to handicap conditions), the Metropolitan Handicap (under 130 pounds, defeating the 1975 Preakness winner Master Derby), and the Nassau County Handicap (gr. III). For the third straight year, Forego was voted champion older male and Horse of the Year.

Father Time, heavy weights, and a brilliant young upstart named Seattle Slew finally conspired to break Forego’s string of Horse of the Year titles in 1977. Although Forego raced with all his old fire and determination, his unsoundness was growing worse and he was able to face the starter only seven times that year, winning four. He kept his string of Woodward victories intact despite carrying 133 pounds and repeated in the Metropolitan and Nassau County handicaps (under 133 and 136 pounds, respectively), but he lost the Brooklyn under 137 pounds, the Suburban (by a neck) under 138 pounds, and the Whitney Handicap (gr. I) under 136 pounds. Heroic though Forego’s feats were, they were not enough to offset Seattle Slew’s unbeaten sweep of the Triple Crown, and Forego had to settle for merely a fourth consecutive title as champion older male.

The huge gelding finally reached the end of the line in 1978, starting twice and winning one race. He had developed a painful ringbone in the worst of his ankles, and X-rays following a fifth-place finish in the Suburban Handicap revealed calcium deposits building up on his sesamoids. Rather than risk a life-ending injury, Mrs. Gerry bowed to the inevitable, retiring the gallant old warrior. Forego made one final racecourse appearance in September, leading the post parade for the 1978 Marlboro Cup. The scene of his greatest victory was surely a fitting place for one of racing’s all-time greats to say farewell to his fans.

Forego left the track having won thirty-four races from fifty-seven starts, with nine second-place finishes and seven thirds. He ranked second only to Kelso among the world’s leading money winners at the time of his retirement, missing the record by about $40,000, and was also second only to Kelso in number of titles won during his career. He was elected to the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame in 1979, his first year of eligibility.

Originally retired to John Ward’s farm in Virginia, Forego was moved to the Kentucky Horse Park in 1981 and spent the rest of his life at that facility’s Hall of Champions. His life ended on August 27, 1997, when he was destroyed after breaking his right hind pastern in a paddock accident, and he was buried at the Horse Park. Whether he would have been the equal of Secretariat had they met as mature horses can be debated, but no horse of modern times has carried more weight over more races or more distance, and for that he will be long remembered.

Text © 2005 by Avalyn Hunter

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