|
Neji
In many ways, Neji was to steeplechasing what Secretariat was to flat racing: a magnificently handsome, charismatic horse with brilliant talent and the most royal of connections. Bred in Virginia in 1950 by the noted steeplechase breeder Marion du Pont Scott, who had raced and stood his maternal grandsire Annapolis, Neji was one of six stakes winners, two of them champions, produced by Accra (whose other champion was 1963 champion grass horse Mongo). His sire, *Hunter’s Moon IV, stood at the Meadow Stud of Christopher Chenery (later the breeder of Secretariat) and was also to sire two-time American Grand National Steeplechase winner Sun Dog, three-time Maryland Hunt Cup winner Mountain Dew, and 1961 U.S. champion steeplechaser Peal. Even as a weanling Neji was an attention-getter, catching the eye of Maryland sportsman Rigan McKinney. After studying the youngster’s breeding, McKinney purchased him privately as a steeplechase prospect and sent him to his Maryland estate, Blarney, where Neji began his schooling in 1951. Neji was never to race for McKinney, however, for in the spring of 1953 McKinney made the decision to disperse his racing stable along with some stock from his farm. Neji was among the latter group. Despite being pig-eyed (having smallish, rather deeply set eyes instead of the large, prominent eyes considered attractive and desirable in a horse), Neji had grown into a big, strapping fellow with a great sloping shoulder and splendid balance, and he went to Mrs. Ogden Phipps for $16,500 after some spirited bidding. Placed under the care of noted steeplechase trainer G. H. “Pete” Bostwick – Mrs. Phipps’ brother – Neji made his first two starts in the fall of 1953. These races were simply for educational purposes, however, and no real demands were made of the gelding until the spring of 1954. That year he made fifteen starts, his five wins including all three legs (Belmont, Monmouth, and Saratoga) of the National Hurdle for novice jumpers and a defeat of champion steeplechaser King Commander in a brush race late in the year. So capable did Neji prove as a novice that he was sent against the best of his elders in the Grand National Steeplechase. He fell, but in the following Temple Gwathmey Steeplechase ran King Commander to three-quarters of a length and forced his more experienced rival into equaling a Belmont course record that had stood for twenty-three years. In 1955, Neji delivered on the promise he had shown as a novice, earning the first of his three steeplechase championships. He ran eight times over the fences, won five, and placed in the other three. His first major victory, the International Steeplechase at Belmont Park, was marred by the falls of King Commander and Shipboard at the next-to-last fence in a hotly contested race, but no such mishaps clouded the outcome of his later victories. In a series of duels with the good ‘chaser Rythminhim, he won the Brook Steeplechase under 159 pounds, conceding fourteen pounds; took the Grand National by a neck under 163 pounds in a classic stretch battle, and won the Temple Gwathmey by three-quarters of a length under 167 pounds, conceding eighteen to Rythminhim. Neji’s win in the Gwathmey was somewhat diminished in the race aftermath, in which it was learned that Rythminhim had fractured his pelvis in the final, frantic yards, but it was nonetheless a magnificent stretch drive by Neji, who under his tremendous burden had closed a four-length gap between the final fence and the finish. The son of *Hunter’s Moon IV was a unanimous choice as the year’s champion steeplechaser and also moved into fourth place on the world’s money-earning list for ‘chasers with a bankroll of $133,405. After 1955, Neji could expect nothing but the heaviest of weights – had he not already won the Gwathmey under 167? – and he was accordingly reserved for only the most important fixtures for the remainder of his career. From 1956 through 1961, he went postward only twenty-one times. Six of those races were in 1956, and he netted two wins and four placings from his efforts. Neji’s finest hour of 1956 was in the Indian River Steeplechase at Delaware Park, in which he carried 168 pounds. The race was marred by the pacemaker, Sundowner, who lost both jockey and bridle over the seventh fence. He continued on the course until he reached the tote board, ducked behind that structure, clipped the corner across the infield, and sailed back over the hedge not two lengths in front of the oncoming field and broadside to them. Neji, taken up hard by regular rider F. D. Adams, barely avoided the loose horse on the inside; Carafar, who had been dueling with Neji for the lead, could not avoid Sundowner and hit him squarely, taking both horses down as the rest of the field thundered by. Adams managed to get Neji in gear again, though the big chestnut had lost both momentum and a lot of ground. At the final fence, Caste led by four lengths, with Neji and Flaming Comet heads apart for second and third and lightly weighted Carthage coming up in the stretch to challenge. After two and one-half grueling miles, it was four horses in a blanket finish, all straining for the line; somehow, in the final stride, Neji hurled himself and his huge burden forward to get up by a nose. Despite his great success with Neji, Pete Bostwick made the decision early in 1957 to train only his own horses, and as a result Neji was moved to the barn of D. M. “Mike” Smithwick. Smithwick, a six-time winner of the Maryland Hunt Cup as a jockey, was to become a ten-time leading steeplechase trainer and the conditioner of six champions, accomplishments that would lead to his induction to the Racing Hall of Fame in 1971. Neji, however, was the first champion he would have in his care. The big horse was also getting a change of rider – his new trainer’s brother A. P. “Paddy” Smithwick, a future Hall of Famer in his own right for his accomplishments as a jockey – and offered his new trainer a further challenge in that he had damaged a tendon along with fracturing a splint bone in the Midsummer Steeplechase, his last start of 1956. Smithwick went cautiously with Neji in 1957, not bringing him back to the races until early fall in the Harbor Hill Steeplechase. Neji placed fourth in the event but came back sound, and he scored subsequent victories in the Brook, Grand National, and Temple Gwathmey steeplechases, the last-named under a record 173 pounds. Those three victories over the cream of the active American steeplechasers earned Neji his second title as America’s champion steeplechaser. Neji repeated in the Grand National in 1958 under 173 pounds – the highest weight ever successfully carried by an American steeplechaser in a major event up to that time – and conceded a minimum of twenty-two pounds to his rivals. In his next start, the Temple Gwathmey, he was asked to carry 176 pounds, the highest weight ever assigned in any major American steeplechasing event to that date. Even so mighty a campaigner as Neji could not quite carry this off, but in the most gallant performance of his career, he reached the lead in a determined stretch drive before being nipped by a head at the wire by Benguala, a fine ‘chaser in his own right and in receipt of twenty-nine pounds. According to turf writer John E. Cooper, Neji came back that day to the greatest ovation ever accorded to a beaten horse, and more than one hardened reporter was seen wiping away tears in the press box. So magnificent was his performance even in defeat, combined with his splendid victory in the Grand National (his only stakes win of the season), that Neji was crowed champion steeplechaser for the third time. Whether Neji could have earned a fourth title as America’s champion steeplechaser will never be known, for in 1959 he was sent to England in the care of D. L. Moore for a crack at the great events of that nation. The venture proved abortive as Neji made only three starts, finishing third once and unplaced in his other two. He never recovered his best form on returning home as a ten-year-old and raced only three more times, placing second in the Harbor Hill Steeplechase, before being retired. His final record showed seventeen wins, eleven seconds, and eight thirds from forty-nine starts for earnings of $270,694, a monetary record for steeplechasers that stood for twenty-two years. Six years after his retirement, he was inducted into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame, and he lived to the ripe old age of thirty-two, dying in 1982. But to many steeplechasing veterans, his memory lives as the best of the best, the one by whom all others are measured.
© 2005 by Avalyn Hunter |
