PA-bred Smarty Jones gets the roses

Philadelphia Park-based runner performs a miracle for owner/breeders Roy and Patricia Chapman, trainer John Servis and jockey Stewart Elliott

Do you believe in miracles?
by Sean Clancy

Nearly 30 years ago, Patricia and Roy Chapman met at Roy’s car dealership in Philadelphia. She bought a car and they’ve been together pretty much ever since.

Both horselovers, they would own a champion three-day event horse (their Eagle Lion, trained and ridden by Bruce Davidson, won the three-star CCI at Fair Hill in 1992), a Maryland Hunt Cup winner (their Uncle Merlin won America’s timber classic in 1989 and the following year contested the English Grand National, leading much of the way until his rider fell off near the finish), and a small but successful flat string based in the Mid-Atlantic.

Trainer Bob Camac advised the Chapmans to breed their stakes-winning mare I’ll Get Along to young Kentucky sire Elu-sive Quality. On February 28, 2001, I’ll Get Along foaled a chestnut colt at the Chapmans’ Some-day Farm near New Lon-don, Pa.

They named him Smarty Jones after Pat’s mother, Mildred, who was born on the same day.
In December 2001, Camac and his wife, Maryann, were murdered by her son from a previous marriage. The reason—a dispute over money. The Chapmans, distraught over the Camacs’ deaths and with Roy fighting emphysema, sold all of their racing stock, except two colts. Smarty Jones was one of them.

The trainer John Servis grew up at the race track. His dad, Joe, has worked his whole life in racing—anything from a jockey to a steward. John became a jock’s agent but really wanted to be a horse trainer.

“He was my agent and all he ever told me was how much he wanted to be a trainer,” retired jockey Jimmy Wofford said. Servis went out on his own and built a prominent, albeit localized, operation at Philadelphia Park.

The rider Stewart Elliott, a prodigy of the race track just like Servis, followed his father’s riding career and became a jockey. New England, Maryland, Florida, New Jersey—Elliott rode anything and everything on his way to 3,000-plus winners. A consistent title winner at Philadelphia Park and tracks like it, Elliott hammered out a living as a capable veteran on the B circuit.

The horse As a baby, Smarty Jones began to tear up Bridlewood Farm in Florida. Farm manager George Isaacs, a close friend of Camac, informed the Chapmans they had a runner. Offers were bandied around, but Chapman, staving off his car dealer instincts, decided to keep Smarty Jones. Servis took over the horse’s training at Philadelphia Park in 2003. A nice homebred is how he was characterized around Barn 11.

Less than a month after joining Servis’s stable, Smarty Jones went to the gate for some routine schooling. He hit his head in the gate and dropped like a penny down a well. Assistant trainer Maureen Donnelly was on the horse next to Smarty Jones.
“It made such a noise and he went straight down,” she said. “We didn’t think we would get him back to the barn. We stood in front of the barn for an hour and a half letting the cold water run over his head; the blood was covering everything. If we knew then what kind of horse he was, we might have panicked and he probably would have died.”

Smarty Jones recovered from that near-death experience and won his first three races by a combined 28 lengths. Speed, athleticism and enthusiasm complemented his sprinter’s pedigree—Smarty Jones could really run.

The route To celebrate his track’s 100th anniversary, Oaklawn Park owner Charles Cella put up a $5 million bonus for any horse who could win Oaklawn’s Rebel Stakes and Arkansas Derby-G2 and then the Kentucky Derby-G1. Servis opted for the Oaklawn route, and Smarty Jones won the Southwest, Rebel and Arkansas Derby to run his record to an unblemished six-for-six heading into the Derby.

The race Smarty Jones went off as the favorite for the 130th Ken-tucky Derby. Fans believed in him (six ones on a chart look imposing) while most of the pundits never set foot on his bandwagon—citing soft competition, a lack of stamina in his pedigree, and the unknown connections.

Smarty Jones broke from the 15 hole in the Derby. Looking like a piece of lettuce in the middle of a Dagwood sandwich, he and Elliott stood their ground going into the first turn. Quintons Gold Rush and Pollard’s Vision pressured from the outside while Read the Footnotes fought for room inside. Elliott had a choice: nudge for position, take back for breathing space, or hold steady.

“Once we got to the first turn, he was in a great spot, but there was pressure from both sides. I was thinking, ‘What do I do here?’ I said, ‘I better not take back, I better keep my position.’ The thing is this horse usually holds me up there so I was afraid to get him running, but if I take him back, it could be a disaster,” Elliott said. “He was in between horses for the first time, getting bounced around, and he had never been behind horses. He had never had anything thrown in his face, but it wasn’t a problem. He handled it like a pro.”

By the time the field hit the race’s midway point, Smarty Jones and Elliott had averted disaster and put themselves in a perfect position: a sidecar to Lion Heart with open lanes ahead. Under Mike Smith, Lion Heart rolled along on the lead while Smarty Jones began to make positive ground like a horse does when he’s simply better than his competition.
“Pollard’s Vision was dying, so I eased out and got outside Lion Heart. I know he’s going to keep running; I’ll just track him,” Elliott said. “As soon as I got my horse in the clear, out of that mud, he dropped in for me.

“From then I said, ‘Here we go, we’re in action.’ We got a loaded gun now and we’ll just bide our time.”

With three-eighths of a mile to go, Lion Heart was still on the lead but Elliott’s hand was twitching like a gunfighter’s at the OK Corral. And the rest of the field were marked men. Nobody was making consequential ground as Lion Heart and Smarty Jones split—two for the money and 16 for the scraps.

“Mike Smith was still sitting. He had some horse and I had some horse. I was pretty confident I had him,” Elliott said. “I was in good striking distance. I figured I’d wait. I kept looking and nobody was coming, nobody was coming so I said, ‘I’ll just sit.’ Turning for home, it was a two-horse race unless someone absolutely came flying. He switched leads and I set him down. He just went to running.” Exactly what he does best.

With Elliott deftly switching sticks through the lane, Smarty Jones pulled away to win by two and three-quarters lengths over Lion Heart and a belated Imperialism.

Elliott stood up at the wire like he’s done thousands of times. The 39-year-old veteran pumped his right hand a few times, nothing more. A man trying to settle a tobacco tin does more pump.
“It took a couple of strides to really hit home. I was so focused, I was just riding my horse. When we hit the wire, I knew we won it, but about two jumps after, it hit. ‘That was the Kentucky Derby,” Elliott said. “Galloping out, the outrider picked me up and Edgar Prado, I’ve known Edgar before they knew who Edgar Prado was, he gave me a high-five. Shane Sellers gave me a high-five. A feeling come over me, you can’t explain it, you can’t explain it.”

Elliott is understated, no frills, low-key, relaxed, money—he rode the perfect race and became the first jockey to win the Derby in his first try since Ronnie Franklin did it on Spectacular Bid in 1979. Smarty Jones became the first undefeated Derby winner since Seattle Slew in 1977 while taking away the largest single payday in Thoroughbred racing history. The miracle horse won $5,854,800 with his flawless run in the 130th Kentucky Derby.

Servis wasn’t surprised. The 45-year-old trainer was confident going into the Derby, knowing Smarty Jones was training with ease and knowing everything had gone perfectly in his Derby plan. Donnelly, in her fourth year working for Servis, couldn’t believe her boss’s aplomb.
“I’ve never heard John so confident,” Donnelly said. “He’s never confident before a race, and he said, ‘We’re going to win.’ I never heard him say it like that for any race. To say it for the Derby was unbelievable.”

In his first Derby, Servis made decisions with conviction. Second-guessing be damned, he shipped Smarty Jones from Oaklawn to Keeneland, bypassing the extra acclimatization at Churchill Downs for the peace and quiet of Lexington.

He put Smarty Jones on the anti-bleeding medication Lasix for the first time. He stuck with his hunting buddy Elliott in the most important race either had ever known.
“I really think after the Derby, Philadelphia Park won’t see Stew-art Elliott anymore. He’ll have opportunities after this,” Ser-vis said two weeks before the Derby. “The only time it ever came up was when I talked to Mr. and Mrs. Chapman because it needed to be done. They said, ‘John, if he’s your man, then he’s our man too.’

Elliott and Servis make a good combination: two born horsemen who have put time in and were there to seize the opportunity. Of course, it helps to sling your guns over a saddle horn like Smarty Jones.

“I’ve only had one call from agents about getting on the horse. That tells me one of two things. They don’t think they can move Stew off, or they don’t think the horse is good enough,” Servis said before the Derby. “But let me tell you, he’s a stone runner. He trains hard, he runs hard. He absolutely wants to win more than any horse I’ve ever seen.”

A jockey who’d never been there, a trainer who went to Oak-lawn instead of Gulfstream, owners who nearly sold everything, a home state known more for raising NFL quarterbacks than Thoroughbred race horses, a storm of Biblical proportions two hours before the Derby, a distance that was supposedly too far and 17 of the bluest bloods in racing—Smarty Jones conquered all.

So now, do you believe in miracles?