Street fight at Pimlico

Curlin overtakes Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense with an awe-inspiring performance in the Preakness. by Sean Clancy

Trainer Carl Nafzger moved solemnly through the Pimlico grandstand, two races before the Preakness, nodding rather than speaking to well wishers. The usually loquacious man put his head down and navigated from point A (the Pimlico paddock) to point B (the stakes barn), feigning interest to all who wanted a piece of him. A former bull rider and now the trainer of the only horse with a chance at the 2007 Triple Crown, he looked like he was back in his dusty days as a cowboy in the bucking chute, rawhide glove tied into a Brahma bull, about to weather a torrent of disc-herniating bucks.

“I always get quiet before a fight,” Nafzger said, as he made his way to the stall where Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense waited for the 132nd running of the Preakness Stakes on May 19.

Thirty-seven years after his last rodeo, Nafzger, 65, was facing what might have been the most important fight of his career.

“He’s finally fit; I’ve finally got his mind. If nothing goes wrong, you’ll see the best Street Sense. It’s a scary feeling,” Nafz­­ger said of Jim Tafel’s homebred. “If everything goes right and he doesn’t fire, they’ll get me on TV, just standing there, thinking, ‘What could I have missed with this horse?’ ”

Turns out, Nafzger didn’t miss anything. Street Sense ran hard, ran well and ran the same way he had in his previous eight starts, putting in a long and steady late run. It’s just that one foe ran a little bit better. Exactly a head better. The upstart Curlin edged Street Sense on the line, getting past him in the final strides to win by head under Robby Albarado.

Curlin—owned by Stone­street Stables, Padua Stables, George Bolton and Midnight Cry Stables, and trained by Steve Asmussen—finished a non-threatening third in Street Sense’s Derby.

A big healthy boulder of a horse before the Derby, Curlin (a son of Smart Strike) chiseled in a matter of weeks, from playing catch up in the Derby to catching the leader in the Preakness.

In just his fifth career effort, Curlin overcame a stumbling start and a penchant for bearing out on the turn to wear down Street Sense, going a mile and three-sixteenths in 1:53.46, equaling the Preakness stakes record of Louis Quatorze (1996) and Tank’s Prospect (1985).

The Pennsylvania-bred Derby runner-up Hard Spun finished third, four lengths behind Street Sense.

Curlin improved his career mark to four wins and a third from five starts for earnings of over $1.6 million.

“When he pulled up after the Derby, he was good. He wasn’t blowing that hard like a horse that was stressed or had overdone it,” Albarado said. “I was impressed, actually. Disappointed, but impressed. Any normal horse would have packed it in and finished 15th; he did something in the Derby.”

Breaking from post four in the Preakness, Curlin buckled when the gates opened, immediately spotting ground to his eight rivals and giving Albarado the same sickening feeling he had going into the first turn of the Derby—that things were happening faster than his colt was reacting. Albarado niggled at the chestnut colt, who stubbornly stayed on his left lead for the first furlong, just to keep pace with the late-running Street Sense. Under the wire the first time, Curlin found his peg in sixth, a notch in front of Street Sense.

On the first turn, Fair Hill-based Xchanger and Derby Trial winner Flying First Class doled out the fractions, the first quarter in :22.83. Local hero Mario Pino settled Hard Spun into a tactical spot in third while outsiders King of the Roxy and C P West ran as a team in fourth and fifth. Curlin sat just outside Maryland-based Mint Slewlep while Street Sense tracked him in eighth, with just the late-running Circular Quay behind him.

Down the backside after a half in :45.75, Pino shifted Hard Spun from the rail, inhaling Xchanger and Flying First Class through a testing three-quarters of a mile in 1:09.80. Two weeks earlier, Hard Spun had led the Derby field through an uncontested three-quarters in 1:11.13. The Preakness unfolds a sixteenth of a mile shorter, but Hard Spun had sealed his fate with the audacious move.
On the turn, Curlin tracked in third, to the outside of C P West and Hard Spun. Albarado braced against Curlin, who was cornering more like a school bus than a Preakness winner. Calvin Borel guided Street Sense between the retreating Xchanger and King of the Roxy into fourth, poised for the late kick that dusted Curlin and devoured Hard Spun in the Derby.

Street Sense stormed past the spinning Curlin—with Al­ba­rado holding and prodding at the same time—and blew past C P West and Hard Spun.
In the stands, Nafzger nudged Tafel, believing he was seeing exactly what he expected—a truly breakout performance by a horse who had already broken out to lead his division at 2 and 3.

Albarado hadn’t given up hope, realizing right away that Street Sense failed to sprint from him like he did in the Derby. On the first Saturday in May, Borel scooted Street Sense through on the rail while Albarado tapped on and off the brakes behind a wall of horses. By the time Curlin got free, Street Sense was long gone.

In the Preakness, Curlin never lost sight of Street Sense’s wake, while Albarado knew he still had an ace—Curlin’s right lead—and was about to throw it on the table. Finally out of the turn and nearing the eighth pole, Albarado forcibly cued Curlin for the change and the colt who had never been in a fight (his three wins were by a combined 28Z\x lengths and he never went eye-to-eye in the Derby) pounced to his right lead and took aim at Street Sense.

Borel gave Street Sense a Gatling gun of left-handed smacks while Curlin gained resolutely to his outside. Inside the sixteenth pole, Borel blinked and looked over his right shoulder, seeing exactly what he feared—the resolute Curlin. It was obvious Curlin was making up more ground than Street Sense was holding and it was a matter of when they hit the wire.

At the wire, Albarado rose in his stirrups and paused the motion of his whip; it hung in the air like a hatchet. The Triple Crown of 2007 was over. As always, it was fun while it lasted.

Street Sense, the 2-year-old champion, stayed the course this spring, winning the Tampa Bay Derby-G3 by a determined nose and finishing second in the Blue Grass-G1 by a grain-of-salt nose. Nafzger never flinched after the strangely run Blue Grass (in which the leader went three quarters of a mile in 1:16.65), and he shipped back to Churchill, where Street Sense trained impressively for the Derby.
“He’s got the four traits of a winner: ability, soundness, mental, immune system. What welds them all together is class,” Nafzger said. “Eyeball-to-eyeball, that’s what we saw in the Tampa Bay Derby. I didn’t know if I had a dog-eat-dog until then. He’d either bowl to the lead or in the Breeders’ Cup, he shot to the lead. Nobody had latched into him and said, ‘Let’s see what you got.’ A heart check. We saw that in the Tampa Bay Derby. And, well, the [Kentucky] Derby was something special.”

Nafzger trained Unbridled to win the Kentucky Derby in 1990 and delivered Tafel his only Derby starter, Vicar, in 1999. Nafzger had watched Vicar’s Derby hopes vanish in the first quarter of a mile.

“The jock picked his hands up and he got strong; he was a type of horse you couldn’t move on or he would run off. I knew it was over.”

Not this time. Borel perched motionless in his acey-deucey stirrups (his outside leg far shorter than his inside, a style honed from his old days at Cajun bush tracks where he learned his trade), body high and confident above Street Sense’s withers, his hands nestled deep in Street Sense’s mane, as the duo lagged in 19th as they went into the first turn.
“No problem, we’re in good shape,” Nafzger said. “I saw the first quarter and knew he would fire from there. The only problem with this horse is waiting on him, because he’ll take you there. Remember, we don’t take these horses anywhere; they take us.”

Street Sense skipped home to a two and a quarter-length victory in the Derby and delivered a confident Nafzger to the Preakness.

“Don’t care if it rains. Don’t care if it doesn’t rain. Don’t care if we saddle in the paddock. Don’t care if we saddle in the infield,” Nafzger said, as clouds started to hover above Pimlico on Preakness Day. “He’s put up with crowds, put up with fields. He likes it. As soon as you drop his hay net, he puts his game face on and says, ‘Let’s play.’ ”

Street Sense played hard in the Preakness but, in Curlin, found a Larry Bird to his Magic Johnson.

Churchill Downs-based trainer Ken McPeek originally purchased Curlin for Shirley Cun­ningham and William Gallion’s Midnight Cry Stables, spending $57,000 at the 2005 Keeneland September Yearling sale. Bred by Fares Farm, the colt had an osteochondrosis (OCD) lesion removed from his left front ankle, which turned off many buyers at the sale. McPeek sent him to Cunningham’s Hillcrest Farm near Lexington, Ky., and not long after announced his own retirement (which turned out to be simply a brief break in his career). But with McPeek officially away from the track, Curlin was turned over to his former assistant, Helen Pitts.

Pitts, a Maryland native whose family connections run deep in the horse community (her father, Clinton Pitts, was a longtime racing steward, and her mother, Poppet Pitts, remains active in foxhunting and steeplechasing) knew immediately that Curlin could run. But she coddled him through his 2-year-old season after he bucked his shins twice. Pitts turned the ignition on February 3, and Curlin exploded onto the racing scene with a 121\2 length win at Gulfstream Park.
Bloodstock agent John Moynihan picked up the scent and started working on a partnership, ultimately delivering the horse to Asmussen under the ownership banner of Jess Jackson’s Stonestreet Stable, Satish Sanan’s Padua Stable, Maryland native George Bolton and Midnight Cry.

It’s a high-powered group, its principals all well-known for various reasons in the racing world and beyond.

Jackson, scion of the Kendall-Jackson winery, has avidly pursued top quality breeding and racing stock, and also made headlines by suing former advisors, alleging fraud in horse and real estate deals. Sanan jumped wallet first into the business about 10 years ago and has since accused advisors of below-board practices; he has pushed for industry reform and integrity. Cunningham and Gallion have had their law licenses temporarily suspended by the Kentucky Supreme Court after the fenphen diet drug case and a class-action suit alleging that they and another lawyer took more than $125 million from a $200-million settlement.

Bolton, son of steeplechase owner Perry Bolton, lives in California and is the least controversial member of the group. (See sidebar on page 23.)
Curlin is the best runner to touch any of their paths as owners.

With a hand on the offside shank, Asmussen’s assistant Scott Blasi escorted an unfazed and barely blowing Curlin to the test barn after the Preakness. Fans cheered, the horse blew out some surface dirt from his throat and Blasi marveled.

Something he’s been doing all along. It takes a special horse to win a seven-furlong maiden by double digits in his debut, the Grade 3 Rebel Stakes in his second start, the Grade 2 Arkansas Derby in his third and tackle the Derby in his fourth. And then to impress his handlers enough to never waver about taking on the Preakness two weeks later.

Blasi had leaned on the wall of the test barn at Churchill Downs and known in 20 minutes the horse should run back in the Preakness.

“He ran like a green 2-year-old into the first turn and then only ran the last half a mile,” Blasi said. “It’s a hell of a schooling race, the Kentucky Derby. But there’s no schooling for a race like that, when you go there with a horse who’s only made three lifetime starts. We knew it was a lot to ask, but in order to get to the next level we needed it; you have to dance those dances. The way he cooled out after the Derby was unbelievable, like he hadn’t even run.”
Asmussen described his take on the situation:

“In comparison, Zanjero, a nice, quality horse, had not cooled off enough to get a bath yet and Curlin was already out of the test barn,” Asmussen said of stablemate Zanjero, who finished 12th in the Derby. “One of the best things out of this deal is everybody now feels the same way we always have. He’s not natural, it’s not natural to be that good.”

The 41-year-old Asmussen, who oversees 200-plus horses and holds the record for most wins in a season, has a way of simplifying the sport, repeating his views two or three times for clarification. Ask him about a horse and he talks about the horse’s speed first. After that, the other traits fall into place. He never worried about taking on big game with the inexperienced Curlin.

“He does things normal horses don’t do. We brought him in the barn and asked him questions through training if he was good enough for the Rebel. He answered them emphatically,” Asmussen said. “You walked over there thinking you had the best horse and that’s been the case every time. What would you be waiting on if you didn’t run him? The next one? That’s how you feel. Who do you want to run in there? I want to run him.”

No doubt, “him” is whom Albarado wants to ride. The Preakness win was the first victory in a Triple Crown event for the 33-year-old Cajun, who had gone winless in 17 tries dating back to 1997 when he finished 11th aboard Crimson Classic in the Derby. Albarado engineered Asmussen’s first Grade 1 victory with Dreams Gallore in the 1999 Mother Goose and picked up the ride on Curlin as soon as the horse came to Asmussen’s barn. Like Asmussen and Blasi, Albarado stood securely on the Curlin Triple Crown float coming into the Preakness.

“In the Derby, I was still in traffic and [Street Sense] was gone; I just watched him take on Hard Spun. There was nothing I could do. The little mistakes he made were his immaturity, just sucking back. I’m having to do my part, just keep him confident,” Albarado said. “We did the best we could do, but he became a man in the Derby. He was a totally different horse from the first quarter to the last quarter. He got mad, serious, pissed off. Whatever he did, he was awesome from the eighth pole home. And you think about it—that was his fourth start.”
While Nafzger and Tafel were meeting Borel on the turf for the Derby presentation, Asmussen and Blasi met Albarado on the dirt track. The jockey, the trainer and the assistant agreed in their sentiments.

“The first thing Steve said was, ‘He was finishing. He ran to the wire.’ Nobody saw that last eighth. He was reaching the last eighth of a mile, he was reaching. And he’s trained forward from that point,” Albarado said. “I was confident, real confident. The horse winning is not a surprise to us, not to anybody. We thought he was this kind of horse. The horse that was second is a good horse—he was the Derby champion.”

As the light of day faded and the party back at the stakes barn started to liven up, Asmussen accepted congratulations from a continuing line of family, friends and fans. He quickly snuffed any woe about not having a Triple Crown possibility at Belmont Park in three weeks.

“Nobody will be disappointed in that running of the Preakness. He was 100 percent all out and showed his greatness by getting by the Derby winner, a great horse, in an excellent time,” Asmussen said. “If these horses stay around, that will be one of those charts to look back and say, ‘Look who was in that race.’ Hopefully these horses stay sound and get to prove that.”
Just down the shedrow from the party, Curlin steadily worked his way through his feed tub, barely moving. Blasi turned and ducked under the barn railing, ready to get something to eat himself. Then the assistant stopped and gazed at Curlin’s massive hind quarters, the only part visible from the shedrow.
“To think,” he said. “It’s only his fifth lifetime start.”

Around the corner, Street Sense stood diagonally across stall 40, the one reserved for the Derby winner, his bottom lip dropped lazily below his jaw, his ears flicked back and forth with each passing noise, his hay net untouched. Awakened, he walked to the front of his stall, pinned his ears at a couple of drunks who stumbled down the shedrow, and nibbled at the timothy hay hanging above his webbing.

Twelve-year veteran security guard Claude Simms pried himself off the wall and swaggered to the foot of Street Sense and the revelers.
“It’s best you get on your way,” Simms said.

At 9:09 p.m., Street Sense’s hotwalker, Paul Rutherford, stared at his horse before taking a long, slow sip from a can of Nestea. Rutherford shook his head at what might have been and turned to go.

“It’s been a pleasure,” Ruther­ford said, shaking Simms’s hand. “Yeah,” Simms said, his disappointed tone saying it all.