The Hollywood Futurity - Prelude to the Classics
Joseph Di Rienzi
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| Mike Powell/Getty Images |
As the thoroughbred racing season winds down in late fall
every year, most horse racing enthusiasts’ thoughts turn to next year’s
classics – the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes. It is always an
interesting mind exercise to look at the performances of the current year’s two
year-old crop and try to anticipate who will be the classic winners during
their three year-old season. This task has become more difficult of late with
the trend by major trainers to lightly race (if at all) their best prospects as
two year-olds. Nevertheless, it has proven over time that we should pay
attention to juveniles who race in November and December because we may see these horses in the winner’s circles at
Churchill Downs and Pimlico in May and at Belmont Park in June.
The most obvious two year-old race to consider in looking for
likely classic winners is the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile which has become the de facto
two year-old championship event. It is true over
its now 34 year history many horses who have competed in the race have gone on
to classic success the following year. However, only three winners – Timber
Country (1994), Street Sense (2006) and Nyquist (2015) have reproduced their
form and won a classic as a three year-old. (Street Sense and Nyquist were
victorious in the Kentucky Derby while Timber Country captured the Preakness
Stakes.) In this piece, I want to focus on another two year-old race, the
Hollywood Futurity, which, despite its somewhat checkered history, has been a
strong indicator of future classic success. In fact, there have been 12 horses
contesting this race (with 5 of them winning) who in the following year were
victorious in one of the Triple Crown races.
Initiated in 1981 (three years prior to the first Breeder’s
Cup), the Hollywood Futurity was designed to be the championship race for two
year-olds, and in 1983 boasted a purse of $1 million. Run mostly at 1 1/16 mile (except for 1985 – 1990 when it was
contested at a mile), the Hollywood Futurity was staged on an artificial
surface from 2006 to 2013. With the closing of Hollywood Park in late 2013, the race was moved to Los Alamitos Race Course. In 2007, the race
was renamed the CashCall Futurity when Hollywood Park received sponsorship from
that aforementioned company. Back on the dirt at Los Alamitos, the race is now
named the Los Alamitos CashCall Futurity.
Right from its
inaugural running, the Hollywood Futurity produced a classic winner, although
only the most prescient observers would have predicted who in the field that
would be. Arthur Hancock III and Leone J. Peters’ Gato Del Sol finished a well
beaten seventh behind the winner Stalwart. The rangy gray colt had won the Del
Mar Futurity three starts back, but he did not show his best form at Hollywood
Park. Notwithstanding in May 1982, Gato Del Sol came charging home first in the
Kentucky Derby at odds of 21-1.
The next classic
winner to emerge from the Hollywood Futurity was Tank’s Prospect who also
failed to place in the race, finishing fourth in the 1984 edition. The Eugene
Klein owned and Wayne Lukas trained son of Mr. Prospector rallied from off the
pace to win the Preakness the following year. The 1985 renewal of the Hollywood
Futurity saw two classic winners emerge from the race who would be staunch
adversaries the next two years. Carl Grinstead and Ben Rochelle’s California
bred Snow Chief finished first in the Hollywood Futurity while Mrs. Howard B.
Keck’s Ferdinand was a distant third. At Churchill Downs the following May,
Ferdinand found an opening between horses and stormed to victory in the
Kentucky Derby making his trainer Charlie Whittingham and his jockey Bill
Shoemaker the oldest trainer-jockey combination to win the Derby. Favored Snow
Chief finished a puzzling eleventh, but at Pimlico Racetrack, two weeks later,
Snow Chief rebounded winning the Preakness Stakes by 4 lengths with Ferdinand
in second place.
The following year, Dorothy and Pamela Scharbauer’s
Alysheba, a robust son of the famed Alydar, finished a close second (by a neck)
to Temperate Sil in the Hollywood Futurity. The Jack Van Berg trainee would
find his championship form as a three year-old winning both the Kentucky Derby
and Preakness Stakes before losing the Belmont (finishing fourth) in his bid
for Triple Crown glory.
It took five more years for another classic winner to emerge
from the Hollywood Futurity. In 1991, Tomonori Tsurumaki’s A. P. Indy began to
fulfill the lofty reputation he had from his inception with a game victory in
the race. Being a son of Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew out of a mare by
Triple Crown winner Secretariat who had produced 1990 Preakness winner Summer
Squall, it is not hard to imagine why A. P. Indy was bought at auction as a
yearling for $2.9 million. Trained by Neil Drysdale, he had to be withdrawn
from the Kentucky Derby the day before the race due to a foot bruise.
Sufficiently recovered, A. P. Indy dutifully won the 1992 Belmont Stakes on the
way to Horse of the Year honors.
The 1994 Hollywood Futurity was won in runaway fashion by a
presumed budding superstar in Afternoon Deelites. Finishing second, beaten 6½
lengths was Thunder Gulch, who had shipped in from the East Coast. The son of
Gulch recently acquired by owner Michael Tabor and turned over to trainer Wayne
Lukas had just won the Remsen Stakes at Aqueduct for his new connections. Considered
at one time second string to Lukas’ two year-old champion Timber Country,
Thunder Gulch emerged as the Three Year-old Champion of 1995 winning both the Kentucky
Derby and the Belmont Stakes. (A third place finish to stablemate, Timber
Country in the Preakness Stakes, prevented Thunder Gulch from a Triple Crown
sweep.)
Though both Alysheba and Thunder Gulch, in being dual
classic winners, had come within a single victory of capturing the elusive
Triple Crown, no horse has come closer than the 1997 Hollywood Futurity winner,
Real Quiet. The gangly son of Quiet American whose trainer Bob Baffert
nicknamed, “The Fish” for his narrow frame was owned by longtime Baffert patron
Mike Pegram. As with Thunder Gulch,
Real Quiet was considered, prior to the Kentucky Derby, the weaker part
of an uncoupled entry with Indian Charlie. However, he emerged the victor and
followed that with a convincing win in the Preakness Stakes. Strongly favored
to complete the Triple Crown, Real Quiet surged to a commanding lead at the top
of the stretch in the Belmont Stakes only to find rival Victory Gallop catch
him in the last stride to deny his Triple Crown aspirations.
In 2000, The Thoroughbred Corporation’s Point Given, a massive
son of Thunder Gulch, who had just missed winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile by
a nose to Macho Uno, became the next future classic winner to score a victory
in the Hollywood Futurity. The Bob Baffert trainee, a strong favorite in the
2001 Kentucky Derby, finished a perplexing fifth to Monarchos. However, Point
Given showed his superiority in winning both the Preakness and Belmont Stakes.
On the other end of the expectations spectrum was Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Moss’
Giacomo who finished a surprising second in the 2004 Hollywood Futurity, but he really shocked the
racing community by winning the following year’s Kentucky Derby at odds over
50-1.
Racing on the Hollywood Park artificial surface in 2009,
Lookin at Lucky followed the pattern of Point Given of rebounding from a narrow
loss in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile to win the now CashCall Futurity. Also
trained by Bob Baffert, Lookin at Lucky was owned by the partnership of Pegram,
Watson and Weitman. He continued to follow Point Given’s tract by finishing
unplaced in the Kentucky Derby (sixth) but came back to win the Preakness.
However, unlike Point Given, he did not contest the Belmont Stakes.
The final classic winner, to date, to emerge from the former
Hollywood Futurity was Calumet Farm’s Oxbow in 2012. No better than fourth in
the CashCall Futurity, the son of Awesome Again trained by Wayne Lukas scored
an upset victory in the 2013 Preakness Stakes.
The race has produced no classic winners since it has been
moved to Los Alamitos in 2014, but the last three victors - Dortmund (2014),
Mor Spirit (2015), and Mastery (2016), were all high class performers. Thus, there
is no reason that this renamed and relocated race will not still be a signpost
to the following year’s classics, and one can hope the 2017 renewal run on
December 9, will continue the tradition.
