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Posted on Sun, May. 30, 2004

The recipe for the perfect racehorse

By Alfred Lubrano

Inquirer Staff Writer


Horse breeders try to play God with their animals, believing that they can arrange chromosomes like Legos to create something fleet and fine.

It rarely works out. Hoping for Maseratis, most breeders wind up producing misfiring Chevys. Three percent - 900 - of the 30,000 thoroughbred horses born each year go on to win a stakes race, according to the Jockey Club, an organization dedicated to the improvement of thoroughbred breeding and racing.

On the rarest of occasions, dedicated horse folk build a Smarty Jones, a creature so special that only now is the horse world beginning to understand the superiority of this local hero, who will race Saturday in the Belmont Stakes, seeking to win the Triple Crown.

Compared with 66,000 top horses from the last 34 years in areas such as strength, length of stride, and overall proportion, Smarty Jones ranks among the top two or three, on par with Triple Crown winners Seattle Slew, Affirmed and Secretariat, said Cecil Seaman, a Lexington, Ky., thoroughbred expert.

"He might be the closest thing to a perfect horse," said Seaman, a biomechanics expert who measures horses' bones, size and weight to determine their running power and efficiency. "He is a phenomenon, and may be the best racehorse we've ever seen."

Smarty's blessings are myriad, experts say. The compact symmetry of his front and back ends make him balanced and athletic; the timing and efficiency of his stride are world class; the muscled rear he inherited from his father produces explosive speed; and he even has huge nostrils, to help him breathe.

Achieving such greatness in the breeding shed takes money, brains and luck. Smarty's people have had enough of all three. For the majority of the racing world, however, trying to breed a winner is frustrating, fruitless experimentation.

"Nobody is doing it consistently," said Bob Fierro, former president of the New York Thoroughbred Breeders Association and the head of a horse-analysis firm. "A sperm cell might not make it to the egg, and that's it."

Patrice Miller, vice president of a high-tech Chester County horse-evaluation outfit, agreed. "The best way to find a great racehorse," she said, laughing, "is to buy it."

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Every thoroughbred horse traces its ancestry back 300 years to three Arabian stallions brought to England from the Middle East, according to the Jockey Club.

Since then, the philosophy of breeding these animals has remained remarkably unchanged: Breed the best to the best and hope for the best.

That kind of selective breeding improves the speed of the thoroughbred. While few speed records are being shattered these days, thoroughbreds are consistently faster.

Still, it is not easy to make a champion.

"No one's found the magic formula," said David Williamson, bloodstock adviser at Gainsborough Farm in Versailles, Ky., the home of Elusive Quality, Smarty Jones' sire.

So many disparate factors go into a winning horse. According to Williamson, the recipe breaks down like this: 25 percent genes, 25 percent quality of upbringing and care, 25 percent training, 10 percent jockey skill and 15 percent luck.

Science does not yet know how to manipulate genes into building a better racehorse, said Cecilia Penedo, an equine research geneticist at the University of California at Davis.

"The goal is to understand the genetic basis of performance traits," she said. "There's still a good amount of folklore involved in breeding."

One tool that horse people have in abundance is pedigree information. They can trace a horse's ancestry and performance back generations.

Understanding this improves the odds of producing a better horse, said Mark Ratzlaff, a professor of horse anatomy at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Washington State University. "But it can't measure other things, such as the horse's desire to win."

Much breeding today is little more than informed guesswork based on pedigree - "so much baloney," said Jeff Seder, who runs EQB, the West Grove equine biomechanics company where Miller works.

People buying young, unraced horses consult with Seder, who tries to pick future winners based on precise tests and measurements of the animals and how they move.

EQB studies family histories of horses, particularly to see which consistently produce large lungs and hearts, with thick walls. Seder uses ultrasound to measure hearts.

The great Secretariat had an unusually large heart. The theory, then, is that a great heart makes a great performer.

Speculation about Smarty Jones' heart - as yet unmeasured - is that it is colossal.

"I'll bet he has gorgeous cardio," Miller said.

When Seaman measured Smarty after the Preakness Stakes, he was amazed to find that he outscores the three greatest horses of the last 30 years:

Smarty scores a perfect 1 out of 10 for gravity, meaning that everything fits together in proportion.

For leverage - the length of hips, shoulders and legs, which helps determine stride - Smarty scores a Plus-9, the highest.

And for ratio or efficiency - a function of body mass and leverage - Smarty gets a score known as 10$, the highest.

By comparison, Secretariat got an 8 for leverage and a 4 for ratio; Seattle Slew, a 9 and a 5; and Affirmed, a 10 and a 5.

Though smaller than the champs, Smarty has more power, Seaman said. "Technically," he added, "Smarty Jones is the best horse."

The thinking that went into Smarty Jones' creation was decidedly less high-tech.

Bob Camac, Smarty's late trainer, decided to mate the stakes-race-winning mare I'll Get Along with the stallion Elusive Quality, who holds the record for the mile. He did it, said Unionville bloodstock agent Russell Jones, not with science but with an accomplished horseman's eye.

"Bob was trying to fill in weaknesses in the mare and pass on strengths from the sire," Jones said. "He was trying to make a balanced athlete by pieces."

Fierro said Camac scored. "I'll Get Along comes from the greatest family in horse-racing history," he said. "And Elusive Quality is the fastest miler of his generation. [Camac] wasn't exactly shooting craps."

The result - thanks also to Smarty's new trainer, John Servis - was a horse whom people continue to praise. "Right now, Smarty Jones is the best in the world," Seder said.

The horse is sound between his ears, as well. Experts say he seems happy even after a grueling race. He has a "professionalism - he understands the game," said Ed Bowen, president of the Grayson Jockey Club Research Foundation, which funds veterinary research.

That does not mean Saturday will be easy. Horse people say a demon lives at Belmont Park, on Long Island, N.Y., that crushes even great animals on the huge 11/2-mile track, the longest of the three Triple Crown races. But Smarty has made believers out of skeptics. "He can probably run even faster than he has," Seaman said.

Already, I'll Get Along's famous son has raised her value from $135,000 to about $1 million, Jones said. And Elusive Quality's stud fee is now $50,000, up from the pre-Smarty days of $10,000, his handlers said. If Smarty wins at Belmont, Smarty could be worth up to $60 million, Miller said.

Recently, Elusive Quality impregnated I'll Get Along again. No matter how smart a mating that seems, though, the odds of hitting another genetic jackpot are low.

And in the end, said Williamson, of Elusive Quality's farm, "you're at the mercy of what nature gives you."



May they all come home safely!