When was smarty jones born

Sure, we had been here many times before. Sure, the Belmont Stakes was no easy task, but Smarty Jones was up for it. Who could stop him? This horse could not lose. More than , people crammed into Belmont that day, still the largest crowd for a sporting event in New York. They came for Smarty.

They came for history. Thank goodness social media was still in its infancy, for the public vitriol for the Smarty Party police would have been especially nasty. There was plenty of criticism being bandied around, mostly towards jockey Stewart Elliott, who himself admitted he may have moved the colt too soon in his first ever race at such a distance. A better argument can be made that Smarty Jones simply ran out of gas at the top of the stretch and was caught by a nice horse with a stamina heavy pedigree.

After the Belmont, Smarty Jones was given some much deserved down time. His return to training was interrupted by persistent ankle bruises, and rather than risk his long-term heath, the Chapmans retired their superstar homebred.

Smarty Jones as a newly minted stallion at Three Chimneys. Photo courtesy of Three Chimneys. Ultimately, like so many great champions, Smarty Jones the stallion failed live up to Smarty Jones the runner.

His fee shrunk each year, and eventually he returned to Pennsylvania to much fanfare where the Chapmans still maintained part ownership in their homebred hero. In , Roy Chapman lost his battle with emphysema.

At Calumet Farm, Smarty Jones will hopefully enjoy many more years of good health. Just a few miles from Calumet lives another popular retiree, American Pharoah, who will forever be remembered for the Triple Crown; and though he came up a few feet short of the throne in , we will never forget the fun we had at the Smarty Party. John Wilkinson is a spectacular human being.

Full stop. John Wilkinson. November 27, Pin About the Author John Wilkinson is a spectacular human being. Roy Chapman suffers from severe emphysema, and neither trainer John Servis nor jockey Stewart Elliot had ever competed in a Kentucky Derby before the race. Despite being an overwhelming favorite in the third leg of the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes, Smarty Jones was defeated there by Birdstone on 5 June It was the first loss of his career.

Facts about Smarty Jones. The last winner was Affirmed in The two shared a birthday, and Mrs. Chapman wanted to honor her late mother. She said the horse was a strong-willed actor from birth and her mother too was a bit of a smart aleck as a child who had gotten the nickname "Smarty.

Pat Chapman and her husband, Roy "Chappy" Chapman, originally hired Bobby Camac to train Smarty Jones, but in December , Camac and his wife were murdered by Camac's stepson, Wade Russell, who was eventually convicted and sentenced to 28 years in prison.

One was Smarty Jones, the product of a breeding between their winningest horse, the mare I'll Get Along , and the stallion Elusive Quality. Despite these influences, his Dosage Index of 3.

They sold the Someday Farm property and moved into a smaller home, training only four horses. On July 27, , Servis was schooling Smarty at the starting gate, when the colt spooked, reared, and smashed his head on the top of the gate. He fell to the ground unconscious, blood pouring from his nostrils. Servis thought the horse was dead, but Smarty regained consciousness and was treated by Dr.

Dan Hanf, who stopped the hemorrhaging and treated him for shock. After the bleeding stopped, Smarty's head began to swell from the middle of his forehead over to his left eye. Hanf and assistant trainer Maureen Donnelly kept watch on the colt and kept him at the barn overnight. Hanf had seen the eye before the swelling and was confident the eye itself was not damaged, but knew the horse must have sustained a fracture due to the excessive swelling.

There he was diagnosed with a fractured skull. The bones around his left eye were so badly damaged that the veterinarians thought they might have to remove the eye. Smarty Jones overcame his injuries after three weeks in the hospital and spent more than a month recuperating on the farm.

Two of the other entrants in the Kentucky Derby lacked sight in one eye, and Smarty Jones could have been the third. John Servis led him back into training and by early November , the colt had recovered completely and was ready to make his racing debut at nearby Philadelphia Park now known as Parx Racing and Casino , a racetrack in Bensalem, Pennsylvania , a suburb of Philadelphia. Canadian -born jockey Stewart Elliott was hired to ride Smarty Jones initially for the Bensalem race, but took over a more permanent position when the horse began his winning streak.

However, just three weeks later Smarty had recovered so well that he was able to leave the hospital. After just more than a month of recuperation, he re-commenced his training and by early November, he had recovered fully and was ready to make his racing debut. From the start, it was easy to see that Smarty Jones was one-in-a-million. Just two weeks later he took the Pennsylvania Nursery Stakes by 15 lengths.

When he started his three-year old racing career in January , Smarty Jones raced against some quality horses in the Count Fleet Stakes at Aqueduct Raceway — a race which he won by five lengths. It was decided not to push Smarty too hard but instead to train him towards racing the Kentucky Derby later that year. It was felt certain that he would take the Triple Crown that year but unfortunately he came in second at the Belmont Stakes and his chances of claiming the title slipped away.

Nevertheless, more than , people attended the race to see him in action — the largest crowd ever at a sporting even in New York ever.