Smarty Jones in star-studded retirement

By DICK JERARDI

jerardd@phillynews.com

MIDWAY, Ky. - The surroundings, with miles of hilly, grassy expanse and fences that seem to reach into forever outside, and airy, manicured stalls inside, are a bit more palatial than the backstretch at Philadelphia Park. There are no gravel roads in the stallion barn at Three Chimneys Farm. Cars are not roaring by on the Pennsylvania Turnpike a few yards away. Alas, there is also no race track a few steps from the barn, either.
Smarty Jones, his chestnut coat gleaming and his stout hind quarters still covering one of the great engines in racing history, looked very much as if, with maybe a day or two of training, he could still run just about any horse on earth into the ground.
Those days ended last June at the Belmont Stakes. The memories from last spring linger... the three moves to win the Kentucky Derby in the muck and mire of Churchill Downs, the awe-inspiring run to the wire in the Preakness at Pimlico and the mile-and-a-quarter sprint at Belmont Park.
No horse that did not win the Triple Crown ever left the series more beloved. A year after winning the Derby an hour up Interstate 64, Smarty remains the center of attention. He arrived at Three Chimneys last August to get ready for his stallion career. Thousands of visitors have arrived since.
One pilgrim came last fall, last winter and this spring. He was back again yesterday.
Bill Foster slept in a stall next to Smarty during the Triple Crown. Stable foreman for Smarty's trainer John Servis, Foster has an unabashed love affair with Smarty Jones.
"This is where I want to be," Foster said while standing outside Smarty's stall. "Smarty's my friend. He's the reason that my life changed. For that, I'll forever be grateful... I still see his races in my mind every night. When I see him, it reinforces everything.
"I will be here as long as I have money and my health. When everything runs out, I won't be here anymore, but he'll always be in my heart and my mind."
Before Smarty, Foster lived in a small room at the track. He had no life, social or otherwise. Days after the Belmont, Foster met Shelley Abrams, a huge Smarty fan who lives in Yardley. They have been together ever since. All because of Smarty.
"This horse is popular with the people," Foster said. "And the people are what run this country. It's not the 10 percent that have all the money. It's the people that run this country. He's the people's horse. That was the secret to the whole thing."
Just a few steps from Smarty's stall in the stallion barn, which he shares with 2001 Preakness and Belmont winner Point Given, among others, stands a statue of Seattle Slew, the only unbeaten Triple Crown winner. Smarty came about as close as a horse can come to being the second.
When Seattle Slew died 3 years ago, Three Chimneys was desperate to find a successor with star appeal. When the bidding for the breeding rights to Smarty began, Three Chimneys was not the favorite. But it won the day. And it has its new star.
"We obviously had a lot of public attention with Seattle Slew and [1997 Derby and Preakness winner] Silver Charm and Point Given," Three Chimneys president Dan Rosenberg said. "We knew this was going to be more. We underestimated how much more."
The farm had to expand its parking lot to accommodate all the cars loaded with fans who arrive daily to see Smarty Jones.
"Tours are at 1 o'clock," Rosenberg said. "We were coming back from lunch and couldn't park so we had to build an extension to our parking lot and build a visitors center, so we could accommodate these people without having them all in our office."
There is one tour a day 5 days a week. Up to 40 or 50 people can tour at a time. Weekends are booked through July. Weekdays are booked through May.
"We thought we knew what we were getting into when we won the competition to be Smarty's home, but we really didn't," Three Chimneys communications director Margaret Layton said. "Things have changed since Slew raced. You have the Internet. You have cable TV. People felt so close to this horse. John Servis and Bill Foster, what they did to make that horse available. People felt like he was theirs."
They still do.
According to Layton, Seattle Slew, in his biggest years had 12,000 visitors. She expects Smarty to have between 15,000 and 20,000 this year.
Smarty resides in Seattle Slew's stall. He almost duplicated Slew on the track. If he can come close to duplicating him in the breeding shed, Three Chimneys, Smarty's owners, the Chapmans, and all the shareholders in the Smarty syndicate will be eternally grateful.
Seattle Slew, who won the 1977 Triple Crown, was arguably the greatest combination of horse and sire in racing history. He never produced anything quite as good as he was, but produced more than his share of championship-quality horses.
Smarty started breeding in mid-February. He's been bred to 88 mares and has 23 to go this season. A single "season" to Smarty costs $100,000. His stud value was placed at anywhere between $39 million and $48 million, depending upon which reports you accept.
Smarty's first foals will hit the ground next year. They won't race until 2008 and will be Derby age in 2009. So it will be at least 5 years before we really know whether Smarty will make it in his second career.
From Philadelphia Park to the rolling hills of Central Kentucky is really a million miles. You simply can't see here from there.
Smarty Jones bridged the gap.
Still, you wonder. With a new Derby upon us, you wonder what if.
What if the decision had not been made to retire him? What if he could have raced on in 2005? What then? How great was he really going to be?
Smarty Jones won his first eight races by a combined 47 ½ lengths. He tracked his opponents with his speed and then inhaled them, leaving them gasping in his wake as he disappeared toward the finish line. That's what we know. What we don't know is left to our imaginations.