On Racing: Sad End for a Brave Horse Who Waved the Flag

The Aug. 8 death of New Jersey stalwart Chublicious and the guilty plea of Jorge Navarro on felony drug-related charges three days later summoned memories of their intersection several years ago. Chublicious suffered an irreparable fracture on the backstretch of a six-furlong event over a sealed, wet track at Monmouth Park. The 10-year-old stakes winner, a son of leading New Jersey sire Hey Chub, was running his eighth race for trainer Jose Camejo, the last five for claiming prices as high as $50,000 and as low as $10,000. Chublicious landed in the Navarro barn back in 2016 after a private transaction. To that point, the gelding had won five of 12 starts for breeder Daniel Lopez. In his first start for Navarro, after six months on the sidelines, Chublicious ran 11 points above his career best Beyer Speed Figure to win a small stakes event at Monmouth. Over the following 14 months, Chublicious won three more minor stakes for Navarro. In September of 2017, Navarro and one of his owners were brought before the New Jersey Horse Racing Commission for crude remarks captured on video that disparaged fellow horsemen and appeared to flaunt Navarro's rumored use of performance enhancing drugs. They said it was a joke. Some punchlines take longer to land than others. With a ruling from the New Jersey commission pending, officials at Laurel Park refused to accept anything entered by Navarro, who wanted to run Chublicious in the Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash Stakes (G3). The horse ran instead for Claudio Gonzalez, who also had horses for owner David Gruskos, and won at odds of 10-to-1 while defeating, among others, a younger version of eventual champion Whitmore. Within weeks Chublicious was sold again, escaping Navarro to the Brittlyn Stable of Evelyn Benoit, and was turned over to trainer Ron Faucheux in Louisiana. Chublicious ran consistently well for his new barn without winning, although he did supply his connections with an exotic journey to South Korea for the 2017 Keeneland Korea Sprint (G1), a six-furlong international affair that carried a purse of more than $600,000. He finished fourth, beaten about two lengths. "He was a real barn favorite," said Faucheux. "Such a cool horse, and so game. I didn't watch the race at Monmouth, and to be honest I don't really care to. But I heard about it right after. It was very upsetting. He gave me one of the best experiences of my life." According to Faucheux, Chublicious came out of the Nov. 22, 2018, running of the Thanksgiving Day Handicap at Fair Grounds with a condylar fracture. He returned to the races for Brittlyn Stable at Presque Isle Downs in August of 2020, now trained by Camejo. Two races later he began running for claiming tags. "After he got hurt, he was out of my hands," Faucheux said. "I was at a loss and kind of upset to see him in at those levels. But I didn't know the situation. I don't train any horses for Evelyn right now, but I do know she spares no expense in the care of her horses." Routine care, as we know, usually has nothing to do with it. The death of a senior racehorse like Chublicious always raises a familiar set of agonizing questions. How old is too old? How many starts is too many? For a horse of established back class, how far is too far to drop before alarm bells begin to ring? Is a sealed track a potentially harmful surface for old legs, or any legs at all? And how about the temptations inherent in the glaring disparity between claiming prices and the inflated purses offered by some casino subsidized tracks? The race in which Chublicious broke down was an optional claiming allowance event that offered a purse of $77,250. The winner was his full brother, Brother Chub, who was making his 60th start at age 9. Chublicious, with career earnings of $754,378, was making start number 38 and was in for a $15,000 tag. He earned the minimum $750 once he left the gate. For the last time. Modern Pentathlon Disgrace Trainer Michael Matz, a member of the U.S. Equestrian team that won a silver medal in show jumping at the 1996 Olympics, predicted the team would have a good shot at a medal in Tokyo. Good call. They won the silver medal in team show jumping. For all anyone knew, the winning team was comprised of Jessica Springsteen and two other riders whose names never made the news, since their fathers failed to write "Born to Run" or "Jungleland." For the record, they were Laura Kraut of Camden, S.C., and McClain Ward of Brewster, N.Y. More to the point, their horses were called Baloutinue and Contagious. Springsteen's mount was Don Juan van de Donkhoeve, whose nickname is not The Boss, but should be. That seemed to put a neat pin in the equestrian portion of the Games, but—silly me—there is something called the modern pentathlon, first introduced in 1912, which begs the definition of "modern," except for women, who were not allowed their own pentathlon until 2000. Progress. The competitors fence, swim, run, and shoot, but the fifth discipline is show jumping, for which they get dressed up like show jumpers and ride a horse they've never ridden before. Annika Schleu, representing Germany, was leading in pentathlon points when she entered the jumping course on Saint Boy, who was doing OK until he hit the rails of one fence and then refused at the next, at which point Schleu sensed her medal hopes going up in smoke. She panicked, sobbed, kicked, and whipped her confused horse, who tried desperately to free himself of the irritant on his back. Then time was up, and Schleu's ugly performance went viral. Will Martin, a sports writer for the London-based Insider, decided the horses were to blame for the chaos, describing them as "belligerent" and "badly behaved." His wrong-headed slant was compounded by headlines and captions referring to horses that were "naughty" and "uncooperative." Then, in a follow-up by another Insider reporter, the theme continued with a reference to "chaotic scenes that saw horses fail to comply with their riders' wishes." We'll set aside for now the tone-deaf editorial leanings of Insider when it comes to the basic tenets of horsemanship. Clearly, they could use a session with the spirit of Allen Jerkens, whose mantra was "never blame the horse." Five competitors besides Schleu either fell from their mounts or failed to make the course, which has given the German team managers cover to question the rules and the selection process of mounts. The Germans also penalized a team coach, whose behavior during the Schleu meltdown fell considerably short of the Olympic ideal. Good to be Steve On a brighter note, it was hardly a surprise but very satisfying to hear the several new members of the racing Hall of Fame give thanks to the horses that put them in there, during induction ceremonies Aug. 6 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. The theme was underlined again the following afternoon when Steve Asmussen won a race at Saratoga Race Course that sent him ahead of the late Dale Baird on the all-time list, with winner number 9,446. After nearly 46,000 starters dating to his first runner in June of 1986, Asmussen hardly could be expected to thank them all. But he was properly grateful, and the emotions flowed. Asmussen has mastered the branding, franchising, and long-distance management of a huge, varied stable, a practice pioneered by Jack Van Berg and institutionalized by Wayne Lukas. Purists can argue that Asmussen only sees some of his horses on a regular basis, and for what that's worth they would be right. On Aug. 7, the day he passed Baird, a dozen horses ran in his name at four tracks, winning only the Saratoga event. Those 12 horses were represented by 12 different ownership groups, who don't seem to mind that their trainer is not hands-on every day. So Asmussen marched on, with 10 starters the following day at tracks in New York, Kentucky, Louisiana, and New Jersey. He won with three, then chalked up number 9,450 last Monday, and is loaded with 19 entered at six tracks this weekend. It's good to be Steve.