Flightline Needs to Race to State His Case

The best racehorse in North America allowed his groom, Adolfo Correa, to turn him sideways in his stall for the benefit of a visitor. There wasn't much room. "Notice the extra row of pads, on top of where we usually have them?" said John Sadler, Flightline's trainer. "We came in one morning to find he'd kicked the wall up there." Sadler, a six-footer, indicated a point well above his head, a jump ball for most folks but well within easy range for the generous reach of Flightline, a colt of considerable length. Flightline angled his head to give his visitor a sniff and then, satisfied there was nothing either edible or interesting, struck a pose of patient indifference. Opportunities of such close and relatively unguarded proximity to creatures like Flightline are never taken lightly. There's a reason you're not supposed to stare at the sun. Even backlit from the morning light at the stall window, the details of Flightline's natural advantages were apparent: the deep barrel, the smooth muscling, the graceful lines from head to shoulder. He is a Thoroughbred of no obvious angles, and they're all perfect. Flightline lives behind a grated metal door just a few steps from Sadler's Santa Anita Park stable office for the same reason the Hope Diamond is under the highest possible security at the Smithsonian. And, like the Hope Diamond, Flightline is rarely taken on the road for public display. He has raced exactly once this year, twice in the last seven months, and only four times in all, all victories, by a combined 43 1/2 lengths. His few appearances have become events, circled on calendars and hyped for weeks in advance. But why keep his brilliance so tightly held, as if too much Flightline risks some kind of radiation exposure? Sadler toggles daily between psychological poles. "I know people would like to see him run more—heck, I'd like to see him run more," the trainer said. "But I made myself a promise that I would never lead him over there unless he was absolutely 100%, and a few niggling problems have prevented me from doing that as often as we would have liked." Fair enough, but the question hung in the air. Don't all trainers strive to bring their horses to the paddock at 100%? For that matter, given the way he has dominated the opposition in his four appearances, wouldn't Flightline be just as effective at less than 100%? Sadler's sly grin in response spoke volumes. He knows it's a fool's game to attach a number to the condition of any athlete, equine or human. All any horse trainer can do is what they've done before with the best horses that have come their way. And no two are ever the same. As recently as 2018, for instance, Sadler sent the 5-year-old Accelerate through a season of six wins, five of them grade 1, in seven stakes. Were it not for Justify and his handling of fellow 3-year-olds, Accelerate would have been 2018 Horse of the Year, adding luster to his title as older dirt male champion. Flightline ended 2021 on the high note of a lopsided victory in the Dec. 26 Runhappy Malibu Stakes (G1). Then Elvis left the building, although we were assured he was still in his limo in the parking lot, just waiting to get his act together for an encore. There was a muscle strain behind, then a brief illness. On June 11, Flightline's encore finally came true in the Hill 'n' Dale Metropolitan Handicap (G1), complete with a hesitation at the start that was played for high drama, a checked swing on the inside, and a flourish at the end, eased down to win by six. In that fun and fickle exercise called the NTRA Top Thoroughbred Poll, a weekly snapshot of racing's competitive landscape, Flightline began the 2022 season comfortably ranked among the top five and then worked his way down the list as he languished at Santa Anita and others stepped forward. In the poll just prior to the Met Mile, he was ranked 10th, not even considered best of the older runners based in California. In the poll right after the Met, Flightline shot to the top, receiving 25 of 35 first-place votes, and there he has lingered, most recently with 29 of the 34 respondents having eyes for no other. That may change this week, however, based on the results of events run on July 2, when Life Is Good took the John A. Nerud Stakes (G2) without a deep breath at Belmont Park and the emergent Olympiad looking like something special in the Stephen Foster Handicap (G2) at Churchill Downs. The three of them—Flightline, Olympiad, and Life Is Good—come from a 2018 North American foal crop of 21,259. More to the point, they were among 8,280 registered foals dropped that year in Kentucky. Olympiad, born Feb. 5, is the oldest, followed on March 14 by Flightline, and April 22 by Life Is Good. All three avoided the meat grinder of the 2021 Triple Crown, which says something about their clear superiority over contemporaries who went through the classics. (The exception could be Hot Rod Charlie, honest as the day is long, who deserves to join them if he can get off his runner-up treadmill.) The prospect of the Big Three meeting in an event like the Longines Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) is tantalizing, yet farfetched. If the game could not find a way for Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra to collide, what hope is there for three maturing males with stallion careers imminent to intersect in time and place? We've been teased like this before. Richard Duchossois had the table set in 1990 for Sunday Silence, Easy Goer, and Criminal Type to raise the roof at Arlington Park before injuries intruded. Then came that hotly anticipated 1997 Breeders' Cup Classic at Hollywood Park among the older titans Skip Away, Formal Gold, and Gentlemen that happened only in our dreams. And don't forget the high hopes wasted on a summit among Mineshaft, Candy Ride (ARG), and Medaglia d'Oro in the Breeders' Cup Classic of 2003. Only one of them answered the bell. Sadler briefly considered the San Diego Handicap (G2) at Del Mar on July 30 for Flightline, then reverted to his original plan to train the colt through the summer and run in the 1 1/4-mile Pacific Classic (G1) there on Sept. 3. The colt would work twice more at Santa Anita before heading south on July 17. The trainer and his patrons have dangled the possibility that Flightline will race again next year, in Sadler's words, "To really make some history with him." Such talk is the ultimate tease, because every young racing fan knows what the possibilities of a $40 million stallion offer does to such sentiments. Sadler is right, however. For what little we've seen, Flightline is a very good horse. If he is a great horse, he still needs to prove it.