Monday, Nov. 16, 1998 | 11:42 a.m.
Ralph Siraco's horse racing column appears Mondays and his Southern California selections run Tuesday through Friday on the scoreboard page. Write to him c/o Las Vegas Sun, 800 S. Valley View Blvd., Las Vegas, NV 89107.
Don't think about retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. ----- Samuel Johnson.
As the dust settles from Breeders' Cup fifteen, no less than ten Cup participants have retired or will retire after a swan-song outing before the end of the year.
In a world dominated by high economics, the Sport of Kings has suffered in recent decades by having its super stars taken from competition just about the time they become horse racing household names.
Great horses such as Affirmed, Seattle Slew and Spectacular Bid managed four-year-old campaigns before the preasures of multi-million dollar stud syndications brought their premature racing careers to a close.
It seemed only the great geldings raced season after season, keeping their names farmiliar to fans and for obvious reasons. If the gelded likes of Kelso, Forego, John Henry and even the recent two-time Breeders' Cup Mile winner Da Hoss had value producing offspring, they would have been swept off to the breeding shed well in advance of their compiled fame of races.
So, it was refreshing when Sonny and Carolyn Hine followed the path of Allan Paulson---with Cigar---and kept their champion gray Skip Away on the track for an extra season before heading him off to stud this year.
Their five-year-old son of Skip Trial managed four seasons of competition before his retirement following the Breeders Cup last week.
But, he is not the only star of the turf that heads into the racing sunset after Breeders' Cup engagements, just possibly the most accomplished.
Others who walked off the Churchill Downs racing strip and into retirement two Saturdays ago include Breeders' Cup Classic participants Swain (3rd), Coronado's Quest (5th), of course Skip Away (6th), Touch Gold (8th), Gentlemen (eased) and even the winner Awesome Again.
Last year's Horse of the Year Favorite Trick heads for the pastures at the end of this sophomore year after a dismal 8th-place finish in the Mile. The most under-accomplished following a Horse of the Year campaign ended with a four-for-seven record that saw his best 1998 effort in the Grade II Keeneland Breeders' Cup Mile just prior to his Churchill finale.
LaBeeb, who earlier in his career was a five-star basket case, behaved this year and produced a 3-for-4 1998 that saw only a 3rd-place Breeders' Cup Mile performance blemish a perfect season.
Another Breeders' Cup day victor goes out a winner in the five-year-old mare Escena. The daughter of the Australian stallion Strawberry Road amassed 11 wins from 29 career starts that included a pair of Grade I scores from four Graded victories this year before her gate-to-wire stirring photo-finish win in the Breeders' Cup Distaff.
The untimely defection of the Distaff pre-favorite Sharp Cat also produced her early retirement. The four-year-old daughter of Storm Cat had reeled off four straight decisive victories before a hair-raising life- threating incident on the track days before the Breeders' Cup that prevented her participation. She leaves her racing career with a record of 15 wins from 22 starts that include seven Grade I victories. Wild Rush, who bombed as the close second choice in the Breeders' Cup Sprint, will have one more race before his departure from the racing wars. He is scheduled to make his final start in Aqueduct's Cigar Mile where he hopes to better his last-place finish of the Sprint.
Another who is entertaining a swan song in the Cigar Mile is Coronado's Quest. Gaining new respect after his pace-setting fifth-place finish in the Classic, the sophomore son of Forty Niner is a perfect 4-for-4 at that Big Apple oval which includes a victory in the Grade I Wood Memorial last spring.
Of course while Skip Away leaves the racing scene after four memorable seasons of competition a popular gray will still fill the racing headlines.
Robert and Beverly Lewis have given trainer Bob Baffert their blessings to keep the 1996 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner Silver Charm racing in 1999. Their son of Silver Buck just missed winning the Breeders' Cup Classic to Awesome Again while finishing second to that runner for the second time this season at Churchill Downs. He was runner up to the Classic victor earlier this year in the Stephen Foster after winning the $4 million Dubai World Cup in March.
So as Skip Away fades into the Sport of Kings landscape with a champion's record of 18 wins, 10 seconds and 6 thirds from 38 career starts, he falls just $383,455 short of the North American all-time career earnings record set by Cigar at $9,999,815. He amassed 16 Graded stakes victories of which ten were Grade I status that included a pair of Jockey Club Gold Cups and last year's Breeders' Cup Classic.
His record of 7 wins from 9 starts this year--- with five Grade I victories in a row---should secure him a well deserved and overdue Horse of the Year Eclipse trophy this year.
Retirement is the ugliest word in the language------Ernest Hemingway.
Hemingway must have been a racing fan.
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