U.S. 'Chasing Titles Go Down to the Wire

By Laurel Scott Duncan

The American steeplechase season drew to a dramatic close in November, winding down with three meets in sunny South Carolina.
Several national championships hung in the balance, but it was the battle for the jockeys' title that took center stage.
It all started at the Charleston Cup outside historic Charleston on Nov. 15. Joseph Delozier III headlined, taking the featured $17,500 Charleston Cup allowance hurdle with Arcadia Stables' Maipo.
In one of the day's lesser races -- a $7,500 maiden claimer -- Pennsylvanian Sean Clancy continued his campaign for the rider's title with a last-minute "catch ride." Fresh from a double at Callaway Gardens, he was on a roll and feeling good about it.
As he wrote in the Dec. 11 championship issue of Steeplechase Times: "I called (trainer) Kevin Pallister on Friday afternoon and begged him for the ride on Done In Silence at Charleston two days later. I rode the horse for nothing and he won by a neck -- my last win of the year, and theoretically the difference between a sole title and a shared one." Little did Clancy know how ironic those words would become!

In fact, the drama was just beginning. Hot on Clancy's heels was rider Craig Thornton, who matched Clancy's Charleston score with one of his own (aboard Quail Ridge, in the $10,000 maiden hurdle). A former titlist in two countries (his native New Zealand, in 1991; and the U.S., in 1992) Thornton was riding high on the Augustin Stable power train, steering a seemingly endless supply of winners conditioned by Sanna Neilson.
The two jockeys locked horns again at Aiken, another small but pivotal meet the following Saturday near Aiken, South Carolina. An exceptionally fast, sandy layout, Aiken's Ford Conger Field can make or break a young horse -- and jockeys of all levels. But Thornton rose to the challenge, bringing home three winners (Antique, Duraznillo and Action Man) for trainer Sanna Neilson. The young Pennsylvania woman had approached this meet two jumps ahead of Tom Voss, but now her grip on the trainer's title became a stranglehold.
Not so for Clancy, however. Winless at Aiken, he worried that the rider's title he'd wanted so much was slipping away -- and into the hands of Craig Thornton.
"I tried to get him to take a deep breath and smile," recalled Clancy's best friend, Chip Miller. "But it's very easy for people to tell you that, and very difficult to really take it to heart -- and I don't know that he did, because he gave his heart and soul to the sport for 11 years, and after that length of time, you begin to wonder if it will ever happen."

The season finale, per tradition, was the gala Colonial Cup races Nov. 22 at Camden. Run over Springdale Race Course -- a vast , sweeping oval reminiscent of The Curragh in Ireland -- this meet featured the Grade I, $100,000 Colonial Cup hurdle stakes over 2 3/4 miles.
Both Clancy and Thornton had rides in this race, as well as several others. But they couldn't match strides with Nancy Gerry's Grand National winner Flat Top, who lodged a brilliant score under substitute rider Colvin Ryan.
The triumph capped a fairytale season for the dark bay son of Alleged, sealing his bid for the Eclipse Award and catapulting Pennsylvania trainer Janet Elliot to the top of the money-won charts.
Sadly, Flat Top's usual rider, Bitsy Patterson, was unable to share in the glory. A faller aboard the ill-fated Raptor two races earlier, she was transported to the hospital with a life-threatening head injury. (At press time, Patterson was out of danger. Conscious and in rehabilitation by Christmas, she is now reportedly recuperating at home with her parents.)
Neither Clancy nor Thornton had scored at Camden, so the title was ostensibly Clancy's by one win. His stats were impressive: 23 wins from 21 different horses, while riding for eight different trainers. "You gotta do it your way, however that is," Clancy explained. "I take great pride in hustling (rides), because that's how I've made a living."

Clancy's time on top was short-lived, however. By mid-December, Thornton had tied Clancy's mark, by virtue of a Callaway Gardens drug disqualification. When Skipper T tested positive for a prohibited substance -- a result which took weeks to be released -- he was disqualified, and Thornton's mount in that Nov. 7 race was declared the new winner. Interestingly, that horse was Antique, the same one Thornton had guided to a score two weeks later at Aiken (breaking his maiden twice!)
At season's end, the national champions were:
Horse of the Year: Flat Top, 3 wins, $188,700 earned
Leading Novice Horse: Approaching Squall, 4 wins, $95,300 earned
Leading Three-Year-Old Horse: Hanging Around, 1 win, $22,250 earned
Timber Horse of the Year: Saluter, 3 wins, $66,000 earned
Leadig Jockey: Sean Clancy and Craig Thornton, 23 wins each
Leading Apprentice Jockey: Gus Brown
Leading Trainer (races-won): Sanna Neilson, 24 wins
Leading Trainer (money-won): Janet Elliot, $573,925
Leading Owner: Augustin Stable (George Strawbridge Jr.), $401,830
Woodville Award winner (for service behind the scenes): Juliet Lombardi, assistant to trainer Jack Fisher
Next issue: the Eclipse Awards; the start of the spring season; and steeplechasing's new "triple crown."

POSTSCRIPT:
Flat Top, Hokan and Saluter were all finalists for steeplechasing's Eclipse Award, which is decided by members of the National Turf Writers' Association, Daily Racing Form writers and racing secretaries across the country. But only Nancy Gerry's Flat Top, who is trained by Pennsylvania-based Janet Elliot, was named "tops" by all three voting groups. The bay Alleged gelding received his due at the Eclipse Awards dinner Feb. 16 in Florida. Saluter was runner-up for the honor, with 15 voter points to Flat Top's 30.