By Sid Fernando
Ghostzapper was a freak, according to his late trainer, Bobby Frankel. A homebred for Frank Stronach, Ghostzapper was indeed freakishly fast and had a freak’s record of 9 wins from 11 starts, $3,446,120 in earnings, including wins in the G1 Vosburgh at 3, the G1 Breeders’ Cup Classic and Woodward at 4, and the G1 Metropolitan Mile at 5. The raw times of his races were dazzling as well, and often he won by open lengths, too. He won the Met Mile by 6-plus lengths in 1:33.29 for 8f; the BC Classic by 3 lengths in 1:59.02 for 10f; the G2 Tom Fool by 4-plus in 1:20.42 for 7f; the G1 Vosburgh by 6-plus in 1:14.72 for 6.5f, etc. His Beyer Speed Figures were super freaky, too. The 128 he earned in the 9f Iselin, a race he won by 10-plus lengths in 1:47.66, was the highest of the year, and he frequently ran figs in the 120s and was widely considered one of the best racehorses of recent times. The only thing he wasn’t was durable: only 11 starts over four seasons.
When Ghostzapper retired to stud for the 2006 season at Mr. Stronach’s Adena Springs in Paris, Ky., he did so for a record fee of $200,000 live foal—the co-highest fee for a first-year sire since Devil’s Bag about 20 years earlier at the exact fee. Much was expected, but through 2009 he’d been represented by only one SW and until today had looked like a catastrophic commercial failure in the making, another big-priced money burner. This was reflected in his 2010 fee, which had been slashed to only $30,000 live foal—down another $20,000 from the $50,000 announced fee last fall—to attract mares. That fee, in turn, was down drastically from the $125,000 he’d stood for in 2009.
Today, however, was a day of redemption for Ghostzapper and the Adena Springs team at Keeneland. The race was the G1 Toyota Blue Grass Stakes, and the winner was the longest shot on the board and a son of Ghostzapper named Stately Victor. At 40-1, he overhauled Paddy O’Prado, a son of the late Adena Springs stalwart El Prado, to thrust himself into the Kentucky Derby picture. He is one of five sons of Ghostzapper nominated to the Triple Crown but at this stage the only one who will make the Kentucky classic. Befitting his odds, he’s now made an awesome comeback for his sire as well.
A son of Awesome Again—who also has Awesome Act on the classics trail—Ghostzapper is from the Maryland SW Baby Zip, a daughter of Relaunch. He’s a half-brother to the sprinter and sire City Zip, a G1 winner at 2, and his 2nd dam is the Tri Jet SW Thirty Zip, a hard-knocking mare who earned more than $500K. But this isn’t a particularly glamorous, commercial family, and the classiest horse in the recent family aside from Ghostzapper is Kentucky Derby winner Lil E. Tee—indented a few times under the 3rd dam. It is, however, the type of “running” family that Adena has used to great effect to produce high-class racehorses. Adena, by the way, also is the breeder of Stately Victor, whose Dynaformer dam Collect the Cash was a G1 winner.
The commercial marketplace is not kind to stallions that don’t get off the mark right away, but it should be duly noted that Ghostzapper himself was not a top-class 2yo (1 win from 2 starts) and did not become a SW until late in his 3yo year when he won the Vosburgh. His offspring, obviously, are not shining early either. But with his oldest crop just 3 and a new G1 winner in the bag, and with a lot more racing to come, there’s now plenty of hope that he can still deliver at stud with later 3yos and possibly older runners, just as he himself developed from 3 to 4 to 5. And the Ghostzappers wouldn’t have to be as good as him, either, to make a name for him. Half as good as a freak is plenty good enough for a racehorse.
Granted, Ghostzapper did have some soundness issues during his career, but I’m not sure that his meager number of starts were really caused by lack of soundness, rather than Bobby Frankel’s quite transparent desire to get this horse into stud duty.
An outstanding businessman and not as outstanding a sportsman, Frankel’s campaigning of Ghostzapper (and especially his public comments about it) were infuriating, to put it mildly. Just because I recently reviewed the topic: do you remember that after ‘Zapper’s 2005 Met Mile romp, which turned out to be his last race, Frankel stated the champ wouldn’t start in the Suburban because the horse needed to “freshen up”? Understandably, considering the horse had just completed a grueling 1-race campaign after being laid-off since the previous year’s BC. Shortly afterwards, this wonderful horse was retired.
I am in no position to make such judgements myself, but I remember that at the time, a racing forum acquaintance who does have the professional expertise told me that for all he could gather, Ghostzapper’s retirement was the equivalent of retiring a basketball player due to a cracked thumb.
I’m certainly not an expert, but is it possible that Ghostzapper is being bred to horses that he doesn’t “fit” with? Is it possible for a dirt miler like Ghostzapper to have a better “fit” with turf stayers or cheaper broodmares than the ones he usually gets? Does that ever happen?
-Jameel
Malcer:
Thanks for the comments. For stud purposes, it certainly would not have helped the horse’s cause if “soundness” issues were associated with him; therefore, Bobby would never have intimated that there was something wrong with the horse.The bare facts, however, tell a story: 11 starts over 4 seasons, or almost 3 starts per year, on average. Usually the most talented horses are the ones with “issues” because they run so hard, and conversely, it’s said that the “sound” horses are usually the slowest because they never exert themselves hard enough to get aches and pains. Whatever was “officially” said in Ghostzapper’s case doesn’t quite jive with the facts, especially as he was such a fast, brillliant horse, who gave 110%.
I’m sure if it had been possible, they’d have raced him more, because he was so superior to his peers.
Jameel,
It’s possible. Secretariat initially didn’t get the mares that best suited him and consequently started off slow. Sharpen Up was a stallion who preferred the cheaper typesof mares he got earlier in his career to the “richer”pedigreed and raced mares that he covered in Kentucky.
It also may be that the Ghostzappers are harder to keep sound, and all weather and turf might be the best surfaces for them. All interesting possibilities that we’ll have to monitor.
Nothing is ever in black and white in the breeding business; instead, it’s shades of grays, and your questions were quite in this vein.