Success not enough for some Hall voters

Look out below. It’s raining Halls of Fame. Last Saturday in Cooperstown, N.Y., major league baseball rolled out the red carpet for firstballot Hall of Famers Chipper Jones and Jim Thome, along with Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Alan Trammell and Jack Morris.

This Saturday in Canton, Ohio, the pro football Hall of Fame will be in the limelight as it welcomes Robert Brazile, Ray Lewis, Jerry Kramer, Brian Urlacher, Terrell Owens, Brian Dawkins, Randy Moss, and front-office guy Bobby Beathard.

Sandwiched between Cooperstown and Canton, the National Museum of Thoroughbred Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs will have its moment in the sun on Friday when the induction of modern-day superstars will include Heavenly Prize and … that’s it.

That’s the only name that 50 percent plus one of the voters for the racing hall could agree upon from among the 10 candidates on the ballot this time around – a single individual whose record on the racetrack warranted a place on the hallowed walls alongside the likes of Man o’ War, Citation, and Secretariat.

Those passed over included Gio Ponti, Havre de Grace, Blind Luck, Mark Casse, John Shirreffs, David Whiteley, Craig Perret, Corey Nakatani, and Robby Albarado. But Heavenly Prize made it, much to the delight of the Phipps family, trainer Shug McGaughey, and the only two men to ride her – Mike Smith and Pat Day.

In a career of 18 starts over parts of four seasons, Heavenly Prize was a stretch-runner among speedballs who won nine times and was never worse than third. She won the Frizette at 2, the Alabama at 3, and four straight Grade 1 races at age 4, while holding her own against fellow Hall of Famers Serena’s Song, Paseana, Inside Information, and Sky Beauty. The daughter of Seeking the Gold died in 2013 at age 22.

Fortunately for those attending at the FasigTipton sales pavilion, Friday’s ceremony won’t be one and done. The Hall of Fame historical committee has chosen old-timey trainer William Lakeland and Preakness (the horse) for enshrinement, while a whole boatload of the game’s shakers and movers will be honored as Pillars of the Turf.

Still, the rejection of so many candidates on a ballot crafted in good faith by a nominating committee (of which this reporter is a disruptive member) represents an odd bump in the ongoing effort to recognize the best of the best. Voters had the opportunity to vote for as few or many names as they saw fit, and there was at least one respected member of the media who took full advantage of the option.

“I left my ballot blank,” said Randy Moss – the NBC broadcaster, not the Hall of Fame wide receiver – who is also part of the NFL Network broadcast team.

“In all of my time voting, I’ve probably landed on the conservative side,” Moss explained. “I’ve always had the longstanding belief that halls of fame in general have become a little too inclusive, although I think I see it less in horse racing than in other sports. It’s almost as if the induction ceremony has trumped the actual honor of being in the hall forever. Instead of becoming a hall of all-time greats, they’ve in some cases become a hall of the very good.

“I’m not standing on a soapbox arguing that I’m right,” Moss said. “I just felt that looking at the 2018 ballot, none of the nominees reached that ‘hall of great’ in my mind. And in the case of horses, it’s becoming harder to judge a hall of fame career because they have become so shortened.”

Moss conceded that this year’s ballot was likely a one-off in terms of lacking transcendent star power, and the verdict from the rest of the voting panel bears him out. By contrast, over the next five years an exciting slate of first-time eligibles will descend upon voters.

Royal Delta (2019), will be followed by Wise Dan and Game On Dude (2020), American Pharoah and Todd Pletcher (2021), Beholder and Tepin (2022), and then Arrogate, California Chrome, and Songbird (2023).

In the meantime, Casse, Shirreffs, Nakatani, and Albarado will have a chance to impress future voters by embellishing already-admirable careers, while more recent equine eligibles like Gio Ponti, Havre de Grace, and Blind Luck may need more seasoning as Hall of Fame candidates before their accomplishments are fully appreciated.

However, there is little hope on future ballots for the late David Whiteley, whose boutique stable was practically unbeatable 40 years ago. More puzzling, though, is the ongoing snub of Craig Perret, a jock’s jock who rose to more high-pressure moments than can be listed here. He is retired, but at 67 hardly decrepit, and such contemporaries as Eddie Delahoussaye, Pat Day, Chris McCarron, and Eddie Maple would welcome Perret into their Hall of Fame company in a heartbeat.

“A lot of times I talk to Jerry to get his ideas about guys he rode against,” Moss said, referring to fellow NBC racing broadcaster and Hall of Fame jockey Jerry Bailey. “He told me that he thought Craig Perret deserved to be in the Hall of Fame, but by then I had already mailed my ballot.”

Vote totals are not released, but if Perret missed induction by only one …?

“I would feel bad about that,” Moss said.

JAY HOVDEY