Statues stand sentry to great racing card

There is no substitute for showing up at the racetrack. This is written somewhere in stone, despite the fact that racetrack attendance, even at the most popular resort tracks, has leveled off at numbers unthinkably low when compared to bygone eras.

Except for a handful of supercharged events, people are staying away from racetracks in droves. A tedious recitation of all the reasons why would serve no purpose on a fine Sunday afternoon, which apparently belongs to the NFL anyway. Let’s just leave it at knowing what everyone else is missing.

Mostly, they are missing the horses. At Belmont Park, a full field of 2-year-old fillies will be lining up in the Grade 2 Miss Grillo Stakes at a mile and one-sixteenth on the grass. And if you don’t think the race holds water, a brief look at its history should tilt the scale. Recent Miss Grillo winners Maram, Winter Memories, Tapitsfly, Whastdachances, Testa Rossi, Lady Eli, and New Money Honey all went on to run first or second in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf.

This is fitting for a race with such a name. Miss Grillo was an Argentinean import by Horatio Luro and his assistant Charlie Whittingham in the heady days following World War II. They bought her for pocket money and campaigned her for three seasons, 36 starts, and victories in races like the Black Helen, two Diana Handicaps, the San Juan Capistrano, and the Pimlico Cup – by an astounding 40 lengths (a nod of appreciation to historian Mary Pitt for her profile of Miss Grillo at Thoroughbred Racing Commentary last year).

As a broodmare, Miss Grillo can be found in the pedigrees of such noteworthy animals as Irish Derby winner Meadow Court, Epsom Oaks winner Casual Look, and Hollywood Gold Cup winner Marquetry. There is no known statue of Miss Grillo anywhere on display, but there ought to be.

There is, of course, a life-sized statue of Zenyatta just inside the grandstand entrance to Santa Anita, just around the other side of the Kingsley Fountain from a similarly proportioned bronze of John Henry. There will be fans around both statues on Sunday, snapping their selfies and paying grateful tribute to great horses they represent, which between them includes three Horse of the Year trophies and eight divisional championships.

As a bonus, and hardly by coincidence, the Sunday Santa Anita program will feature both the Grade 1 Zenyatta Stakes for fillies and mares and the Grade 2 John Henry Turf Championship for horses inclined to run 10 furlongs on the grass.

In the Zenyatta, Abel Tasman, winner this year of the Personal Ensign and Ogden Phipps, will try to win a race in California for the first time since the 2016 Starlet Stakes, when she was trained by Simon Callaghan. In addition to Abel Tasman, Bob Baffert also has course specialist Vale Dori in the field as she looks to turn her disappointing 2018 season around, while the white-hot John Sadler stable will counter with Shenandoah Queen, who is still looking for a stakes win named something other than Tranquility Lake, of which she has two.

If there is a filly who deserves a break, though, it is the German lass La Force, trained by Paddy Gallagher and owned by a partnership that includes CHRB chairman Chuck Winner. In her last two starts, the dark-bodied daughter of Power has finished second in Grade 1 events to Unique Bella, who figured to have the Zenyatta in her sights before an injury in August prompted her retirement.

“It does feel almost like winning a race,” Winner said after La Force missed catching Unique Bella by a half-length in the Clement Hirsch at Del Mar. “You can’t be anything but happy at the way she tries so hard. Hopefully, one of these times it will be her turn.” *** The Zenyatta and John Henry statues at Santa Anita are a product of the creative talent of Nina Kaiser, one of America’s premier equine sculptors. Certainly, a day like Sunday, with races in honor of both champions, affords the artist a chance to stand in admiration of her own work. Then again, she is an artist, with the psychological temperament to match.

“I only see what I did wrong,” Kaiser said when asked. “I’ll bet if you go back and read some of your books or articles, you’d see things you would have done differently.” Well, of course not. But that’s another subject. “I’m not going to point out what I did wrong, but I still see little things,” Kaiser continued. “That is what is so difficult in doing life-sized works. It’s not just the physical challenge, but everything is magnified.

“Where I come to a point of peace, though, is even though I see what doesn’t measure up to what I was hoping for, I can put that aside if it makes the people happy.”

Kaiser has not been idle. In addition to the Curlin statue she did for Hill ‘n’ Dale Farm in Kentucky (and a second striking of the original that Hill ‘n’ Dale had made for Barbara Banke at Stonestreet), Kaiser is about to deliver a half-lifesized statue of Street Cry, the sire of Zenyatta, to Darley Stud in Lexington, Ky., where it will be displayed in the same garden as a statue of Affirmed.