Countdown to Oaklawn : Favorable footing
Posted on Wednesday, January 18, 2006
HOT SPRINGS — When Rockport Harbor received one of his many physical examinations last year, noted Kentucky veterinarian Doug Byars discovered something that reinforced what John Servis always suspected.
There was something that made the towering gray son of Unbridled’s Song different from the competition.
In Rockport Harbor’s case, Servis said, it was his lungs. They were bigger than any horse Byars said he had ever seen.
“He said his lungs, where they start in his chest, they go all the way back to his kidneys,” said Servis, who trains Rockport Harbor. “He said they were huge. You know how they always say with good horses there’s always something that separates them from the regular horses.”
But for Rockport Harbor’s enthusiastic fans (see the colt’s official Web site, www. rockportharbor. com ), it’s the condition of his right hind foot that will allow them to breathe easier. And Servis gives the most celebrated of 1, 000 or so horses stabled at Oaklawn Park a clean bill of health and says he is on target to resurrect his racing career in the $ 100, 000 Grade III Essex Handicap on Feb. 11. “Really, this should never bother him again,” Servis said. “This should be done.” That’s something Servis couldn’t say a year ago, when Rockport Harbor came to Oaklawn unbeaten in four lifetime starts and, in some circles, the country’s leading Kentucky Derby candidate.
Instead, he left Hot Springs with reporters thinking they earned an online degree in equine medicine.
Rockport Harbor missed two days of training because of a shoeing problem with his left front foot, then four more days when a freakish blood clot was found in the right side of his neck.
But his right hind foot seemingly always made news. It became infected and later had to be wired together and patched when a crack developed on the hoof wall.
Somehow, Rockport Harbor managed to squeeze in two races last year around frequent visits from veterinarians and blacksmiths.
He finished a gutsy second in the $ 250, 000 Grade III Rebel Stakes on March 19 at Oaklawn, then was knocked out of the Kentucky Derby picture after finishing a leg-weary sixth in the $ 325, 000 Lexington Stakes on April 23 at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky.
“It was a long year,” Servis said. Valiant in victory
Rockport Harbor’s problems with his right hind foot stemmed from his final start at 2, a narrow front-running victory over Galloping Grocer in the $ 200, 000 Grade II Remsen Stakes on Nov. 27, 2004, at Aqueduct in New York.
E a rly i n the race, a trailing horse, Pavo, accidentally stepped on the foot. The metal toe grab, or cleat, on the front of Pavo’s racing shoe pierced Rockport Harbor’s skin about threequarters of an inch on the right side of the heel.
Stewart Elliott, who has ridden Rockport Harbor throughout his six-race career, said he felt something strike the colt from behind going into the first turn, but the incident only caused him to switch his lead running leg a couple of times.
“Like when it first happened, he probably couldn’t get comfortable,” said Elliott, who will ride regularly at Oaklawn for the first time this year. “And then he just went on like nothing was wrong after the first sixteenth [of a mile ].”
But when Rockport Harbor returned to the winner’s circle, Servis and owner Rick Porter, a semiretired automobile dealer from Wilmington, Del., were stunned at what was unfolding.
“I was just looking around and saw this pool of blood, and I thought we might be done,” Porter said.
After a hastily snapped win picture, Servis rushed back to the barn to check on the colt who was poised to follow the trail blazed a year earlier by Smarty Jones, the trainer’s near-Triple Crown winner. About 30 minutes later, Servis called Porter, his biggest client, with the news. It was good and bad. While the injury wasn’t lifethreatening, Servis said the foot was severely gashed. As Rockport Harbor moved forward after the initial contact, Servis said Pavo’s toe grab
1 peeled back about 2 / 2 inches of flesh, a wound that ran from the pastern bone through the heel, made up of tissue known as the bulb, and splitting the coronary band, which is made up of tissue at the top of the hoof wall. “For half an hour, I didn’t know if we had a horse left or not,” Porter said. If the impact would have been an inch higher, Servis said the racing world would now be reading about Rockport Harbor’s first foals being born because ligaments would have been damaged. “We were lucky, really,” Servis said. The Remsen Stakes was still a snapshot, Servis said, of the immense raw ability and toughness Rockport Harbor possesses. Despite running much of the race on only three healthy legs, Rockport Harbor’s final time of 1 : 48. 88 was the second-fastest since the race was lengthened
1 1 from 1 / 16 to 1 / 8 miles in 1973. One of Rockport Harbor’s internal fractions was faster than Bellamy Road recorded
1 during his 17 / 2-length victory in the Wood Memorial about four months later at Aqueduct, a breathtaking performance that stamped him the Kentucky Derby favorite. “It [the Remsen ] showed that he has a lot of heart and determination to run after being hurt like that,” Elliott said. Even juggling a training schedule around a foot that was eventually held together by wire after a crack formed because of the injury, Servis was still thinking big last March. He told a reporter shortly after the Rebel that Rockport Harbor — if he was ever right physically — could win the Triple Crown.
There would, of course, be no Triple Crown. There wouldn’t even be another race after the Lexington. ‘Dead lame’
According to Elliott, the colt switched his lead running leg four or five times in the Lexington, an indication that he didn’t handle the sloppy track, Servis said.
Servis said he wasn’t sure if it was the surface, lingering effects from a blood clot discovered three weeks earlier (unrelated to the initial gash ) or the foot. The answer came the following morning when he said Rockport Harbor was “dead lame.”
“It was the foot,” Servis said. “He couldn’t even put it down. He couldn’t even walk on it.”
Although there were initial thoughts of trying to make the Breeders’ Cup in late October, Rockport Harbor never resumed serious training after the Lexington.
Servis and Porter officially pulled the plug on 2005 in early July, then sent Rockport Harbor to Cedar Lane Farm in Pennsylvania, one of two sites the trainer uses to turn out, or rest, his horses.
“I told Rick that if we’re going to give him the time he needs, you’re talking about bringing him back and running him one time and then running him in the Breeders’ Cup,” said Servis, a trainer noted for his patience. “I don’t think that’s fair. I just don’t think it was the right way to do the horse.” Bigger, stronger
Rockport Harbor needed three months for the foot, or hoof, to grow out and push out the crack, much like a human nail, Servis said.
When he saw his prized colt again for the first time in months, Servis said he was stunned by the reunion.
“He was just massive,” Servis said.
Rockport Harbor, who resumed training Oct. 7, has gained 250 to 300 pounds since his appearance in the Rebel 10 months ago, according to assistant trainer Bobby Velez. The colt is also more businesslike and possesses more gray on the right side of his face, signs of maturity, Servis said.
There is no visible appearance of the injured area because antiseptic painted on the foot has turned it black.
All you would see, Servis said, is a raised area of scar tissue extending slightly out from the hoof wall. Servis compared the appearance to areas on a globe that indicate mountainous terrain.
“But it’s hard,” Servis said. “It’s hard as a rock when you press on it.”
Still, Servis isn’t messing with karma.
He’s moved Rockport Harbor from the southeast corner of the Vanlandingham barn, stall 40 — the same space Smarty Jones occupied in 2004 — to stall 35.
So far, so good.
Servis said Rockport Harbor has become much more aggressive in his gallops, and his first officially recorded workout of 1 : 01. 60 on Dec. 29 was “probably” the best he’s ever breezed, Velez said.
“He’s not an easy horse to gallop anymore,” Servis said. “He’s gotten to be, he’s like Smarty Jones now. The son of a b **** is tough as nails. That’s a good sign.
“ This horse has so much talent. I really hope people get a chance to see what I’ve seen.”
Although he’s close to being fit enough to run, Servis said he’s going to cool Rockport Harbor’s jets and likely await the Essex, which is the first major local prep for the $ 500, 000 Grade II Oaklawn Handicap on April 8.
For the man who spent $ 470, 000 to acquire the colt at the 2003 Keeneland September yearling sale, and thousands more to see him nursed back to health, Porter is more than ready for Rocky to deliver another knockout — this time with four good feet.
“I don’t know what you call it, but he just loves what he does,” said Porter, who named Rockport Harbor for a small coastal town in Maine where he has a vacation home. “I think he’ll work through any problem to get to do what he likes to do, which is get out on that racetrack.” ROCKPORT HARBOR TIMELINE
2004 NOV. 27 Remains unbeaten in four lifetime starts by winning the $ 200, 000 Grade II Remsen Stakes at Aqueduct in New York, but sustains a severe gash to his right hind foot
2005 JAN. 6 Arrives at Oaklawn Park JAN. 26 Has his first published workout since the injury FEB. 20-21 Misses two days of training because of shoeing problem with left front foot MARCH 12-14 Misses three days of training because of an infected right hind foot MARCH 19 Finishes second, beaten a halflength by Greater Good, in the $ 250, 000 Grade III Rebel Stakes MARCH 25 Misses one day of training to have a crack in his right hind hoof wired shut by blacksmith Ian McKinlay APRIL 1 Has his right hind hoof rewired again by McKinlay, who adds a trench to flush out infection APRIL 2-5 Misses four days of training after a blood clot is discovered in the right side of his neck APRIL 6 Jogs a mile, his first appearance on the track since the blood clot is discovered APRIL 10 After a 7-furlong workout, trainer John Servis rules the colt out of the $ 1 million Grade II Arkansas Derby on April 16 and will point for the $ 325, 000 Grade II Lexington Stakes on April 23 at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky. APRIL 16 Works a mile before shipping to Keeneland the following day APRIL 23 Finishes a well-beaten sixth in the Lexington JULY 1 Owner Rick Porter announces the colt will be turned out for 2-3 months and not race again in 2005 OCT. 6 Porter announces Rockport Harbor will resume training NOV. 20 Arrives at Oaklawn Park DEC. 29 Has his first published workout since being turned out
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