Any Way You Add It All Up, Skip Away’s in Fast Company

Will the durable Skip Away really break Cigar’s money record if he wins the $1-million Jockey Club Gold Cup today at Belmont Park?

It depends on who’s holding the calculator.

In hard dollars, a $600,000 victory at Belmont will send Skip Away to the $10,106,360 mark and relegate the retired Cigar, with his $9,999,815 total, to second place on the list.

But Martha Riche has a different wrinkle. By her figuring, John Henry’s still at the top of the list, Cigar is second and Skip Away is third, even if he wins today.

Riche resigned as director of the U.S. Census Bureau this year, somewhat disenchanted after battling politicians in a lengthy debate over statistical sampling.

“It was what happened when science met politics,” she said.

During a visit to Santa Anita last winter, Riche didn’t seem remorseful. She acted as though a day at the track was better than a day of counting people, any time.

Riche even volunteered to adjust the earnings of the richest horses, allowing for inflation and using the Consumer Price Index as a guide. Riche’s top-five list comes out like this:

John Henry, $11,553,817.

Cigar, $10,779,168.

Skip Away, $9,801,539.

Alysheba, $9,584,432.

Round Table, $9,379,269.

The actual list reads this way:

Cigar, $9,999,815.

Skip Away, $9,506,360.

Alysheba, $6,679,242.

John Henry, $6,597,947.

Singspiel, $5,952,825.

Since Riche is using 1998 dollars, Skip Away’s possible $600,000 today would leave him at $10.4 million, still short of John Henry and Cigar. By any measurement, however, Skip Away would become No. 1 with a victory today and another Nov. 7 in the $4-million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs.

Round Table has the biggest discrepancy between Riche’s list and the real money standings. Racing in the ‘50s, when there were no million-dollar races, no bonuses and no front-end purse enhancements, Round Table ran 66 times, earning $1.7 million, a record at the time. Round Table was voted grass champion all three years he raced, and in 1958 outpointed Bold Ruler for horse-of-the-year honors. In most polls, Round Table comes out as one of the 20 best horses that ever ran.

Unimpressed with the Riche rankings? Then try this on for size: A statistical evaluation of horses based on earnings per start. Such a system produces these leaders:

Sunday Silence, $354,896.

Silver Charm, $313,386.

Cigar, $303,024.

Singspiel, $297,641.

Spend A Buck, $281,379.

By this accounting, Skip Away is sixth, averaging $264,065 for each of the 36 times he has run. John Henry, who ran 83 times in a career that stretched from 1977 through 1984, when he was a 9-year-old, is off the charts with an average of $79,493.

Yes, Sunday Silence. Trainer Charlie Whittingham’s brilliant colt really raced only two years, injuries sending him to the breeding shed after two starts in 1990. His earnings were a little short of $5 million, and he earned $4.5 million as a 3-year-old, in 1989. He won the Santa Anita Derby, the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and capped a horse-of-the-year campaign by beating his archrival, Easy Goer, in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. When he was retired, Sunday Silence had won nine times in only 14 starts.

Spend A Buck and Singspiel were opportunists. They were right when the long green was on the line. Spend A Buck, in a 15-race career, earned $4.2 million, more than half of it on a late-May day in 1985 at Garden State Park, where he bagged the $600,000 winner’s purse in the Jersey Derby and also collected a $2-million bonus for sweeping the Kentucky Derby and three races at Garden State. Spend A Buck was voted horse of the year in 1985, but he is a lasting example of why money lists should be carefully scrutinized.

You may be puzzled that Singspiel earned $5.9 million while racing mainly in England, a country notorious for its low purses. The Irish-bred horse didn’t bank all that by staying at home, that’s for sure. In 1996, Singspiel went to Tokyo and won the Japan Cup. Boom!--$1.2 million or so. The next year, he won the Dubai World Cup. Boom!--an additional $2.4 million. Also in 1996, Singspiel ran second to his stablemate, Pilsudski, in the Breeders’ Cup Turf and earned $400,000. Singspiel earned $4 million of his $5.9 million in only three races.

Sonny Hine, the roly-poly horseman who trains Skip Away, would be bored by all these money-list analyses. All Hine knows is that he’s got the best horse in the country, a 5-year-old who’s won nine in a row and is seven for seven this year. Already, Skip Away seems to have clinched the horse-of-the-year title that he missed last year when the undefeated 2-year-old, Favorite Trick, carried the vote.

“He’s intelligent, very durable, balanced and has tremendous desire,” Hine said of Skip Away.

Carolyn Hine, the trainer’s wife, bought Skip Away as an unraced 2-year-old for $30,000, then got a $7,500 rebate when a post-sale X-ray showed spurs in one of his ankles.

Asked this week what he thought he was getting then, Sonny Hine said, “I just hoped he’d be worth $30,000.”

ALSO

Skip Away is the 2-5 favorite as he tries to win the Jockey Club Gold Cup for the third consecutive year. The only horse to win the stake more than twice has been Kelso, who won it five years in a row starting in 1960. The field, in post-position order: Running Stag, Gentlemen, Fire King, Skip Away, Wagon Limit and Pacificbounty. . . . In other stakes at Belmont today, Lazy Lode, in the $500,000 Turf Classic, and Sharp Cat, in the $400,000 Beldame, will try to keep trainer Wally Dollase’s stable rolling. In the $400,000 Champagne, Tactical Cat, beaten in his last two starts, may go off favored against Lemon Drop Kid. . . . Things Change is the 6-5 favorite in the $400,000 Frizette.

Rather than take on Skip Away, trainer Patrick Byrne is sending his top two older horses elsewhere. Awesome Again, undefeated this year, will run today in the $400,000 Hawthorne Gold Cup and Touch Gold runs Sunday in the $150,000 Fayette Stakes at Keeneland. . . . With Corey Nakatani riding Gentlemen and Sharp Cat at Belmont, Eddie Delahoussaye will take over at Keeneland today for Sicy d’Alsace’s run in the $400,000 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup.