Even after 15 years, it remains one of my all-time favorite Philly sports stories.
Only this athlete did not perform his feats on two legs.
He had four.
Yes, I fell in love with Smarty Jones.
I think it was because of my father.
My father - how should I phrase this - was a fan of the ponies.
OK, he was a horse junkie. He did not mind dropping a few shekels on the nags. Just ask our mother.
He is why I can read the Racing Form.
In fact, it was sitting at the kitchen table, waiting patiently for him to finish the sports section, where I first picked up my addiction to the newspaper.
My father ran two stores, luncheonette/soda fountains that also sold patent medicines. One store was in North East, Md., the other in Oxford, the little town where I grew up out in Chester County.
It was something of a tradition with the Heron men that we would "apprentice" with dad at his North East store before helping out mom, who ran the store in Oxford.
When I was finally old enough to make the trek across the Mason-Dixon line to North East, there were several things that fascinated me about dad's store.v
But none more than trying to figure out why a tiny store in North East, Md., carried all the New York newspapers. It did not take me long to find out why.
Every day a stream of gentlemen would enter the store, grab a paper and immediately turn to the same page that held dad's attention. That, of course, would be that day's entries at the New York tracks. Then they would pick dad's brain as to who he "liked" that day.
In town I used to think dad was a very popular guy. Every Saturday morning a stream of men would stop by the house to kibbitz with him. It was left to mom to shatter my notion of dad's congeniality.
"They want to know who he likes at Delaware Park," she mournfully informed me.
To this day, my father is the only man I have ever know who took a week's vacation every summer just so he could work the parimutuel window at Delaware Park.
To dad, it was the horses, sure. But it was more than that. Horse people - and those you find at the track - are a special breed. He delighted in telling the stories of some of the cons people would try to pull on him as he worked the betting window.
Dad was long gone when Smarty Jones arrived on the scene, but I'm sure he would have been a huge Smarty fan.
For a couple of reasons.
First, there was the notion that Smarty was one of us. He was not a blueblood, not from one of the legendary Kentucky farms.
In the sports of kings, Smarty was a commoner.
And, he was local.
Owned by the Chapman auto family. Born out in in Chester County. Trained at Parx in Bucks County.
After capturing both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness - the first two legs of horse racing's famed Triple Crown - I penned an editorial in the days before Smarty set his sights on the Belmont Stakes, and racing immortality.
It remains the only race he ever lost. He did so after for all the world it looked like the rest of the field ganged up on him in some kind of conspiracy. They pushed him with a very fast pace early in the marathon that is the Belmont, then overtaken down the stretch by Birdstone.
I was crushed. I collapsed back into my chair in the living room and was on the verge of tears.
I don't usually get that emotionally attached to athletes. But Smarty Jones was different. He was one of us.
It's as crushing an experience as I've ever encountered in sports.
Don't take my word for it. Ask my daughter.
It's part of our family lore, the notion that I was so upset that I "threw" a roll at her that night at dinner. I still say I merely tossed it.
Now, a decade and a half later, Smarty is back. He will be making an appearance at Parx racetrack later this summer.
Yo, Smarty, we still love ya!
* * *
This is the editorial I penned back in 2004, the day before Smarty ran in the Kentucky Derby:
He is the horse from the wrong side of the tracks. In the Sport of Kings, he's the pauper surrounded by princes. In horse-racing society, so thoroughly dominated by bluebloods, he is blue collar. At Saturday's Run for the Roses, he's the dandelion.
And we love him for it.
Forget Seabiscuit. Meet Smarty Jones.
"Smarty" does not come from one of the vaunted Kentucky operations that form the aristocracy or the horse racing elite.
He comes from mushroom country, just a good gallop out Baltimore Pike in Chester County.
He did not cut his racing teeth at Gulfstream in Florida, nor at Santa Anita or Hollywood Park on the West Coast. He made his bones at Philadelphia Park. Glamorous is not a word one would associate with the Bensalem facility.
His trainer's name is not Lukas, or Baffert. It's Servis. And his jockey's name is not one that rolls off your tongue, unless you happen to be more than a little familiar with the parimutuel parlays at Philly Park. Stewart Elliott, a consistent winner in these parts, will be in the irons for the first time in Churchill Downs.
Then there's the owners. Pat and Roy Chapman are not your typical mint julep-sipping aristocrats so often seen around the winner's circle at Churchill Downs. They're from Bucks County. Now they split their time between there and Florida. They made their money from the car dealerships that bear their name and dot the Delaware Valley.
Then there's the horse. He has more than a little in common with the legendary Seabiscuit, hero of literary and cinematic lore. Smarty Jones is quite a story himself. And he also has a strong local connection. Seabiscuit was the outsider, the horse they called too small, when he challenged – and beat – Sam Riddle's majestic War Admiral. That would be the same Sam Riddle for whom much of Middletown is now named.
Smarty Jones' roots go just a bit farther west. He was foaled at Someday Farm, just outside West Grove. And he also overcame adversity; he was badly hurt when he banged his head on a starting gate as he trained for his track debut.
Smarty Jones has something else in common with Seabiscuit. They have this aversion to being passed. And he can flat-out run.
Smarty Jones is fast. Very fast. Fast enough to be undefeated in six starts. Fast enough to win the Arkansas Derby. And fast enough to singe the Churchill Downs surface in practice, going five furlongs in a very quick :58 seconds.
On Saturday, this colorful collection of characters - owners, trainer, rider and jockey - will realize a dream come true. They will be front and center in the most famous horse race in the land.
And they will do so as the pride of Pennsylvania. Yesterday, the governor even pronounced Saturday "Smarty Jones Day" in the state. And why not? We get "Flyered up." We catch "Phillies Phever." We scream E-A-G-L-E-S. We love our Sixers.
And now we open our hearts to an athlete who runs on four legs, not two.
Smarty Jones may just be the ultimate underdog. It is that attribute that we identify with, and we salute. If he were a boxer, he would be Rocky.
The Chapmans, as well as Servis and Elliott, can rest assured that when they play "My Old Kentucky Home" on Saturday, an entire state 700 miles to the north will be pulling for them.
Just like we did for Dr. J and Moses, Dutch and Dude, Bobby and Bernie, Jaws and Wilbert. And that Balboa guy.
Yo, Smarty, go for it!
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