The day Tiznow became America’s hero, an everlasting symbol of stubborn resolve

Tiznow (right) and Sakhee in that lung-busting duel for the 2001 Breeders’ Cup Classic

As a racehorse, there was something prehistoric about him. This was no sales baby, hot-housed raised. Tiznow presented himself as a tall, slab-shouldered, heavy-headed beast with four white stockings and a blaze like a lopsided mushroom cloud.

He was a thinker, though not much for conversation. At some 1,200 pounds and full of beans, he could afford to be anti-social. Somewhere beneath the surface there boiled the blood of Seattle Slew mixed with the robust genes of the disappearing Matchem line, clinging to relevance down through Spendthrift, Intentionally, Relaunch, and Cee’s Tizzy, Tiznow’s sire.

At three, he was the Eclipse Award Horse of the Year for a 2000 season that ended in victory in the Breeders’ Cup Classic over Cartier Horse of the Year Giant’s Causeway. Tiznow began his 4-year-old campaign at home in California with a win, a loss, and then a triumphant parade in the Santa Anita Handicap, after which – poof! – he disappeared like a four-legged Keyser Soze. When he returned from a sore back in the early autumn, he was uninspiring and cranky, as if he was long past such tedious endeavors.

And then he became America’s hero.

In more accurate fact, it was somewhere around the eighth pole nearing the end of the 2001 Breeders’ Cup Classic, at just past 5:42 p.m. (EDT) on October 27 at Belmont Park, that Tiznow rose to those heroic heights. He had just been passed by the Godolphin star Sakhee, but then Sakhee’s tank hit empty and Tiznow went for the throat.

Inside the sixteenth mark they bobbed together for a dozen strides, trading metaphoric blows. The wire came up and Tiznow’s nose went down (see video below).

“Tiznow wins it for America!” bellowed announcer Tom Durkin, raising gooseflesh among his live and broadcast audiences.

That is the story, and history is sticking with it. Tiznow flew not only the colors of Michael Cooper and the estate of breeder Cecilia Straub-Rubens, he also emerged from the Classic draped in the star-spangled banner.

His Classic victory, coming 46 days after the terrorist attack that sent jet planes crashing into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, just 23 miles west of the track, was framed as a tonic to the battered soul of a nervous nation, flinching at loud sounds and mourning the nearly 3,000 dead. Here was a robust product of animal husbandry, a veritable tower of a Thoroughbred oblivious to the anguish around him, summoning a victorious effort in the face of defeat.

“Champion horses do not go quietly,” wrote Paul Moran in Newsday. “The finale of the 18th Breeders Cup was indeed a grand battle, the type to which Tiznow is hardened.”

Tiznow had lost both of his comeback races leading up to the Classic – the Woodward Stakes in New York and the Goodwood Handicap back in California. In between, he was stranded at Belmont Park in the wake of the terrorist attacks, when air travel was strangled by security precautions. And, while his temporary Belmont accommodations in the barn of Shug McGaughey were 5-star, Jay Robbins was not the kind of trainer who coped well by long distance.

“That two weeks or so he was in New York was the only time I didn’t see him in all the time I had him,” said Robbins, now retired. “His rider and his groom were back there with him. And Buzz Tenney, Shug’s assistant, would keep me apprised of what was going on.”

Tiznow finally caught a flight home out of Teterboro Airport in northern New Jersey. Once back in California, he went through the motions in the October 7 Goodwood, finishing third to longshot Freedom Crest.

“I was disappointed he didn’t win,” Robbins said. “But, given the circumstances, with the interruption in his training, I really wasn’t surprised.”

Then came the morning of October 18, when Robbins needed to get a stout mile into the big horse under his regular rider, Chris McCarron. With a large morning audience that included the cameras of TVG, McCarron spent three-quarters of an hour trying to coax Tiznow into a decent jog, let alone a full-fledged gallop. Finally, they broke off at the half-mile pole and worked once around, getting the mile in 1:35 2/5.

Robbins, who watched the ordeal in the company of Michael Cooper, kept his counsel, upped his nicotine intake, and met his champion back at the barn.

“Despite all that other stuff, once he got going it was really a very good work,” the trainer said.

Fishbowl of trepidation

Two days after the surreal morning session, Tiznow was back on another plane to New York, where nerves remained frayed and the Breeders’ Cup would transpire in a fishbowl of trepidation. The tangled wreckage of the Twin Towers had become a ghoulish tourist attraction. Flyers begging for news of missing persons fluttered from lamp posts.

The Belmont Park of October 27 was an armed encampment. An estimated 600 security personnel manned the entrances, scanned purses and bags, and patrolled the vast grandstand rooftops. The crowd of 52,987 had to pass through metal detectors for the first time in their experience as racing fans. Pageantry aside, simply being in the crowd that day felt like a statement of solidarity. Fans came for the celebration. Witnessing history was a bonus.

Winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic back to back is one of those benchmarks that sounds plausible on paper, even likely when spread over nearly four decades. Then reality kicks in. Attrition, retirements, and the inability to adapt to a different setting have made the plausible seem nearly impossible. In the 37 presentations of the Breeders’ Cup, 1984-2020, only 13 horses have returned a year later to defend their Classic crown.

Those who tried

Zenyatta came within Blame’s handsome head of winning a second Classic in 2010. Cigar was the third horse in a three-horse photo finish at Woodbine in 1996. Unbridled, the 1990 Classic winner, and Pleasantly Perfect, who reigned in 2003, came back to produce respectable third-place finishes in defense, but neither threatened to win.

Had the 1998 Classic been run anywhere but Churchill Downs, Skip Away would have been in better contention, but he hated the place. The same goes for Arrogate in 2017 at Del Mar – he was a flop there the previous summer – and Curlin at Santa Anita in 2008, where the brawny chestnut merely went through the motions over a synthetic surface. The rest of the Classic defenders – Skywalker, Concern, Cat Thief, Volponi, and Fort Larned – were given good marks for showing up, but that’s about all.

Then there was Tiznow, described by the estimable turf writer Chris McGrath as having the heart of a lion and the head of a triceratops.

The field Tiznow faced in the 2001 Classic was not the deepest ever assembled, but there were more than a few bright spots.

Aptitude, owned by Khaled Abdullah, was fresh from a ten-length trashing of the Jockey Club Gold Cup. Albert The Great accounted for the Widener, Brooklyn, and Suburban Handicaps earlier in the year. Coolmore and Aiden O’Brien, who’d just turned 32, were represented not only by Black Minnaloushe, winner of the Irish 2000 Guineas and St James’s Palace, but also stable star Galileo, hero of the Epsom Derby, the Irish Derby, and the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes, making his final start before embarking on what would be a historic stud career.

Then there was Sakhee, Godolphin’s runaway winner of the Arc de Triomphe who showed up in New York with stablemate Fantastic Light. Their trainer, Saeed bin Suroor, seemed to enjoy the manufactured mystery of which horse would go where right up to final declarations. Once Sakhee’s Classic path was confirmed, his chances were hyped by the imported press and their beloved bookies, who laid defensive odds also reflected in the New York tote, in which Sakhee was $4.80-to-1. Galileo was sent away at $3.35-to-1 and Aptitude was favored at $2.35-to-1, while Tiznow was held at $6.90-to-1.

Suroor’s optimism

Suroor was convinced Sakhee would handle the sandy loam of Belmont Park, although nothing in his pedigree suggested such a leap, unless it was peeled back several generations in the family of his sire, Bahri, to such antecedents as Never Bend and Bold Bidder. The rest was grass on grass.

“I never saw him until the day of the race,” Robbins said of Sakhee.

And what would it matter? He had his hands full with Tiznow, as did his morning rider, Ramon Arciga.

“His first day back in New York, he got crappy about jogging the wrong way,” Robbins said. “I asked Ramon to go ahead and jog him another mile and a half. He ended up jogging about three miles.

“After that first day, everything started to turn around,” Robbins added. “What I do recall is Frank Lyons, on TVG saying how sorry he felt for me, and that there was nothing I could do about it.”

As that Saturday dawned, Robbins was confident his colt was on point and ready for anything. After spending the day at the barn, the trainer was reunited in the stands with his wife, Sandy, whose pockets were stuffed with Tiznow mutuel tickets. McCarron took it from there.

McCarron: It was one of my best races

“I consider it one of the best races I ever rode,” said McCarron, who retired seven months later with 7,141 winners.

“I wanted him to get away clean so we’d be close to the pace,” McCarron began. “Because of his antics the week before, the last thing I wanted to do was get into an argument with him balking at the gate. I arranged with the starter, Bobby Duncan, to send an assistant starter to us about 100 yards or so down the track and walk us the rest of the way. That would give Tiznow plenty of time to think that this guy is part of the team. He’s here to help.

“We got away clean from the ten-hole, and I chirped to him to get a forward position,” McCarron went on. “But then it was important that he relaxed for me and didn’t pull. I cleared Sakhee and Galileo and ended up in the three path just off the leaders, which put me in the catbird’s seat. It also had the advantage of those turf horses getting dirt in their face for the first time.”

After that, there was one more key decision.

“Down the backstretch and into the turn I was feeling very confident,” McCarron said. “I took a peek to the inside and saw Galileo, and I caught a glimpse of the Godolphin colors to the outside. I thought, ‘Okay, it’s showtime.’ I had told Jay in the paddock not to worry if he didn’t see me going to the whip. I didn’t want to piss him off. But then at the sixteenth pole, when Sakhee was about a neck in front, I thought I had nothing to lose. I tapped him left-handed to see what he’d do, and I’ll tell you what – you don’t often feel acceleration at that point in a mile and a quarter race under 126 pounds. But I felt it. He gave it to me.”

There was bedlam in the stands.

“To tell you the truth, I didn’t really think he won,” Robbins said. “I did hear Durkin say, ‘Tiznow wins it for America.’ And then Judy McCarron, Chris’s wife, grabs me and says, ‘He won.’ After all he’d been through, it was a great relief.”

Pulling up, Dettori looked over at his conqueror.

“Man,” said Frankie, “is he tough.”

“Yes, Frankie, he sure is,” McCarron replied. “He’s the genuine article.”

Taking Durkin’s cue, the domestic coverage of Tiznow’s triumph leaned hard on the patriotic angle. Sakhee, after all, was owned by Middle Eastern interests, went the not-so-subtle story line, and Tiznow was certified all-American.

As a footnote, Sheikh Mohammed of the UAE had pledged all the Godolphin earnings that day to the Heroes Fund established to aid the families of September 11 victims. The Godolphin total amounted to $2.4 million, although a victory by Sakhee would have meant another $1.2 million for the fund.

Giddy with excitement after the Classic, owner Michael Cooper dangled the possibility that Tiznow would remain in training as a 5-year-old. Enticing as that sounded, any decision was based on market timing, as well as Tiznow’s encroaching reluctance to train. Another campaign likely would have been fraught, brief, and anticlimactic.

Tiznow at WinStar Farm. “He’s probably the most popular horse we’ve ever had here,” says WinStar president Elliott Walden

Tiznow was retired to WinStar Farm in Versailles, which in itself was an achievement. As of 2002, no one could remember the last time a first-class racehorse bred in California was deemed worthy of standing stud at a Kentucky establishment. Not Bertrando, or Flying Paster, or Snow Chief, or Free House. TV Lark, perhaps? The grass champion of 1961 served at Preston Madden’s Hamburg Place in Lexington and was North America’s leading sire of 1974.

Priced to sell to a wide swath of breeders, Tiznow came through with 17 robust seasons in the shed. But then, in 2019, he appeared to be finished.

“His fertility dropped off, kind of overnight,” said WinStar president Elliott Walden. “He bred 25 or 30 mares that year, and it was noticeable. We thought, what’s the point?”

The announcement of his retirement was made official in October of 2020, which means for the first time since 2003 there are no mares carrying Tiznow foals. There are, however, a host of 2-year-olds out there from his large 2019 crop, with a chance to add to his total of 80-plus stakes winners. In addition, Tiznow mares have produced nearly 40 stakes winners, among them classic winner Tiz The Law and Grade 1 winners It Iz Well and Come Dancing.

“He’s probably the most popular horse we’ve ever had here, and he still gets a lot of requests for visitors,” Walden said. “He’s in his own stall. He’s got his regular routine, and he’s a happy, healthy horse. We do keep the mares out of sight.”

If all goes to plan, Tiznow should be represented in the 2021 Breeders’ Cup Classic on November 6 by his son, Midnight Bourbon, the Travers and Preakness runner-up whose aggressive style should suit the short final straight of the Del Mar main track. The opposition will be formidable, but even the chance for such an outcome will put a handsome bow on the 20th anniversary of the day Tiznow became an everlasting symbol of stubborn resolve. The flag-waving was a bonus.

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