In the latest instalment in his unmissable series listing his personal favorites, Jay Hovdey recalls the superstar sprinter from the wrong side of the tracks whose career was cruelly cut short
This is not a sad story. There is a sad ending, but the ending is never the whole story, just the last small part, meaningless sometimes except to foster feelings of longing or regret. But this is not a sad story, because this is the story of Lost In The Fog.
He was a lightning strike of a racehorse for people who had spent a lifetime in the racing game. He was an inspiration to a racetrack community regarded as second rate. He was a national champion with an intimidating record, a happy traveler, and an equine athlete of fluid grace and boundless energy.
Lost In The Fog was owned by Harry Aleo, 85, a World War II veteran of the Battle of the Bulge who made enough money in Northern California real estate to buy a few racehorses. The colt was trained by Greg Gilchrist, whose budding racetrack career was sidetracked but fortunately not ended by a tour of duty in Vietnam. He was ridden by Russell Baze, a winner of more than 12,000 races, few of them more significant than the ten he rang up aboard Lost In The Fog.
Hit town, thrill the crowd, move on down the line
Lost In The Fog was a rich dark bay whose only indulgence was a long, off-center blaze that favored the left side of his face. He was, in the words of his trainer, “a big, stout colt” of sensible disposition and robust good health.
He won his first ten races over an 11-month stretch that included half-a-dozen round trips to points east from his San Francisco Bay Area home, plus a side jaunt to Arizona. He was like the road company of Annie Get Your Gun – hit town, thrill the crowd, move on down the line.
“I’d get calls all the time from racing secretaries,” Gilchrist recalled. “‘Name your purse, name your weight.’ They just wanted him to show up.”
Lost In The Fog did nothing but show up. Targeting six to seven furlongs, he seemed to thrive on pressure through fast early fractions, shrugging them off in the stretch to win for fun.
Gilchrist retired in 2010, but while he trained he had to counter continually the idea he was a big fish in a small pond. He did so with such major Southern California stakes winners as Indyanne, Wild Wonder, Smokey Stover, Teresa Mc, and Juan Barrera.
In 1994 Gilchrist took the Cal-bred filly Soviet Problem on the road to win the Laurel Dash, then followed up with a second the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Belmont Park by a head.
Gilchrist’s best work was with Lost In The Fog, although the trainer will insist such a natural equine athlete needed only to be fed, watered, and protected from blight.
“I never really trained him hard,” Gilchrist said. “More like a filly, actually. When a horse like that comes along you might be tempted to do too much, when all you need to do is throw a saddle on him.”
Lost In The Fog’s sire, Lost Soldier, was a committed two-turner, and his dam, Cloud Break, never raced. Cloud Break was a daughter of Dr. Carter, a son of Caro who finished second to division champ Devil’s Bag in the 1983 Champagne Stakes and Cowdin Stakes before breaking through to win the longer Remsen Stakes. It was at age four Dr. Carter finally found his own spotlight with victories in the Gulfstream Park Handicap and the Trenton Handicap. He retired with a record of six wins, nine seconds and two thirds in 19 starts.
With a female family that landed very quickly on the treasured broodmare My Dear Girl, Dr. Carter figured to get more than a chance at stud. He did, first in his native Florida and then later in Brazil.
Significant player
Cloud Break came from Dr. Carter’s crop of 1992, his next-to-last in the US; she was foaled at Bright View Farm in central New Jersey. Her dam, Wistful, was not to be confused with the fine Calumet mare of the same name, but the daughter of Maribeau was a significant player in her own right as a G2 stakes winner of 12 races from 29 starts.
When Cloud Break was four and still unraced she was sold privately to Susan Seper of Ocala, Fla. Cloud Break’s first two foals, both colts, were modest winners. Then, in 2001 the mare was sent to Lost Soldier, a son of Danzig who was standing just down the road at the Franks Farm Southland Division of two-time Eclipse Award-winning owner John Franks.
Franks had acquired Lost Soldier during his racing days from Sheikh Mohammed, who campaigned the horse in England, Dubai, and the US. He was good enough to win two runnings of the Godolphin Mile before the race became part of the Dubai World Cup program. For Franks, Lost Soldier won a G3 race in Louisiana and made his 45th and last start in the summer of 1997.
Lost In The Fog hit the ground on Feb. 4, 2002, at Seper’s Wildwood Farm. By that November he was sold for $13,000, as part of Seper downsizing her holdings. The following summer Lost In The Fog, already named, went through a Florida yearling sale for $48,000, landing with Greg and Susan Dodd.
“When Karen signed the ticket – and she hardly ever curses – her reaction was, ‘What the hell are we going to do with a $48,000 Lost Soldier,’” Greg Dodd said recently. “I told her not to worry. ‘He’ll be fast.’”
He was, from his first baby breeze, the kind of fast that makes the pulse flutter. “He was just one of those real smart young horses who never needs to be shown anything twice,” Dodd said. “He was a biter, though. Got me pretty good once between the shoulder blades.”
In March 2004, the Lost Soldier colt was on the block once again at the high-powered Ocala sale of two-year-olds. His reserve of $198,000 was not met, but the Dodds were determined to sell. The two Gregs had been pals for some time, so it only made sense that Gilchrist would get a call.
“We went back to the barn, and as we got close, we saw they already had him out, and two people were looking him over,” Gilchrist said. “When I saw who they were I said to Harry, ‘I think we’re in trouble.’”
The lookers were Jess Jackson, the wine billionaire on a Thoroughbred buying spree, and his adviser, the astute Bruce Headley, trainer of champion sprinter Kona Gold. If they wanted him, they would get him. But they passed, and when Gilchrist and Aleo returned an hour or so later, a deal was struck for $140,000.
Russell Baze: an interested passenger
It soon was apparent that Lost In The Fog stood measurably apart from the pack. From his earliest races, Baze would describe his role as that of an interested passenger, confronted with few variables along the way. There was never any traffic, no close finishes. He was always the star of the show.
Asked to cite the colt’s best performances, Gilchrist usually lands on these among the many:
The Riva Ridge Stakes on June 11, 2005, on the Belmont Stakes undercard – “People don’t realize a horse is on his left lead forever around those Belmont turns, and there was no reason to think he’d necessarily like that course they call Big Sandy,” Gilchrist said. “On top of that, Edgar Prado was riding him for the first time.”
Three days before the Riva Ridge, Baze fractured a collarbone in a fall at Golden Gate. Prado, in the midst of his best season to date, was available as a last minute supersub.
“Inside the quarter pole, a horse came to him, and you kind of wondered if he had anything left, if today was the day,” Gilchrist said. “But jeez, like a champion he just kept on going.”
The King’s Bishop Stakes on Aug. 27, 2005, on the Travers Stakes undercard at Saratoga – “That horse did things so easy,” Gilchrist said. “I mean, that day by the time they got to the half-mile pole, I said we’re going to really like how this will turn out. You just knew everyone else was in trouble.”
The King’s Bishop (now the H. Allen Jerkens Memorial) was and still is the only G1 sprint event in North America strictly for three-year-olds. To that point, Lost In The Fog had run rampant through not only the Riva Ridge, but also events like the Swale Stakes at Gulfstream Park, the Bay Shore Stakes at Aqueduct and the Carry Back Stakes at Calder. The only river left to cross was the Breeders’ Cup Sprint against older runners, set for Oct. 29 back at Belmont Park.
In the months and years since that race, in which Lost In The Fog basically went through the motions and finished seventh of 11 as the heaviest favorite of the day, Gilchrist would pick through the debris to come up with at least a hint of what went wrong.
“I waited until the day of the race to shoe him,” Gilchrist said. “He was fine putting the front shoes on, but when the blacksmith went to put shoes on behind he wanted to kick the hell out of him. I’d never seen him do that. There was something about picking up his back legs.
‘Couldn’t figure out what was wrong’
“He seemed a little nervous and erratic that day, too, but I couldn’t figure out what was wrong,” the trainer continued. “I remember walking over with Mike Welsch of the Racing Form and saying out loud that if it was up to me I’d make a left-hand turn and head right back to the barn.”
The idea of scratching an odds-on Breeders’ Cup favorite on a gut feeling was unthinkable, however. As it turned out, Gilchrist might have been tuned into something more than just a bad day.
Fortunately, the racing world forgave Lost In The Fog and rewarded Aleo and Gilchrist with an Eclipse Award as Champion Male Sprinter of 2005. Filmmaker John Corey was there with his cameraman to record the scene of Aleo doffing his trademark Stetson in joyous celebration for a rare national honor bestowed upon a horse from Northern California.
Corey came to the Lost In The Fog story during its early chapters. As the producer of a nightly news magazine for the San Francisco CBS affiliate, Corey was intrigued by his neighbor in the Noe Valley district of the city.
Aleo was a known character who took great pleasure in needling his decidedly liberal community by flaunting his loyalty to such Republican icons as Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, through displays in the windows of his office on 24th Street.
“The story needed something else, though,” Corey said. “It wasn’t enough that he was a colorful character. Then I heard about this exciting young racehorse who trained at Golden Gate Fields, who was already being talked about as one of the best three-year-olds in the country. Harry was the owner and I had a story.”
‘Win or lose, it would not have mattered’
More, in fact, than just a half-hour on the nightly news. Corey stepped away from his job at the station to craft a full-blown documentary. He followed Aleo, Gilchrist, and their colt through their remarkable 2005 campaign, criss-crossing the country to capture the adventures of the happy warriors as Lost In The Fog showed his heels to the best three-year-old sprinters that could be mustered.
Corey and his crew arrived at the 2005 Breeders’ Cup with the film all but wrapped. “Win or lose, it would not have mattered,” Corey said. “If he’d won, it would have been a great climax to a perfect season. If he’d lost, we would have seen Harry and Greg display their true sportsmanship, and how grateful they were to have the horse at all.”
They lost, but even as 2006 dawned, offers for Lost In The Fog as a stallion continued to amuse Aleo with their collection of zeroes, while Gilchrist prepared the colt for a campaign as a four-year-old. He finished second in a small race at Golden Gate he should have won, especially since it was staged on ‘Lost In The Fog Day’ complete with a giveaway of a Lost In The Fog bobblehead. But then all seemed right when they shipped to Churchill Downs to win the Aristides Handicap on June 3, 2006, defeating future Golden Shaheen winner Kelly’s Landing in the process.
Gilchrist wrote off a subsequent loss in the Smile Sprint Handicap at Calder to the effects of a quarter crack. Not long after that, however, Lost In The Fog showed symptoms of colic.
“That was on a Friday,” Gilchrist recalled. “We decided not to take any chances, so we loaded him on a trailer and took him to UC Davis. By the time we got there he was just fine, but the vet suggested we keep him there a couple days for a complete going over.”
Then came the call. The routine exam revealed a malignant tumor attached to Lost In The Fog’s spleen and more cancerous tissue beneath his spine. The growth was of a size indicating it had been metastasizing for some time without detection. Gilchrist thought back to the fit his colt threw when he was shod the day of the Breeders’ Cup.
‘Cancer’s not something you look for’
“Could be it was just starting and he was trying to tell us something back then,” the trainer said. “But hell, cancer’s not something you ever look for.”
It was early August. Lost In The Fog was returned to the Gilchrist barn, where the trainer and his crew lavished round-the-clock care and affection on their champion, while veterinarians remained on call to keep the colt as comfortable as possible.
Aleo had to put aside thoughts of a lost $12m sale, from which a sizeable cut would have gone to Gilchrist, to concentrate on Lost In The Fog’s ordeal.
“You know, he never had a chance to run his best race in his prime as a four-year-old,” Aleo said at the time. “But the Aristides at Churchill Downs – it’s heartbreaking when I think about it. He’s growing that tumor, now the size of a football, underneath his spine, and he still comes through and wins that race.”
It was a family tragedy writ large. Once word got out, Aleo and Gilchrist were inundated with cards, letters, baskets of fruit, remedies, poems, and prayers. John Corey also found himself at an agonizing crossroads with his documentary.
“I’ll never forget Greg’s comment,” Corey said. “He said, ‘I’ll bet you’re the only guy that thinks this is not necessarily bad news.’ And he was right, of course. The story went from feel-good to the most emotional kind of drama. Even so, I was close enough to him by then to know how much he was hurting.”
Corey had the camera on Aleo in his office the day Gilchrist called to deliver the news that all reasonable hope was lost. As documentary moments go, it’s as real as real can get.
“I’m tearing up just thinking about that,” Corey said. “Those guys had to be so strong. It was so much more than the money that was lost. They both had a very deep personal connection to the horse.
“I’m convinced people like Harry and Greg who’d been in heavy combat have an outlook on life different from the rest of us. Maybe a perspective that helped them get through bad times better than most.”
‘I won’t quit on him’
Nearing the end, this reporter was granted the privilege of a couple mornings spent with the champion and his trainer. To Gilchrist’s delight, Lost In The Fog felt good enough at one point to leave his stall and nibble at a patch of backstretch grass.
“I won’t quit on him,” Gilchrist said that day. “At least not until he’s ready.”
Lost In The Fog was mercifully euthanized on Sunday, Sept. 17, 2006. His remains were cremated and have been kept in a specially crafted box adorned with Aleo’s racing logo, safe in Gilchrist’s possession.
Meanwhile, Corey had to take a deep breath and recut his film. He spent the following year at the editing bay and released Lost In The Fog in 2008. That spring, the film was selected for competition at the CineVegas Film Festival in Las Vegas. At the time, Aleo was battling the last stages of prostate cancer.
“I wanted to get back home to be with Harry, but I was also told the film would probably win a major award and that I should stick around,” Corey said. “So I did.”
On the afternoon of June 21, 2008, Lost In The Fog won the CineVegas Audience Award for best documentary. Afterwards, Corey quickly caught a plane back to San Francisco.
“I couldn’t wait to get home to tell Harry about it, maybe let him hold the award,” Corey said. “He would never say much about it to me – he wasn’t that kind of guy – but I knew that when he had people to his house he’d always ask if they’d like to stay a little longer and ‘watch this movie about a horse of mine.’
“When I landed, though, there was message from Greg,” Corey said. “Harry had died that day.”
Shooting stars like Lost In The Fog populate the melancholic corners of racing’s timeless lore. ‘Gone too s
oon’ is the common theme, echoed through the ages by those fortunate enough to brush against such flames as Lamb Chop, Dark Mirage, Cool Reception, Ruffian, Landaluce, Swale, Eight Belles, and Shared Belief. But while they race, spirits soar.
With the death of his horse, Greg Gilchrist might have been deprived of what would have been for him a small fortune. Such regrets tend to fade, but never the memory of a young Thoroughbred the trainer considered nothing less than a brother in arms.
“I look at Flightline now, and how wonderful it is for a fine trainer like John Sadler to have his horse of a lifetime,” Gilchrist said, referring to the most exciting talent on the current scene. “I know how he feels, because I had mine. I’m just so glad there’s still people who remember him.”
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