In the latest instalment of his fabulous monthly series listing his personal favorites, Jay Hovdey recalls a durable three-time champion whose legacy could have been huge – were it not for two great racemares
It can be way too easy to take a racehorse like Gio Ponti for granted. As a champion three times over, he should be considered among the very best of the 21st century.
He traveled far and wide, competing 17 times at the G1 level. Ten of his 11 lifetime wins came in stakes. His presence in a post-parade indicated something special might happen. When it did, and he won, the reaction would be: “Of course he did.” When he lost, the winner usually knew he’d been in a brawl.
Gio Ponti brought to his 27-race career a heady international stew. He was bred in Kentucky from an Argentine female family and named for one of the most famous Italian architects of the 20th century. His owner was Irish, his trainer French, and the jockey with whom he was most closely identified was from Venezuela.
In motion, Gio Ponti had an earnest, efficient way of going, although early speed was never his thing. As a physical specimen, he was one of those neat, balanced equine athletes for whom the description ‘just right’ perfectly applies.
A special work of art
His medium to dark bay coat would lighten in summer to be highlighted by classic black points coloring legs, mane, and tail, with a tiny dollop of white between the eyes and another smear of white low on a hind ankle, as if someone was signing off on a special work of art.
Gio Ponti’s dam, Chipeta Springs, was the third foal of the Argentine mare Salt Spring, a G1 winner in her native land. Salt Spring was imported by Gayno Stables and turned over to Henry Moreno in California – a wise move, since the trainer had earned a reputation as an exemplary handler of such South American mares as Tizna, Bastonera, Merry Lady, and Re Toss. Salt Spring finished first, second or third in 14 of her 19 starts for Moreno, winning a G3 stakes along the way.
In 1988, Salt Spring was sent to Alydar and remained in Kentucky to foal Chipeta Springs the following March. The filly was bred by the Gayno Stable of Oklahomans Edward Gaylord – the billionaire who saved the Grand Ole Opry – and Homer Noble.
Gayno raced her through three seasons and 21 starts under the care of training titan Jack Van Berg, for whom she managed two wins and a minor stakes placing at Remington Park.
The standout among the early foals of Chipeta Springs was Fisher Pond, a son of A.P. Indy who brought $800,000 as a yearling. At age three, while trained by Todd Pletcher, Fisher Pond won the Lawrence Realization over a mile and a half on the Belmont grass and placed in a pair of G3 races at Aqueduct, one at 11 furlongs on turf, the other at 13 furlongs on dirt.
This would suggest considerable stamina in the family, at least by North American standards. At one time, the Lawrence Realization was the richest three-year-old race in the United States. Offered at a mile and five-eighths on dirt, it was considered an American version of a St. Leger. Man o’War set the stakes record in 1920.
Kelso equalled the record in 1960. In between, it was won by the likes of Gallant Fox, Whirlaway, Alsab, and the Calumet filly Bed o’ Roses.
When Fisher Pond arrived on the scene, the Realization had been demoted to a Listed race. Still, his timing could not have been better. Fisher Pond won the race on Oct. 12, 2002.
On Nov. 5, Gayno sent Chipeta Springs to market at the Keeneland Breeding Stock Sale in foal to Giant’s Causeway and sold her for $435,000 to Castleton Lyons, the Kentucky establishment owned by Dr. Tony Ryan, the co-founder of Ryanair.
Early stages of prolific career
Gio Ponti was the first foal that Chipeta Springs produced for Castleton Lyons. He arrived at the Lexington farm on Feb. 28, 2005. His sire, Tale Of The Cat, was in the early stages of a prolific, dual-hemisphere stallion career that made him a Thoroughbred household name in both Australia, where he stood at the Coolmore property, and Ashford Stud in Kentucky.
Tale Of The Cat threw sprinters and stayers, adept on both grass and dirt, who might turn up in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea or South America, as well as Australia and New Zealand.
In North America his leading lights eventually included Lion Heart, runner-up in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness; Tale Of Ekati, winner of the Wood Memorial; graded stakes-winner Favorite Tale, third in a Breeders’ Cup Sprint; and She’s A Tiger, who finished first in the 2013 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, only to be set down to second for interference.
It is Gio Ponti, however, who tops all the hundreds of sons and daughters of Tale Of The Cat by a country mile. At the time of his retirement, after parts of five seasons of competition, his earnings of $6,169,800 ranked 20th on the all-time. worldwide list of moneymakers.
And although his stretch-running style may have been thwarted on occasion by traffic, tactics, or pace – as happens to even the best deep closers – not one of his losses could be written off as a simply, ‘He had a bad day.’ Gio Ponti had no bad days.
Gio Ponti was offered at the 2006 Keeneland September Yearling Sale but failed to reach his reserve. A bid of $95,000 showed on the board as he was led back home. The following February he was catalogued again at the Fasig-Tipton Select Sale of Two-Year-Olds in Training. But an irritated splint bone compromised his presentation, and he again went home, with a meaningless bid of $45,000 displayed.
Christophe Clement took it from there. The trainer liked what he saw and waited to show his hand until Sept. 7, 2007, when the first grass race at Belmont Park for two-year-old maidens was offered. The colt won easily.
A nice horse all along
“We knew he was a nice horse all along, but we did not know yet how good he would be,” Clement said.
Tony Ryan lived long enough at least to see a video of Gio Ponti’s winning debut. Ryan died 26 days later, at age 71, leaving behind a fortune of about $2 billion. Shane Ryan, one of Ryan’s three sons, took command of the Castleton Lyons operation in Kentucky. Four days after Ryan’s death, Gio Ponti supplied a poignant tribute by winning the Bourbon Stakes at Keeneland.
Over the ensuing years, even while Gio Ponti lived in the East, Californian-based fans were especially fortunate to enjoy his work in a variety of settings. At three, he was a tough-luck second in the Del Mar Derby, then returned to wrap up the 2008 season by winning the Sir Beaufort Stakes at Santa Anita, a race taken off the soggy turf to run on the newly installed Polytrack main track.
Clement allowed his horse to linger in the West to finish fifth, beaten less than two lengths, in Strub Stakes on Polytrack, and then win the Frank E. Kilroe Mile, a G1 race at a mile on firm turf.
“I remember not only because he ran such a big race,” said Ramon Dominguez. “Between the three-eighths and the quarter pole I started working on him, because it was only a mile. I pulled my whip out, and I lost it.
“I was throwing a cross at the same time, and the whip was up in the air. Somehow I caught it, and I thank god I did, because it certainly made a difference. I just got up to beat Ventura and Garrett Gomez.”
That was the same Garrett Gomez who had to choose between Ventura and Gio Ponti in the Kilroe. Gomez got back aboard Gio Ponti to win the subsequent Manhattan Handicap at Belmont Park, but then once again he was faced with a conflicting call when it came time for the Man o’ War Stakes, also at Belmont.
Gomez chose to ride Life Is Sweet in California for John Shirreffs and Marty Wygod, leaving Dominguez to jump back into Gio Ponti’s saddle for Clement and Castleton Lyons. They won the Man o’ War drawing away, despite an agonizingly wide trip, after which the horse and rider were inseparable.
A pretty good wisecrack
The Man o’ War also prompted what Dominguez contends was a pretty good wisecrack delivered to Clement, whose highly-developed sense of humor is exposed only on special occasions.
After dismounting in the winner’s circle, Dominguez said, straight-faced: “You see, I told you he could get a mile and a half.”
Clement looked at his jockey. “The race was a mile and three-eighths,” corrected the trainer.
“I know,” Dominguez replied. “But he ran a mile and a half.”
Four months later, back at Santa Anita, the post-race banter was not quite so light-hearted. By then, Gio Ponti had given both Dominguez and Clement their first victories in the Arlington Million, followed by a grim slog through soft Belmont ground in the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic, in which Gio Ponti gave way at the end to be beaten by a horse on a 17-race losing streak in 2:41.22 for the mile and a half.
None the worse for wear, Gio Ponti arrived in California for the 2009 Breeders’ Cup in early November. Clement sensibly chose to run his star in the Classic, at a mile and a quarter on the synthetic surface, rather than the Breeders’ Cup Turf at a mile and a half.
Facing the hometown heroine
The hometown heroine Zenyatta, on a roll of 13 straight victories without ever tasting defeat, would be facing males for the first time in the Classic. Skeptics were plentiful, which explained Zenyatta’s starting price of nearly 3-1.
Arrayed in the gate against her were the winners of the Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes, Travers, Pacific Classic and Santa Anita Handicap, plus Coolmore’s Rip Van Winkle, fresh from a Sussex Stakes-Queen Elizabeth II Stakes double, and Twice Over, winner of Newmarket’s Champion Stakes for Henry Cecil.
The start was delayed because of Quality Road, winner of the Woodward Stakes at Saratoga. The colt refused to load and caused such a commotion that he was scratched from the race.
Finally, the Classic was dispatched. Dominguez angled smoothly from his number seven post to the inside and sat there, well off the pace and untroubled by traffic, for the first seven of the 10 furlongs.
With three-eighths of a mile to run, Dominguez plotted a course through the front ranks. Beneath him, Gio Ponti was answering every cue. At the three-sixteenths pole, as the field arrived in the final straight, the leade
rs Regal Ransom and Colonel John split apart directly in front of Gio Ponti. Dominguez accepted the generous offer, and shot through to take the lead.
“I thought for sure we were the winner,” Dominguez said, the bittersweet taste still lingering in his telling. “I was so disappointed. We had a dream trip; he ran so well. When I split horses, he was finishing so well that in my wildest dreams I didn’t think there was anything that could catch him from behind.”
Gio Ponti had taken a clear lead at the sixteenth pole when Dominguez caught something out of the corner of his eye. It was Zenyatta, tumbling down the middle of the track, accompanied by a crowd noise that rivaled jet engines at full throttle.
With 100 yards to run, Gio Ponti’s fine brown head was still in front, but all the momentum belonged to Zenyatta. At the finish, her winning margin was a length.
“I was very proud of my horse,” said a resigned Dominguez. “It took a filly for the ages to beat him that day.”
Twin champion
Gio Ponti’s effort in the face of the unbeatable Zenyatta was doubly rewarded when it came time to present the Eclipse Awards for 2009. He was, without question, the champion male on grass.
Voters also chose him as their champion all-around older male, given that his only challenger for the honor was Quality Road, who failed to answer the bell for the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
The Classic also left a residue that presented his trainer with an ongoing challenge. “He was always a bit more anxious than a normal horse, mentally weaker than I would have liked,” Clement said.
“I always wanted to get him wherever he was going to run at least the week before,” he went on. “Then he became much worse after the Classic. He never settled well at the gate after that and required a lot of schooling. I trace that to the way they fought with Quality Road behind the gate that day. I believe it scared him.”
Clement’s concerns over Gio Ponti’s mental state did nothing to curb the trainer’s ambition. Over the next two seasons, the Gio Ponti show went twice to Dubai for the World Cup (finishing fourth and fifth while beaten less than two lengths), won another Man o’ War at Belmont, just missed for a second Arlington Million, and finished second in the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Mile to yet another filly of a lifetime, the French-trained Goldikova.
Final fling
Gio Ponti’s final victory came in the 2010 Shadwell Turf Mile at Keeneland, much to the delight of Shane Ryan and a local cohort of friends. That race helped clinch a second Eclipse Award for Gio Ponti as champion male turf horse.
“Shane Ryan really enjoyed him,” Clement said. “He would bring a lot of friends to share the horse and see him run. That made it enjoyable for everyone.”
Gio Ponti ran for the last time in the 2011 Arlington Million. Godolphin’s Capo Blanco, two years younger, was the hot horse of the summer season, but Gio Ponti gave him a run to finish second once again. Only John Henry, with two wins and a second in three appearances, could boast a better record in the Million.
“We never ducked anyone,” Clement said. “He lasted at the top level for four years, and you cannot say that about too many horses. On top of that he was a lot of fun. And but for those two great mares – Zenyatta and Goldikova – who knows how he would be talked about today?”
Just like his sire, the best of the Gio Ponti’s offspring populate a variety of divisions. Drefong was a champion who won the Breeders’ Cup Sprint on the dirt at Santa Anita. Sir Dudley Digges won the 10-furlong Queen’s Plate on the Tapeta course at Woodbine. Gucci Factor won a memorable running of the historic Poker Stakes at Belmont Park at a mile on grass for Castleton Lyons and Clement.
Apart from Gio Ponti, the farm has had a good run the last several years as the breeder of Gormley, winner of the Santa Anita Derby, and Chi Town Lady, who carried the Castleton colors to victory in the 2022 Test Stakes. Cyclone Mischief, another product of the farm, was third to division leaders Forte and Mage in this year's Florida Derby.
Doing well for his age
Today, a dozen years after his retirement, 18-year-old Gio Ponti still resides at Castleton Lyons. “He’s doing very well for his age,” said Pat Hayes, the farm’s general manager.
“Physically, everything is great. He’s quiet in the breeding shed, obviously. Had but a handful of mares this year. He’s very regimented, so we keep him to the same schedule all the time. He goes out in the morning at 7.15, then he’s back inside about 1.30, and if you get off his schedule he’ll let you know.”
It would have been a tall order, but Gio Ponti was not nearly the stallion that he was as a racehorse. In many cases, market forces end up sending such a stud to faraway places, where the the cachet of ‘Eclipse Award champion’ can appeal to a fresh audience of breeders.
“We’ve had a lot of offers to sell him to different countries, even over the last couple of years,” Hayes said. “But Shane Ryan said, ‘Absolutely not. He’s given us so much, he’s going to live out his days at Castleton.’ That’s the right way to do it.”
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