‘Smarty’ overcomes dumb injury

CLARKSBURG, N.J. — Even to the untrained observer, the X-ray was far from normal. Where there should have been solid bone around the horse’s eye, instead there was a crazed swath of lines and shadows, as if someone had taken a hammer to it.

Dr. Patricia Hogan shook her head as she looked at the picture, taken the day the ambulance brought a 2-year-old racehorse named Smarty Jones to the New Jersey Equine Clinic. About 90 minutes earlier, Hogan had received an urgent call from the veterinarian at Philadelphia Park, explaining that the colt had reared up and smashed his head on an iron bar, fracturing his skull and driving his eye deep into his head.

“When he got here, the whole left side of his head was just a balloon, with really grotesque-looking pink and yellow and bloody tissue sticking out of where his eye should have been,” Hogan recalled last week at the 140-acre clinic that treats about 3,000 horses annually. “After what he looked like, to see him winning is a big thrill.”

As horrific as the accident was, it was only a detour on an improbable journey for the undefeated Smarty Jones. That path began with a murdered trainer and could end up in the winner’s circle at Churchill Downs after Saturday’s Kentucky Derby, accompanied by a $5million bonus.

“To be part of this story is just unbelievable,” said Pat Chapman, who owns Smarty Jones with her husband, Roy. “Let’s just say we’ve been very lucky the way things have turned out.”

On Feb. 28, 2001, a wine-colored colt was born on the Chapmans’ Someday Farm in Chester County, Pa., to one of their favorite broodmares, I’ll Get Along. The Chapmans, hoping for that rare combination of speed and stamina, had arranged for the breeding of the mare to the stallion Elusive Quality on the advice of their longtime trainer, Bobby Camac.

The colt was named for Pat Chapman’s mother, Mildred Jones, who was nicknamed “Smarty” by her grandparents and also had been born on a Feb.28. All was well, and the Chapmans were hoping for the best from their latest homebred.

The Chapmans’ world soon was turned inside out, however. In early December, the 60-year-old Camac and his wife were found shot to death on the back porch of their home in Oldhams Township, N.J. Camac’s stepson was charged with double murder. A trial date has not been set.

“It was a total shock, numbing,” Chapman said. “We didn’t know what to do next or who to go to.”

The Chapmans were so distraught, they all but got out of the horse business. They disbanded their breeding operation, sold off the broodmares, including I’ll Get Along, and got rid of all their horses except two: a slow 2-year-old and Smarty Jones.

In early 2002, Smarty Jones was sent as a yearling to Bridlewood Farm in Ocala, Fla., where the Chapmans always sent horses to get ready for racing. It didn’t take long for Smarty Jones to make an impression on farm manager George Isaacs.

“He kind of moved like Michael Jordan in a bridle, smooth as silk,” Isaacs said. “Good horses like that always look like they’re going slower than they are, but when you put a watch on them, they take your breath away.”

On July 16, 2003, Smarty Jones’ Florida vacation was over, and he was sent to Philadelphia Park, an unlikely haunt for a possible Derby contender. His new trainer would be John Servis, a highly respected conditioner who had been praised in the past by Camac.

“It was hard, hard for everybody,” said Servis, the son of a former jockey and West Virginia racing official. “The way I understand it, he spoke highly of me and quite a few of his clients gave me their horses.”

Just 12 days into training, misfortune struck again.

While schooling in the starting gate, the colt suddenly reared up and slammed his head on an unpadded iron bar. Blood gushed out of his nostrils. Servis figured Smarty Jones was dead.

“Picture him standing in the gate. He hits his head. All four of his legs were buckled underneath him like he was going to lay down, and his head was actually underneath him, between his legs,” Servis said. “And he was out cold. And I’m like, ’Oh my God, this horse killed himself.’ When we got him up, there was no wound, but the blood was just pouring out. Blood was everywhere.”

When Smarty Jones arrived at the clinic, Hogan’s first concern was “to figure out if he still had the eye,” she said.

An ultrasound showed the left eye was intact, though it wasn’t until the swelling subsided three days later that Hogan knew Smarty Jones hadn’t lost any vision. X-rays showed cracks in the bones around the skull and eye, but surgery was out of the question because with so many breaks “there was nothing to piece them together with,” Hogan said.

Fortunately, Smarty Jones was a model patient. They wrapped his head in cushioned bandages and called him Quasimodo; they injected medicine into eye tissue, and they sedated him. Through it all, Hogan said, Smarty never sulked or appeared down and out. In fact, he acted as if nothing had happened. “He’d stand in his stall hollering at the other horses, and he’d never miss a meal,” she said.

By Aug. 8, Smarty Jones was healing so well he was discharged to spend the next month grazing on a farm. When he finally returned to the track, Servis brought him along slowly: A walk to the track one time, a rider on his back another, an accompanying pony the next time out.

Finally, it was time to face a starting gate.

“It took about two weeks before he was comfortable, but to this day he’ll step back a little,” Servis said. “Since the accident, he’s probably been to the gate 200 times. But it’s in the back of his mind. Will he ever forget? I doubt it. It was a pretty serious injury, but he’s learned to handle it.”

Perfectly, so far. The feisty Smarty Jones, who stands a smallish 15.3 hands — “with a big heart,” Pat Chapman says — is 6-for-6 and could become the first unbeaten Derby champion since Seattle Slew in 1977.

Not bad for a horse bred in Pennsylvania, a state that has produced only one Derby winner (Lil E. Tee in 1992), a horse trained by a small-track trainer, a horse ridden by a small-track jockey in Stewart Elliott. Servis and Elliot are both preparing for their first Derby.

After Smarty’s first win, by 73/4 lengths at Philly Park on Nov.9, Servis knew he had a talented horse, “but I had no idea how talented.” Then came a 15-length romp in a race restricted to Pennsylvania breds, certainly not a true test against top-quality stock. So much for the 2-year-old campaign.

In January, it was off to New York, where Smarty Jones won the Count Fleet at Aqueduct by five lengths. Next stop, Arkansas.

“I thought that would be the easiest route we could take with him” to get to the Derby, Servis said. “It would help him to mature at his pace. I think it’s turned out to be the best move.”

Victories in the Southwest Stakes and Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park followed, but Smarty Jones still hadn’t run in a graded stake. And if more than the maximum of 20 horses entered the Derby, graded-stakes money would determine the field.

That made the $1 million Arkansas Derby, a Grade2 event April10, that much more important. Not a problem for the speedy Smarty. Leaving from the No. 11 post, Smarty Jones took the lead from Borrego entering the final turn and ran to a 1-length win. The victory puts him in line to collect a $5million “Centennial Bonus” offered by Oaklawn Park for a sweep of the Rebel, Arkansas Derby and Kentucky Derby.

After the first win, the clinic staff started a bulletin board for Smarty, and they have been adding news clippings and photos ever since. Above one winner’s circle picture, someone pushpinned their own caption: “Look at Quasimodo now!”

“We got to know him, and everyone here is rooting for him,” said Hogan, who plans to have a Derby day Smarty party. “It’s amazing he even made it to the races. But this story has so many twists, and now the horse has a chance to win the Kentucky Derby.

“How great is that?”