AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2006 > April > 15 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USEven the governor takes in the Steeplechase
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Kingston — For 40 years horses had been jumping brush fences in the interest of improving speech around Atlanta, and rarely did this pastoral scene attract the interest of our governors. This time, it did. This time the governor even came, he spoke, and Sonny Perdue presented the winner’s trophy to a fellow who was in a state of sweaty exhiliration, he so unexpectedly found himself in the winner’s nook.
“We really thought we were over our head,” Carl Gessler Jr. said. His six-year-old jumper named Quem se Atreve — consult your Portuguese translator — had taken the lead in this two-mile Atlanta Steeplechase feature and stubbornly refused to give it up. “He had just broken his maiden at Camden two weeks ago, and we had tried jumping after he was such a failure on the flat track,” Gessler continued, his face a-glow with flecks of perspiration.
The Georgia Cup is a Grade II race, sponsored by Coca-Cola, in this world of the hurdling horse, a refuge for thoroughbreds who don’t run fast enough. That was the case of Quem se Atreve, who at one time was one of the most promising three-year-olds in Brazil. Gessler, a Huntsville, Ala., businessman who grew up amid the fragrance of the barn area at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas, commissioned his purchase along with some other thoroughbreds through Ken McPeek, the trainer who won the biggest Belmont upset in history with another Brazilian import, Sarava, four years ago.
“We ran him in a flat race and he came in last, with Edgar Prado riding. We put him in another. Same result. We tried nothing but high-level jockeys, and he still never showed anything,” Gessler said. He had only raced on the flats, and failed miserably, and he was puzzled. What next? “Maybe he wants to jump over something,” McPeak told Gessler. So they gave him the chance, called Jack Fisher, a friend who trains jumpers, and Quem se Atreve went back to school again. Now he has won two races in a row, both worth $45,000 of $75,000 purses, and Gessler, who operates at Sarah Lyn Stable, was so excited he didn’t know how much he’d won. Two entries shared the most attention — Mixed Up, trained by the leading trainer in steeplechase, Jonathan Sheppard, and winner of an undercard event here last year, and Mauritania, a 9-year-old campaigner. Mixed Up finished second by half a length, but Mauritania was out of the money. Quem se Atreve seemingly had directed his career onto another course, exciting to all his connections, Jack Fisher, his Irish jockey Paddy Young, and all the Gesslers.
It was another grand day in this elbow of the Etowah River, sunny with a freshening wind. Big band music blaring out over the acreage, followed by the skirling of bagpipes. The governor’s helicopter was late arriving, but he joined in the festivities with gubernatorial zeal.
It is a sadness that this happens only once a year in our territory. It is major in the hearts of horse lovers, but actually this is just another stop on the second-level circuit of the National Steeplechase Association, which opened in South Florida in early March. The tour continued on into South Carolina, now Georgia and next week in Kentucky. Several leading jumpers tested the hedges in Camden and Aiken, then headed on to Keeneland to ready up for the $150,000 Royal Chase next week, bypassing Atlanta. The total purse here, in this 41st meeting, was $165,000 for six races.
But so much for the fiscal details of a glowing day devoted to an ancient sport and to Atlanta Speech School. This broadland of meadow and grassy hillside is some 75 miles north of Atlanta, totally involved in its own wilderness, but some 20,000 spirited sportspeople annually find their way here for the good air, the picnicking and the sight, uncommon around our state, of horses leaping gleefully over hedges. There were three spills, but no injuries.
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By Stephen Smith
April 16, 2006 10:47 AM | Link to this
Thanks again Furman for summing up a great event. It’s nice that the Masters’ doesn’t share the same weekend as the Steeplechase, as was the case in the past. I agree that there should be more horse racing in the state but I don’t see any of our politicians taking up the cause.
By ciara papac
April 16, 2006 02:57 PM | Link to this
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