Customer Reviews

Forego (Thoroughbred Legends)

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"My horse will never see that big red rump again," promised Forego's trainer (slightly paraphrased) after Secretariat's record-breaking 1973 Kentucky Derby. Following his fourth-place finish in that Derby, the huge bay gelding whose nickname was `Big Joe' would finish out of the money only four more times in forty-nine starts. He would go on to earn `Horse of the Year' titles in 1974, 1975, and 1976.

But `Big Joe' never did race against `Big Red' again, partly because of his trainer's promise, but also because Forego didn't really come into his best form until he was a four-year-old---the year that Secretariat retired to stud.

"Forego" is the sixth volume in the excellent `Thoroughbred Legends' series published by the Eclipse Press. This book celebrates one of modern racing's greatest weight-carriers---a hard-trying, seventeen-hand gelding who towered over his lightly weighted opposition, in spite of chronic ankle problems. `Big Joe' raced over six seasons and earned scores of loyal fans who almost always made him the favorite, no matter how much lead he had to carry under his saddle. His special nemesis, the New York racing secretary Tommy Trotter once assigned him to carry twenty-seven pounds more than his lightly regarded opposition.

Trotter's handicapping skills helped to bring about one of racing's greatest moments: "...Forego's desperate rally on the far outside to catch Honest Pleasure at the wire in the 1976 Marlboro Cup while carrying 137 pounds, eighteen more than the horse he had to run down, on a sloppy surface that Forego usually could not handle."

Like two other great Thoroughbred geldings of the latter part of the Twentieth century, Kelso and John Henry, Forego ran until he just plumb wore out, always giving his fans his formidable best. No matter that his trainer had to spend three hours a day hosing down Big Joe's sore legs. No matter that he had lost his previous race, or had to carry twelve to twenty-seven more pounds than his four-legged opponents, Forego's fans made the towering bay their betting favorite.

Hall of Fame jockey Bill Shoemaker who won the Belmont five times, the Kentucky Derby four times, and the Preakness twice on Thoroughbreds other than Forego, paid special tribute to the great heavyweight champion: "This has to be the best horse I've ever ridden."