royal academy proved a work of art in flesh and blood

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english triple crown, nijinsky, royal academy, tony morris, vincent o'brien

The death of Royal Academy (1987 b h by Nijinsky x Crimson Saint, by Crimson Satan) due to the infirmities of old age brought back a flood of memories. Even more to the old horse’s credit, they are all good ones.

As a Keeneland July yearling, Royal Academy was purely one of the best and most beautiful young athletes I’ve ever seen. Although he wasn’t a half-brother to Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew like record sales yearling Seattle Dancer (Nijinsky x My Charmer), who sold for $13.1 million, Royal Academy was even better looking.

Typical of the Nijinsky stock, and much like his older male-line kinsman Seattle Dancer, Royal Academy possessed great scope, but he also had finesse, presence, and flair. Yet he brought only $3.5 million. That is actually an awful lot of money; the price difference compared to the wildly expensive Seattle Dancer is due to psychological and economic factors.

One reason Royal Academy didn’t sell for more money, if reason there need be, is that the economy had already had a hiccup and was to experience a major depression due to tax-law changes that unduly affected racing and breeding, among other sectors.

Another knock on Royal Academy was that his glorious dam Crimson Saint was 18 when the colt was born, and some buyers refuse to purchase yearlings out of older mares, no matter how good the youngsters look.

Such considerations, of course, did not concern Vincent O’Brien, who had purchased Nijinsky as a yearling and trained him to win the English Triple Crown. O’Brien purchased the grand colt later named Royal Academy for $3.5 million on behalf of the Irish-based ownership group called Classic Thoroughbreds Plc.

As a racehorse, Royal Academy proved quite good. He trained up light and appeared elegant but immature at 2, when he won a maiden commandingly, then finished in the ruck for the G1 Dewhurst. That proved his only finish out of the money.

At Ballydoyle over the winter, Royal Academy filled out his generous frame and justified the high hopes held for the handsome colt. As a 3-year-old, he won three of five starts, including the G1 July Cup and G3 Tetrarch Stakes. He was also second in the Irish 2,000 Guineas and perhaps more importantly in the G1 Sprint Cup to his contemporary Dayjur (b h by Danzig x Gold Beauty, by Mr. Prospector).

Both Dayjur and Royal Academy crossed the Atlantic to participate in the 1990 Breeders’ Cup at Belmont Park, and they provided two of the most dramatic races on the card.

Dayjur, beautifully conformed and freakishly fast, was set to win the BC Sprint when he jumped a shadow near the wire and lost the race to the dead-game Safely Kept.

In the BC Mile, Royal Academy used his own finesse and his jockey Lester Piggott’s uncanny ability to read races to win the Mile by a head. Breaking from the rail, Royal Academy either broke slowly or Piggott walked him out of the gate, then the jockey deftly maneuvered the light-footed bay colt through traffic to a contending position on the outside of the field as they went down the backstretch of the turf course at Belmont.

Giving ground around the turn but not breaking his momentum, Royal Academy rallied from six lengths back at the stretch call to win and guarantee himself a premium place at stud. The significance of the colt’s speed shown against Dayjur and subsequent success at a mile in deep international company cannot be overestimated for his stallion career.

In 1990, 20 years after Nijinsky had won the Triple Crown, the great racehorse and stallion had only one son at stud who had produced first-rate results, and that was Coolmore’s Caerleon, who had sired 1990’s star English juvenile colt Generous (who was to win the Derby, Irish Derby, and King George the next season).

In a contemporary column, the highly perceptive bloodstock writer Tony Morris wrote: “There is a prejudice against Nijinsky horses, which is inevitably working against his long-term influence, but there is still time for perceptions to change. A move in his favour may well occur before long.”

The move was closer than anyone could have predicted, with Caerleon’s best season coming in 1991 and with the success of Royal Academy to follow.

[I will follow up with a separate post on the stud career of Royal Academy.]

size in racehorses

Tags

english triple crown, rock sand, size in the racehorse

How big is big enough? From a biomechanical point of view, 16.2 is plenty of height and too much for many animals, and plenty of great horses never got close to that size.

With increased size comes increased need for greater energy, slightly larger (and denser) bone to carry the increased weight, and better balance to move the horse efficiently.

Yet today, as in times past, the bigger a yearling is, the better it sells. This is apparently a human inclination, and reason is our only aid in calming the notion that bigger is better. It is nothing new.

For instance, Vigilant, in the London Sportsman of 13 June 1903, wrote:

It is surprising how people, and presumably good judges too, hanker after size in horses. A big yearling has always a better chance of making a fair price than has a medium-sized one, and in estimating the prospects of supposed Derby horses, we are constantly told that so and so has not grown, as if more growth were the be-all  and end-all of a racehorse. The truism that a good big one is better than a good little one is repeated … [with] … no suggestion of the vital fact that good big ones are extraordinarily scarce, while good little ones are pretty numerous, and unless we are well aware of this we are almost sure to go astray if we compare horses by size along and give the bigger ones indiscriminately the preference.

I am led to write on this subject by having seen so many statements that Rock Sand does not fill the eye as a Derby winner should, the meaning, as I presume, being that he has not the size and range of an Ard Patrick or an Ormonde, a Persimmon, a Galtee More, or shall we say a Jeddah.

Well, but the same people who say or write these things will also be telling us at another time that medium-sized, short-coupled horses are the most suitable for the Epsom turns and gradients, and that one like Ard Patrick, for example, would be more at home on the Town Moor at Doncaster.

The truth, however, appears to be that a good horse finds all courses pretty suitable, and that, within certain limits, the size of the animal does not make a difference. … The stable estimate of Rock Sand is that he stands 15.3, and that this is an amply sufficient height for a Derby winner, there are abundant records to prove. Taking the two successive years 1867 and 1868, we find that the Derby winners Hermit and Blue Gown were, if anything, below the 15.3 standard — indeed, I doubt if Blue Gown stood more than 15.2, and he was even shorter in his forehand than Rock Sand.

Rock Sand not only won the Derby at Epsom but also the English Triple Crown and, after his importation to the States to stand at August Belmont’s Nursery Stud for a time, sired many top-class horses, as well as the dam of Man o’ War.

Size today is much the same as it was a century ago: medium is better and yet subordinate to the quality and talent of the athlete.