As long-time members of the National Turf Writers’ Association, we can assure you that most turf writers don’t know enough about soundness or the lack thereof to advise anyone on when a horse should be retired.   Much less complain about it and punish the connections of that horse.

How would any of them feel if Smarty Jones, who gave so very much to racing – and continues to do so – had broken down and died on the track?   For what?   So that said writers could wax eloquent about his ‘giving his all’, like Go For Wand?

We say nonsense to such thinking.   Only the horse’s vet and trainer are in a position to know when it is best to retire any horse.   And given how fragile most of our stock is today, Smarty lasted longer than most and ran all-out every step of the way.

Today, hundreds of people continue to visit him at Three Chimneys Farm near Midway, Kentucky.   He is loved and he has given to racing something that the speed figure guys and Ghostzapper supporters can’t seem to grasp.

The best part of racing is about heart. Racing needed a special horse and it got one in Smarty Jones.   Even if he is retired, his fans keep right on coming. Don’t tell us that some of them won’t be going to the races, hoping to find another special horse soon.

And don’t tell us that they won’t all be watching for Smarty’s kids when they appear on the scene. Smarty Jones was more than a racehorse, he was a phenomenon.   Not since Secretariat has a horse so utterly captured the non-racing public.

His contribution to racing on the track was more than enough to earn him a Horse of the Year title.   But it is his contribution off the track that will earn him immortality.