Jose Santos retired today
 

the doctors advised him against riding due to the spill he took earlier this year when he broke his back.

http://sports.yahoo.com/rah/news;_yl...v=ap&type=lgns

congrats on a great career

-bt-

Thanks for all the thrills Mr Santos. Your spot in the HOF is well deserved.
Jose, Funny Cide...green patures for FC and both of you in my heart always.

The '03 Preakness is one of my favorite moments since becoming a race fan. Santos opening his hand in joy and in response to the buzzer allegation is my favorite celebration easily.

When are they going to make a jockey out of him?

Hell Santos hit Funnycide about a 1,000 times when he was going to win easy. I think he's the one that ruined Funnycide.

Santos rode a few nice winner's

oh and thanks Pillow
made my day

a guilty laugh at that pic, poor kid!

sorry to see that santos has to give up the saddle, altho i'm not surprised. hell of an injury to attempt to comeback from...

Good luck to one of my longtime favs, Jose Santos. "The pinniest pinhead of all. The pinhead of all pinheads"

Ha ha, couldn't resist that quote from P.G. Johnson in Joe McGinniss' book "The Big Horse". Its a great read.

Suzanne

Thanks for the memories and enjoy the retirement Jose.

Enjoy your retirement!

The one Santos ride I will never forget was his 1988 United Nations Handicap at Atlantic City Racecourse on Manila. Some how or another he got through a hole on the hedge that I don't think anyone else could have gotten thorugh. It was truly amazing!


My second favorite Santos memory was a picture of his wife (ugh I mean him and his wife), in the SI swimsuit edition in 2003.


Thanks for all of the memories.

Someone explain horse physiology or recovery to me in more detail. I have never understood this argument. The horse expanded energy in the Preakness regardless. So if Santos wraps up in mid stretch, that makes all the difference in the world in a race 3 weeks later?? I can't understand that. If I run a hard mile or jog an easy mile...24 hours later I feel exactly the same. I don't see how a half second slower when running that hard and fast makes one hill of beans difference in a race 3 weeks later or 5 weeks later whatever the case may be. If he were running a race 1 hour later I can see it...but to me several weeks seems to me like ample recovery time that those couple tenths of a second slower would make no difference whatsoever in his next race.

it's called selective memory.

his huge work a few days before the 12f test of champions is what cost him the tc. he was rank early in that race, and expended valuable energy that he needed in the stretch by fighting his jockey. a nice, slow work was what he needed, not one that put speed into him.

as for after, i think the lack of time away from the track and from training contributed to his up and down ways. but then again, he wasn't a picture of uniformity before the tc races. he had his good days, and his bad days. luckily for him and his connections, he linked two good days together in the span of a a couple of weeks, and came away a dual classic winner.

Jose kept beating the horse when he was already giving all he had and leading by 2 lenghts. I must assume that you have never seen the whelts on a horse after a race and if you were beat endlessly for giving all you had would you still give it a maximum effort the next time? Why beat the horse when going to win and he is not stopping? Watch the Funnycide's Preakness win and judge it for yourself.

hes a good rider and thats too bad ..but that pick is funny

I'll remember Jose most for a couple of memorable rides on the awesome Manila. He won the 1986 Turf Classic at Belmont, and then won the BC Turf at Santa Anita, defeating the 1/2 favorite Dancing Brave. In both races, Santos got him up in the final strides to win photos. I still remember Durkin's call in the BC Turf. "A masterful ride by a master..."

I thnk I saw the whip move 3 times at the most
a tap at the 1/4 pole and then is was working the reins but not the whip so much.
The video quality is so-so.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWncMnDunLE

Oh yeah, that's it, Santos ruined the horse. He hit him at least 1000 times. LMAO.

Eric

Agreed, the video quality isn't the greatest, but I don't see the whip moving much at all. Nor do I remember Funny Cide being hit numerous times, which is something I would normally notice. I have this Preakness on tape, I'll have to re-play it and see if I think Santos was overusing the whip.

And Pillow Pants, thanks so much for posting that picture. I *LOVES* that pict!! Wonder if I can buy it to add to my racing pix collection???

Now, I have a question for the trainers/trainer-types about fast workouts before a big race causing a horse to be rank, but I will have to post it in a few, as I have to go pick up a Za. You know you've moved to the country when you cannot get a pizza delivered!! Also when you have to mow your driveway, whcih I did earlier today.

Suzanne

Okay, here's the question....

Can someone explain to me how working a horse fast before a big race would make him rank? I understand that it should "sharpen" him up a bit, but does *one* super fast work make a horse rank? I am familiar with an expression about 'leaving his best work on the training track" (thats not the expression exactly maybe, but something to that effect). Now, to me, the problem with Tagg working Funny Cide so fast before the Belmont wasn't that it made him rank, but that a workout that fast so close to the big race didn't leave enough recovery time. I know that muscles are torn down with anaerboic work(like a fast work versus a long, slow gallop which is aerobic) and need time to recover and repair, which is what builds them up. And lactic acid builds up and makes the muscles sore, yadda, yadda, yadda.(okay, I don't exactly remember the whole scenario, but I get the gist)(and is "yadda" spelled with one or two d's, can't remember that either) So do you guys think the fast work so close to the Belmont made him rank, or do you think it was just too much too close to the big race?

Suzanne

i think in general, a trainer works a horse prior to a race to get him to do certain things in a race. if you constantly ask a horse for speed, speed and more speed, that's what he'll give you in his races, til he runs out of gas. so a five f work, and a very fast one, will put a horse on his toes-which is what happened with funny cide.
it's somewhat like when they take the horses to under tack shows. they drill the fast furlong into them, and then you buy the horse, and have to essentially retrain them to learn to relax. so funnys work didn't show him relax, it showed speed. so he broke fast, fought the jock (a losing proposition for the jock) expended too much needed energy fighting the jock, and then finally gets set loose-or broke loose-and then had nothing left for the finish.

I am not a trainer, nor do I play one on the internet, so I am not going to get into the nuances of training, etc. However, as many people may or may not know/remember, Funny Cide had been a bit difficult to handle. Not that he was a complete runaway or extremely aggressive, etc., but he certainly wasn't the easiest horse to handle. Post-Derby and Preakness, he was -- if not getting worse -- certainly was not getting better. I am sure many people remember all of the things Tagg (et al) was doing -- taking him out different times of the morning, before/after the break, not around a lot of other horses, jogging him the other way, and so on. Barclay Tagg is an extremely sharp horseman. This was certainly not a case of mismanagement, a poor decision, or anything of the like. The armchair and internet trainers can think differently, and truthfully, in doing so I find it incredible entertainment.

Heading into the Belmont, I was at the track everyday, mornings and afternoons. Obviously a great number of people were watching all of the contenders, specifically Funny Cide. A very common and a large %, of the qualified opinions being voiced were that the horse, during that work was unmanagable -- period. Most had said, nobody could have, nor would have been able to do anything differently. That work was not the intended plan -- and it wasn't Tagg's fault nor Jose's fault. There was no fault. It was a no win situation.

Many trainers, again, qualified opinions, some of whom have great respect for Tagg, said that the work -- that work with that horse -- was going to make the horse aggressive, perhaps unmanagable, high-strung, etc., whatever you want to call it, and that it wouldn't help the horse and where he was. The result of that work was more likely that the horse would be way too on his toes and would not be able to relax, settle, whatever you want to call it.

Be that as it may, that work would have and could have effected different horses differently.

Now, let the debate continue, without me, LOL.

Eric

Very well written. Sounds good to me. I had forgotten about the fact that Funny Cide was a little unmanageable. I was never a big fan of this horse, but I always thought Tagg did a good job with him.

i believe at the time, that a lot of the blame was placed on robin, the asst trainer--that she wasn't strong enough to handle the horse, and he got away from her in the work.

certainly not santos' fault. he did what he could in the race.



i don't remember the horse, but leading up to a big race (not sure if it was the derby, but i think it may have been) a trainer had a gal up on his horse, and she was so exhausted fighting the horse in his work that she fell off when they finished. i understand that a lot of people laughed--altho no doubt they also felt bad for a very embarrassed exercise rider!

I liked him! :D