Race Day

[Badactor]

...as a possible Kentucky Derby sire.

What do you think?

[1hooper]

Old Paul Mellon female family for decades. Why not?
Sold to Korea a couple of years ago.

[1hooper]

Looks like he'll have one of the favorites.
www.equineline.com/tdn/pedigree.cfm?tk=GP&cy=USA&rd=04/02/2022&rn=14&de=D&ref=10596731&pid=4127

[Badactor]

It warms my heart to see the name Sam Who.
I saw him win the Ancient Title @ Santa Anita.
Set the Stakes record that day.. 6f in 108 flat.
Not too many thoroughbreds are listed as black,
but I remember Sam Who as being the blackest horse
I'd ever seen at the race track. Absolutely stunning!

A few years later I saw he was entered
to run @ Los Alamitos for tag of $4,000.
I went to see him. He lost and wasn't claimed.
Kept thinking, if I had an extra four thousand bucks...
but I've never had an extra 4000 dollars,
so I wasn't able to do what I wanted to do.
I wished it for him, though. I wished someone
would claim him away from the track. He deserved better.
He deserved a nice retirement. I loved him.

Seeing his name in the pedigree sent me on a search
to see what I could find about my old friend, Sam Who.

Equibase showed Sam had been entered one more time...
another claiming race @ Los Alamitos. This time for $2,000.
He lost again but this time he was claimed.
He did not race again and I had to find out more.

I'll be back in a moment with the rest of the story...

[1hooper]

L.A. TIMES ARCHIVES
OCT. 19, 1989 12 AM PT
Sam Who sped to a four-length victory over Sunny Blossom on Wednesday in the $75,000 Ancient Title Handicap at Santa Anita’s Oak Tree meeting.

Sam Who overtook early pacesetter Sunny Blossom in the stretch and ran the rest of the distance unchallenged. Don’s Irish Melody finished 3 1/2 lengths behind Sunny Blossom.

Sam Who, carrying high weight of 120 pounds, ran 1:08 over the six-furlong distance to set a stakes record. The previous mark of 1:08 1/5 was set by Groovy in 1986.

The 4-year-old winner was ridden by Laffit Pincay and earned $46,050 for the victory before a crowd of 15,622.

Sam Who, the favorite, returned $4.20, $2.60 and $2.20. Sunny Blossom, ridden by Eddie Delahoussaye, paid $2.60 and $2.40. Don’s Irish Melody, with Alex Solis, paid $2.60.

[1hooper]

BY BILL CHRISTINE
DEC. 31, 1993 12 AM PT
TIMES STAFF WRITER
Happy birthday to all thoroughbreds, who are a year older Saturday, and in particular a loud whinny for Sam Who, the sway-backed, white-faced gelding whose life story is equal parts “My Friend Flicka” and “The Black Stallion.”

Sam Who, a 9-year-old as of midnight tonight, ended a meandering, controversial career by running next to last in a $3,000 race at Los Alamitos the night after Thanksgiving. Passed hand to hand several times as he ran 58 races since his 1987 debut at Hollywood Park, Sam Who was much in demand at the finish. Who ever heard of an 8-year-old gelding with a 12-race losing streak running for a $2,000 claiming price and having three people waiting in line to claim him?

That’s what happened at Los Alamitos on Nov. 26. Shaking the numbered pills after Sam Who’s 13th consecutive loss were a mixed bag of potential takers: Donna Davis, who is jockey Martin Pedroza’s mother-in-law; a representative of Taylor Made Farm in Nicholasville, Ky., and a fans’ group representing the “Inside Track” radio program.

Davis won the shake, but Steve Arthur, host of “Inside Track” on KGRB, asked his listeners for contributions, and enough money was raised to send Sam Who, under a two-year arrangement, to trainer Sandy Shulman’s barn.

Shulman, who claimed Sam Who for $12,500 in 1991 and saddled him about a year later for his last victory, will not subject the horse’s sore knees to any more pounding. Sam Who has become a stable pony, a role that he’s not adjusting to overnight. After seven years as a runner, all Sam Who knows is full throttle.

“He has a tendency to run off in the mornings,” Shulman said the other day. “He’s still very fresh. We’re going to have to gallop him some to take that out of him.”

Taylor Made wanted to claim Sam Who because there’s always been a soft spot for the old gelding at the Kentucky farm. “Frank Taylor is to be commended,” Sam Stevens said. “If it hadn’t been for him, this horse would have never lived.”

Stevens and another Texan, Nita Brooks, bred Sam Who by sending their broodmare, Faneuil Lass, to the English-bred stallion Lypheor. It was a difficult pregnancy, aggravated by a tendon injury that Faneuil Lass suffered on her left hind leg. To relieve the pressure on the foot, Ric Redden, a veterinarian, took an ordinary hinge from a barn door and strapped it to the mare’s leg, giving her about a 2 1/2-inch cushion for the problem hoof.

Faneuil Lass was also suffering from a shortage of oxygen, and on Sam Who’s foaling day, Feb. 1, 1985, Frank Taylor and his father, Joe, watched in horror as the newborn 100-pound colt gasped for his life.

“They didn’t think the clinic was doing the right thing by the foal,” Duncan Taylor, Frank’s brother, said Thursday.

So, the minutes-old Sam Who was rushed to another clinic, Joe Taylor carrying the oxygen bottle out to the street and Frank Taylor depositing the foal in the back seat of a car.

“Before this horse finished nursing, he had about four or five mothers,” Stevens said. “We had to geld him right away. He was ornery and playful, and I think he got studdish because of the way he had been bounced around. He acted that way for his own protection.”

Stevens and Brooks consigned Sam Who to a yearling auction but bought him back for $15,000. Sam Who was broken at San Luis Rey Downs in Bonsall, by Rod Kaufman, who was once trainer Wayne Lukas’ father-in-law. Stevens wanted to send the horse to Lukas, but Brooks preferred another trainer, Henry Moreno, and Stevens agreed.

With large hindquarters, Sam Who was built like a quarter horse, and he had been born to sprint. In 1987, he won his first start, and two years later, in the middle of a five-race winning streak, he ran three-quarters of a mile at Hollywood Park in 1:08, still the track record.

That fall, Sam Who won the Ancient Title at Santa Anita in 1:08, a stakes record, and Moreno announced that the horse would run in the $1-million Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Gulfstream Park a couple of weeks later.

Of the 70 Breeders’ Cup races run in the last 10 years, the 1989 Sprint was probably the roughest. Sam Who, the 4-1 third choice in a 13-horse field, broke from the No. 12 stall and swerved into Mr. Nickerson at the bell, causing a seven-horse chain reaction. The Wayne Lukas-trained On the Line, suffered severe leg injuries and later died.

Sam Who finished fourth, but was disqualified to last place by the stewards.

Sam Stevens, the source of the horse’s name because a wife’s friend would say, “Sam who?” when he answered the telephone, has looked at a tape of the race dozens of times.

“I think that filly (Safely Kept) outside us had as much to do with what happened as anybody,” Stevens said. “That was the only disqualification Sam Who had in his life.”

Indeed, the Daily Racing Form’s chart footnotes refer to the filly’s trip this way: "(Safely Kept) angled toward the inside after breaking in front. . . . “

The Breeders’ Cup was the start of a 19-race losing streak for Sam Who, who was blanked for more than two years. He finished in the money several times, however, and trainer Bill Spawr claimed him in 1991 for $100,000. A kidney infection prevented Sam Who from running much for Spawr.

After 11 victories, six seconds and 11 thirds, Sam Who is retiring with $470,137 in purses. The day last March when he was claimed away from Shulman for $12,500 by trainer Eric Guillot, Stevens was watching the Santa Anita program at a Las Vegas casino.

“If I had known he was running, I would have claimed him then,” Stevens said. “The fans loved this horse. I’d still like to have him back, some day.”

[Badactor]

That is so great that you found those articles, Hooper...
Donna mentioned they had done a feature piece on Sam Who
and she said I should look for it.
But let me back up a second...
Everything I know about how to research horses,
I learned from you, Jim.
I remember back in the old days, I would ask a question
and you wouldn't just give the answer...
you would point me in the direction
where I could discover the answer for myself.
Thank you for that, my friend.

So I went to pedigree query... then to Equibase,
where I found the chart for Sam's last race.
It indicated that Donna Davis claimed Sam Who for $2,000.
Then I went to Facebook and found several gals with that name...
but only one Donna had the word Horse in her bio.
I left a message asking if I had found the right Donna Davis.

About an hour and a half later the phone rang
and it was her and she was the right Donna Davis.
She was the Donna Davis who claimed Sam Who
so he wouldn't have to run anymore because
she thought he deserved better.

She told me the story of the four way Shake...
Sanford Schulman, who also wanted to retire the horse,
and two others who wanted to continue racing.

"After the claim, Sandy came to me and said
he had a place at Hollywood Park in his barn
where Sam Who would have a nice life.
He gave me $2,000 and took the horse."

We spoke affectionately of Sam Who for about 20 minutes.
She's 74 years old now and retired.

I asked if she was still involved in the game and she said yes

"I'm also a pari-mutuel teller."

Oh really, so am I! After a few minutes,
Donna said I think I know you...
and as it turns out, we worked together
at the Off Track Betting in Lake Elsinore.
We even had lunch together one afternoon.

Anyway, that was my journey searching an old friend.
And finding a new one.
The last thing Miss Davis said to me was...
"I still have his papers. I kept them so no one
could ever race him again. I loved him too."

[Badactor]

I don't recall the white face...
But I won't argue with Bill Christy.
Perhaps it was a stark contrast between
the white face and the dark dark body...
Or perhaps I'm misremembering completely.
That's possible, too.

[shoes]

What a great story. I was at that 1989 Breeder's Cup at Gulfstream (capped by the epic battle in the Classic when Sunday Silence prevailed for the 3rd time (out of 4) against Easy Goer.) I remember Safely kept winning and that there was an inquiry, but nothing else about the sprint. I do remember Sam Who because of the very memorable name.

[cherokeescot]

[Badactor]

Hip 373

[elkurzhal]

I'm not sure about Race Day as a Kentucky Derby sire, but it was a good read.

www.amazon.com/Race-Day-Spot-Maxwell-Watman/dp/1566636086