Seventeen years after winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic with Unbridled, trainer Carl Nafzger is trying to do it again with Street Sense.
If the colt bred and owned by Barrington’s Jim Tafel is successful Saturday at Monmouth Park, it will be an unprecedented accomplishment.
Street Sense won the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs when he defeated 19 members of his 3-year-old peer group in the spring. He also captured the summer’s most prestigious race for 3-year-olds when he took the Travers at Saratoga. This week he not only is pitted against the best members of his age group, he also is taking on outstanding older horses in America’s richest race.
In the 24-year history of the Breeders’ Cup, Sunday Silence in 1989 and Unbridled are the only horses to win the Kentucky Derby and the Classic in the same year. No 3-year-old has hit the spring, summer and fall trifecta of the Derby, Travers and Classic.
The trail Street Sense has blazed to get to Monmouth is much different from the route Unbridled took to Belmont Park in 1990.
Like Unbridled, who was bred and owned by Frances Genter, Tafel’s colt began his career as a 2-year-old at Arlington Park and ran in the Bluegrass Stakes, Kentucky Derby and Preakness as a 3-year-old.
The similarity ends there.
Street Sense was a 10-length winner of the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and was voted the national champion 2-year-old.
Unbridled didn’t compete in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, and his first stakes victory came Dec. 24 in Calder’s $56,950 What A Pleasure Stakes.
Before Unbridled finished third in the Bluegrass during his 3-year-old campaign, he was fifth in the Tropical Park Derby at Calder, third in the Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream Park and victorious in the Florida Derby.
After running second in the Preakness, Unbridled was fourth in the Belmont, the winner of an Arlington allowance race, runner-up in the Secretariat Stakes on the Arlington grass and second again in the Super Derby at Louisiana Downs.
Street Sense has had a much more restricted 3-year-old campaign. His only race before the Blue Grass was a narrow victory in the Tampa Bay Derby.
After being overtaken by Curlin deep in the stretch and losing the Preakness by a head, he didn’t run again until he went to Saratoga, where he won the Jim Dandy on July 29 and the Travers on Aug. 25.
His next and last race, the Kentucky Club Classic at Turfway Park on Sept. 29, saw him finish second to 3-year-old rival Hard Spun and well in front of the two older horses who completed the slim field of four.
“The difference with this horse and Unbridled was by not going to the Belmont, I had time to back off a bit and go to our plan for the fall,” Nafzger said.
“I started back with Unbridled in the middle of August with the easy allowance race at Arlington (which he won by 11 1/2 lengths). Then I ran him on the grass in the Secretariat to get him ready for the Super Derby (on Sept. 23), which was our prep for the Classic.
“With Street Sense, after we lost the Preakness, the Travers became our midsummer goal.”
In Nafzger’s educated opinion, this year’s Classic is as different from the Classic that Unbridled won as the routes the respective horses took to get there.
Unbridled drew the outside post position in the field of 14 — a terrible starting spot in a 1 1/4 -mile race at Belmont Park — but his opponents didn’t have credentials comparable to those of the eight horses pre-entered to take on Street Sense.
“With Unbridled we had tons of speed in front of us, and there were only a few closers in the race,” Nafzger said. “Unbridled got a clear shot on the rail and made up seven lengths from the quarter pole.
“This race Saturday is loaded. There’s [early] speed, there’s tactical speed, there are closers. I don’t think I’ve ever run against a field of this size with this much quality.”
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nmilbert@tribune.com
