A Different Kind of ‘Eclipse’ Award

by Alan Carasso

Over the last four decades, John Langemeier has plied his trade as a Thoroughbred horse trainer mostly under the radar. As in, well under the radar. In early 2010, Langemeier gave $1,000–the upset price–for a good-looking, but otherwise nondescript son of Purim at the Keeneland January sale. It was an animal the veteran horseman was familiar with, having foaled and raised him on his Spooky Hollow Racing farm off Ironworks Road in Georgetown, Kentucky. The purchase was a gamble Langemeier decided was one worth taking, and indeed, he cashed out. That gamble, a horse now named Twilight Eclipse, will carry the hopes of the United States in tomorrow’s G1 Dubai Sheema Classic at Meydan. 

Langemeier grew up in the Cincinnati area, and while in college at the University of Kentucky in the 1970s, began working with yearlings on local farms, eventually earning a job with Calumet Farm. He used that experience as a springboard to working on the racetrack with Frank Whiteley and Mack Miller before returning to college to earn a Master’s Degree in Genetics, though he continued to train even while working towards that goal. 

Langemeier, who operates Spooky Hollow with his wife Dr. Clara Fenger, was smitten with his Purim colt, a son of the Twilight Agenda mare My Twilight Dancer, almost right from the beginning. 

“When we foaled him, this particular horse was just different,” the affable Langemeier explained. “When you’re a horseman, you’re looking for differences. This particular individual was just different from day one. He was athletic as could be and from a neurologic standpoint, he was perfect as could be. He was a big, growthy foal–a big, long-legged thing–and he was so coordinated that it was mind-boggling. He literally jumped up off the ground immediately after he was foaled. He was just different, and that’s the reason we pursued him.” 

Despite the inside information he possessed, Langemeier admits that, for an outfit such as his, the decision to go after the horse was not a straight-forward one. 

“I bought him in the sale because I felt like we just had to,” the 55-year-old horseman offered. “Tom Evans had looked at him repeatedly and he always liked him and a number of horsemen I knew liked him, but from a pedigree standpoint, he really wasn’t worth a whole lot more than $1,000. At that time at that sale, there were so many people running away from horses. There were a lot of unsold horses and a lot of horses that weren’t bringing bids. People wanted out of the business. It was tough to say ‘we’re going to put another $25-35,000 into this horse to put him into training and see what the heck we’ve got.’ But I felt very strongly there were so many things that screamed at you. 

He continued, “It was a tough choice to pursue him at the sale that time. The market was falling out, and my wife and I had made a strong choice to go ahead and start racing everything. I held on to nine yearlings that year, and that’s a pretty stout statement that you’re going to change direction from what your business was. We made a confirmed effort to go ahead and race them with the idea that if any of them showed and promise and we could make a premium, then they were going to be sold.” 

And so, Twilight Eclipse joined the Langemeier racing stable at The Thoroughbred Center near Lexington. A conservative trainer by his own admission and one who never or rarely travels his horse far afield, Twilight Eclipse was put into training in earnest in late 2011. Langemeier’s confidence in his charge always remained high, and he pinpointed a 1 3/16-mile turf maiden towards the end of the 2012 Keeneland spring meet for the gelding’s debut. Langemeier doesn’t run much at the boutique meeting, much less come there with a live chance, and he was relishing the opportunity. That is until some adversity struck.

“He scoped dirty a few days before the race,” Langemeier stated. “I figured, ‘I’ve waited this long, why not a bit longer?’ It was frustrating, because I knew he needed the distance and the mile and three-sixteenths was right in his wheelhouse, but I rolled snake eyes on the deal. Then I was faced with going to Churchill or running at Indiana first time out and set him up to where maybe I could sell him. There’s no better place to go over and win a race than at Keeneland. I’ve never won all that many races over there, because I just don’t get that kind of horse.” 

Twilight Eclipse headed towards his belated unveiling with a series of steady-looking drills, the kind that don’t necessarily jump off the page at the average handicapper. The attractive bay was dispatched at odds of 13-1 first time out and rallied past six of his seven rivals to score by a length over a mile June 2. He was back on 17 days’ rest for a first-level allowance going a mile and a sixteenth and split horses late en route to a 3/4-length tally that was much more impressive than the winning margin would suggest. While obviously pleased with the results, Langemeier admits he didn’t fully appreciate the horse’s talent until after the latter effort. 

“I asked [jockey Fernando de la Cruz] what he thought and he just looked at me with the biggest smile and said, ‘John, this horse has got a future’” Langemeier recalled. “I said, ‘Really?’ and he said, ‘Did you see the gallop out?’ And that’s how he was when we breezed him. He’d always work OK–nothing that people were all over him–but what was impressive about him was he didn’t slow down to 14s and gallop out. He was still going 12s and change.” 

The ‘for sale’ sign is always out on Langemeier-owned horses, and sure enough, they came knocking on the door. 

“Every one of [the bloodstock agents] said, ‘Where was I when this horse went through the ring?’” the conditioner recollected. “He was an attractive individual, but he was a horse that didn’t tick all the boxes and he had a turfy sort of pedigree and that doesn’t sell real well.” 

The offers were coming in, but Langemeier hadn’t concluded a deal and was getting ready to send Twilight Eclipse up to Woodbine for the Toronto Cup, a turf stakes restricted to 3-year-olds at nine furlongs. But Steve Castagnola’s Kempton Bloodstock appeared on the scene with an offer from Terry Finley’s West Point Thoroughbreds. 

“I’m the kind of person who likes to make predictions and I like to be right,” Langemeier admits. “I will also stick my neck out, and I’ve been wrong before. God knows, a horse will make a fool out of you. But I told [West Point’s] Erin [Finley] that this is a really nice horse. He’s crying for a mile and a half and a mile and three-eighths.” 

Langemeier’s opinion was validated when, stretched to 12 furlongs for the first time in the 2012 GII W.L. McKnight H., Twilight Eclipse pulled away to score by 1 3/4 lengths. He won twice more over that trip last season, adding the GII Pan American S. in then world-record time and successfully defended his McKnight title when it was washed onto the Calder main track in December. 

With an eye on a trip to the Middle East, Twilight Eclipse was pointed for the 11-furlong GII Mac Diarmida S. Feb. 15. But tragedy struck Langemeier, Fenger and Spooky Hollow a week earlier when a fire raged through one of the barns on the farm. Eight horses perished in the blaze–four yearlings, two riding horses and two retired mares were among the casualties. 

“That’s was about as low as it could go. It was a very emotional thing,” Langemeier reflected. 

Following the gelding’s one-length success, representatives of West Point publicly dedicated the victory to Spooky Hollow and the horses lost. 

With those events in the not-so-distant past, Langemeier is looking forward to World Cup night. 

“I think it’s incredible. The job that Albertrani has done and the management by West Point has been pretty neat to watch from the sidelines,” he commented. “It’s a great story from my vantage point. You wish you were playing a bigger part, I guess. That’s where my heart might lie, but you know he’s in great hands and you have a lot of pride and hope that he’ll deliver. At times you have mixed emotions–I’m not going to tell you that you don’t–but by the same token, the business and the direction that my business has taken me, that’s the way I do it. You do sell quite a few of them, and that’s the model we’ve adopted.

He added, “But that being the case, I couldn’t have taken him to the heights that he’s at now. We’re based here in Kentucky, I have a small farm and that’s the way we go. There’s trade-offs involved, it’s a tough lifestyle. I’m incredibly proud of him, I don’t think there’s a day I’m not reminded of him. I’ve got him as my screen saver–a picture I took of him before he left. We foaled and raised him. He was just a neat individual from the very beginning. Did I ever dream that he would do what he’s doing now? Well, probably not. I knew he had a good shot at being a very good racehorse, but for him to participate over there now, no, I never dreamed of it.” 

And where will Langemeier and his team be at about 1:17 p.m. ET Saturday afternoon when the Sheema field is under starter’s orders? 

“Probably going through my workers after we breeze. I’ll try to bring it up on my phone, but we’ll be here just finishing up our normal day and trying to make sure we didn’t do any damage to our horses. And if we did, we’ll figure out how to fix it,” he states with a chuckle. 

Spoken like the true horseman he is.