Remembering 'Gorgeous George' Washington

Lit by charisma and shaded by fate, the subfertile George Washington left just one foal, but 20 years after his electrifying 2,000 Guineas win his grandson Distant Storm, against considerable odds, could now follow suit

By Emma Berry 

A generous shot of brilliance and a dash of temperament, preferably neither shaken nor stirred. Are those the ingredients that make the good ones great? 

In the case of George Washington, that heady cocktail had his fans woozy throughout his first two seasons on the racecourse. Champion two-year-old, Classic winner and champion three-year-old, and then off he went to join a Coolmore roster which included Galileo and Montjeu.

The fertility gods had other ideas, however. As the realisation dawned during the early spring of 2007 that George Washington wasn't getting his mares in foal, a double shock was delivered. The colt dubbed 'Gorgeous George' would be returning to Ballydoyle to resume training and taking his place at stud was another son of Danehill, Holy Roman Emperor, who was at that time flying high in the market for the 2,000 Guineas himself. 

Though seriously compromised as a breeding prospect, George Washington was not completely infertile. He managed to 'stop' one mare, Flawlessly, a well-related daughter of Rainbow Quest owned by Italian breeder Loreto Luciani. The unique filly she produced, given the portentous name of Date With Destiny, naturally went on to cause something of a stir herself. Now, against the odds, George Washington's name is set to appear on the race card for the 2,000 Guineas two decades after his own exuberant triumph in the same race. This time it is in the role of broodmare sire via his grandson Distant Storm (Night Of Thunder).

But just what was it about George Washington, through his own star-crossed and too-short life, that ensures that he is remembered so vividly all these years later? 

For Paul Thorman, who with his wife Sara consigned George Washington to Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale, the answer is simple: “He was an extraordinary horse.”

Thorman is not one given to sentimentality. In the decades that he and Sara operated under their successful Trickledown Stud banner he saw all manner of thoroughbred come and go, from the great and good to the indifferent and downright ordinary. But the Danehill colt out of Bordighera (Alysheba) had something about him from the start. 

“He came to us still on his mum in the autumn of the year before we sold him,” Thorman remembers. “The minute he walked off the box he was special and he frightened us to death, because the paddock that we put our best colts in had a footpath going across it. It was the first time we'd ever done it but we put a padlock on the gate and I couldn't have my breakfast until I'd seen them in the morning.”

Two months after George Washington was born, his fabled sire Danehill died in a paddock accident at the age of 17. Thus, a colt from Danehill's penultimate crop out of a mare who had already produced the treble Group 1 winner Grandera (Grand Lodge) was always going to be a valuable prospect, as the Thormans were all too aware when asked by Amanda Skiffington to consign him on behalf of breeders Roy and Gretchen Jackson of Lael Stables.

“He was just a vision,” Thorman adds. “It was hugely exciting for us but hugely nerve-wracking. He was extraordinary because even out in the field people would go to the gate and he'd be standing in amongst the four yearlings and he'd walk away from them into the middle of the field on his own and almost start posing. He'd do the perfect stand-up, saying 'look at me' – and that isn't me imagining it, it happened nearly every time you went to the field.”

George Washington and Aidan O'Brien at Ballydoyle, April 2006 | Racingfotos

Thorman knew that the Jacksons would place an 800,000gns reserve on the colt, so it didn't surprise him when his price at Tattersalls surged past the million mark. What was surprising, however, was that John Ferguson, then in charge of buying for Godolphin, who raced Grandera, did not engage in the bidding.

“I was convinced that there was going to be a Coolmore-Godolphin battle for him and in fact it was the Japanese who were underbidders. Sheikh Mohammed was in the seats with John Ferguson but it was the first year of the embargo when they weren't buying [stock by] Coolmore sires.”

Trainer Kazuo Fujisawa and agent Nobutaka Tada eventually gave way to Demi O'Byrne, who secured the colt for the Coolmore team at a sale-topping 1.15 million gns in a year which, naturally, the offspring of the recently deceased Danehill dominated proceedings at Park Paddocks. And rightly so: from that penultimate crop two years later would emerge three Classic winners – George Washington, Aussie Rules and Dylan Thomas. 

Thorman recalled that George Washington has sustained a nasty cut to his leg in the weeks prior to the sale, meaning that he was bandaged while at Tattersalls.

“The only person who asked for the bandage to be taken off so he could look at it was Demi and then he asked if we could lunge him, so Sara took him into the lunge ring and he did his showing off. Demi was pretending not to look at him and when Sara walked out of the lunge ring she said 'Well, one thing's for certain, Coolmore will be buying this.'”

Even before he was named, George Washington had already hinted at the quirks for which he would become famed. In this regard he was not dissimilar to his temperamental older brother Grandera.

Thorman says, “His box was outside our house so we could see him from our kitchen window, and he was only about 30 yards from the walker. But when Sara went to take him down to the walker on the house side of the boxes he just wouldn't go, so every time we took him to the walker we had to go around the back of the boxes and then he'd walk down there perfectly happily. He was a horse you had to humour rather than bully.”

It was Aidan O'Brien who was next charged with walking the fine line of making the most of the colt's athletic potential while harnessing that tendency towards waywardness. 

“George had an unbelievably long, easy stride, but he had a very, very quirky personality, and at the start, the big thing was to get him to relax and conserve all his energy,” says the trainer.

“When you're trying to teach them to relax, if they're intelligent they can often take advantage, and he was that kind of a horse. He was super-intelligent, and he knew straight away what we were trying to do, and then obviously he played on us a little bit. He was a little bit like a spoiled child if he had an audience.”

By the time he made it to the racecourse, George Washington was quick to show that any special treatment he required at home was worth it. Surprisingly, he made his two-year-old debut at Newmarket's Guineas meeting, finishing third in the five-furlong maiden on the only occasion he would be beaten that year. Four straight wins at the Curragh ensued: from maiden to the G2 Railway Stakes and then a dual Group 1 strike in the Phoenix and the National Stakes. Softening ground at Newmarket for the Dewhurst meant that he was a late non-runner. In his absence, Sir Percy remained unbeaten when winning the Dewhurst for Marcus Tregoning, and the two best juvenile colts in Ireland and England respectively would eventually meet six months later in the Guineas.

With no prep run, George Washington returned to Newmarket on May 6, 2006 and arguably the biggest battle he had to face was with his own mind. Having acted up while being saddled, he was accompanied at the starting stalls by O'Brien who supervised a team of six handlers in encouraging the horse to load. Jumping smartly, his initial keenness was soon anchored by Kieren Fallon who had him almost hidden away at the back of the pack before allowing him to spring into contention two furlongs out. With a sprint kick so electric that he was soon out on his own in the middle of the Rowley Mile, George Washington's superiority was underlined as emphatically as his quirkiness. Pricking his ears, he veered across the track towards the far rail but still won by two and a half lengths. His runner-up was Sir Percy, who would go on to win the Derby. 

That Guineas victory began an extraordinary day for breeders Roy and Gretchen Jackson whose Barbaro would win the Kentucky Derby just hours later, but for 'George', the theatrics though were far from over. On his way in down the walkway, he planted himself, declining to return to the winner's enclosure. His trainer was again dispatched to supervise, and a new route via the pre-parade ring was decided upon. 

O'Brien says, “It was always a very fine line with him, how disciplined you had to have him, and at the same time you didn't want to over-discipline him, because you didn't want him to lose his brilliance. [The quirkiness] was part of his brilliance, I think. He was a very unusual horse.

“That day, he knew everybody was looking at him, and he just said, listen, I'm not coming back. But knowing him, if he decided not to do it, it was very difficult to get around him. Most horses would change their mind, but he had a very strong mind.”

Date With Destiny at Tattersalls as a yearling | Racingfotos

After pulling muscles when second to Araafa in the Irish 2,000 Guineas, George Washington was off the track until late August when he returned to run third in the Celebration Mile before winning the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. 

His first appearance at the Breeders' Cup on what was at the time intended to be the final start of his career saw him run sixth in the Classic behind Invasor at Churchill Downs. His second try on the dirt a year later after being returned to training would have far more tragic consequences. 

After finishing third in both the Eclipse and the Prix du Moulin of 2007, George Washington joined the Ballydoyle Breeders' Cup team for Monmouth Park, with the Classic once more his target. As that year's Preakness Stakes winner Curlin hit the wire four and a half lengths clear of Hard Spun in the slop, it was clear that George Washington was in trouble. Pulled up and dismounted by Mick Kinane, he was found to have suffered multiple fractures to his off foreleg and could not be saved. 

A once-bright light extinguished in the New Jersey gloaming, George Washington had just one chance to leave a genetic imprint, and that was confirmed three months later with the safe arrival of his daughter. As is so often seen in the creation of racehorses though, good breeding alone is no guarantee of success. It helps, of course, and Date With Destiny did her bit to keep the myth alive. 

Having initially been pinhooked by Glidawn Stud as a foal for €280,000 and resold to Julie Wood as a yearling for 320,000gns, she was trained by Richard Hannon to win on debut at two at Newbury. That would remain her only win, but a little black type was added the following year when Date With Destiny finished third in the Lingfield Oaks Trial, and she changed hands again at the end of that year, bought by Newsells Park Stud for 185,000gns.

“It was an interesting story how we bought her, because when Newsells Park first started off with Mr Jacobs, we had a mare called Flawly. She was basically the most commercial mare that we had, and the most successful,” says Newsells Park Stud manager Julian Dollar. 

“Date With Destiny is a sister to Flawly, so we were really keen to get back into the family. The fact that she was by George Washington definitely added something to the mix, and I hadn't appreciated how much it would influence things, sometimes for good reasons, because they were nice foals, and sometimes for bad reasons, because Date With Destiny had a bit of a temper, as did George.”

A combination of her unique status as George Washington's only offspring along with her career-high rating of 96 was enough to earn Date With Destiny a mating with Galileo in her first year at stud. The resultant foal, Beautiful Morning, won the G3 Royal Whip Stakes for Jon Kelly and, though she died at the age of 10, her particular line is continued through two daughters bred and owned by Lady Bamford, including last year's G3 Prix de Psyche runner-up Life Is Beautiful (Night Of Thunder).

George Washington's grandson Distant Storm | Emma Berry

Date With Destiny died two years ago following colic surgery but she made ample provision for her sire's name to continue to appear in pedigrees by foaling another five daughters among her 10 foals, two of whom remain in Newsells Park's ownership, including her final foal, a two-year-old named Date Of Destiny (Ghaiyyath). 

Could she even have produced a stallion? That chance has been greatly enhanced by the performance last year of her penultimate foal, Godolphin's Distant Storm, a €1.9 million Arqana Breeze-up Sale topper who won the G3 Tattersalls Stakes before being third in the Dewhurst, and who at the time of writing is second-favourite for the 2,000 Guineas on Saturday. 

Trained by Charlie Appleby, Distant Storm was seen out in a recent racecourse gallop on the Rowley Mile and on that morning appeared to be of a more straightforward disposition, something Dollar attributes to the addition of some Dubawi blood to the mix, through the champion sire Night Of Thunder. 

“It is extraordinary how Dubawi has that influence on temperament,” he says. “And Night Of Thunder takes it to a whole new level. We've got his son Isaac Shelby at the stud and he is just the most laid-back horse.”

Dubawi is himself already something of a wonder as the standout of that small sole crop of Dubai Millennium, whose influence is now immense. George Washington's chances of making his own mark on the breed were even slimmer but fate, which has dealt several cruel hands already in his story, could yet turn back in his favour.