Forty Niner

So the big question is whether the out-of-town jocks, in the heat of a $1-million battle for the GI TVG.com Haskell S., can master the instinct to reach for the whip? If any lifelong flagellants are anxious of their self-discipline, then they need only play back the 1988 running and remind themselves how Laffit Pincay, Jr. coaxed Forty Niner home, in withering heat, by a nose from Seeking the Gold. The whip is unsheathed, for sure, but so seamlessly with the horse's own efforts that the overall effect is like...

Forty Niner (Mr. Prospector--File, by Tom Rolfe), a four-time Grade I winner and champion of his generation in 1987 before becoming a sire of considerable importance, passed away Monday, May 18, in Japan due to the infirmities of old age. He had just celebrated his 35th birthday May 11. Owned and bred by Claiborne Farm and trained by Woody Stephens, Forty Niner won the 1987 GI Futurity S. and GI Champagne S. to clinch a divisional championship. A leading sophomore of 1988, Forty Niner missed by a neck to Winning...