Diversify at Old Friends at Cabin Creek on July 29. Susie Raisher photo.
By Teresa Genaro
New York lost one of its more storied racehorses on June 27, when New York-bred Commentator was euthanized as a result of long-term complications from Potomac horse fever. His death stunned those closest to him.
“We thought he was going to be OK,” said JoAnn Pepper, who with her husband Mark owns and manages Old Friends at Cabin Creek, where Commentator has lived since 2016. From 2009 to 2016, he lived at Old Friends in Georgetown, KY. “He was a fighter, and he was doing so great. He beat the Potomac horse fever, and he basically beat an abscess and laminitis. But the abscess affected his joint, and he couldn’t recover.”
In 2008, Commentator joined the great Kelso and Discovery as the only multiple winners of the Whitney at Saratoga Race Course. He won the race for the first time in 2005, opening up a five-length lead on odds-on favorite St. Liam, who would go on to win that year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic and earn Champion Older Horse and Horse of the Year honors. That five-length lead disappeared at the wire, but Commentator held on to win by a neck.
Three years later, the chestnut gelding was back at Saratoga for the Whitney, and back in the winner’s circle, this time prevailing by 4 3/4 lengths. He tried again the following year, too, finishing third by three lengths in his final start.
Commentator was bred by Michael Martinez, foaled at Blue Stone Farm, and owned throughout his career by Tracy Farmer, who paid $135,000 for him as a yearling. He began his racing career at age 3 and it ended when he was 8. Gelded as a juvenile because, as his trainer Nick Zito put it, “he was a wild horse,” Farmer opted to send him to Kentucky’s Old Friends.
A decade after Commentator arrived at Old Friends, he was joined by fellow New York-bred winner Diversify, who earned his own Whitney win in 2018. Trained by the late Rick Violette, who had been in treatment for cancer for several years, Diversify won the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup in 2017, and two months before he ran in the Whitney, he won the Commentator Stakes by a nose at Belmont Park on New York-bred Showcase Day.
The day of Diversify’s Whitney was one of weather extremes; as the horses walked in the paddock before the race, the skies opened and a deluge drenched everyone unable to take cover. After a delay of 40 minutes, the clouds parted, the sun came out, and, apparently unfazed by
Commentator’s grave at Old Friends at Cabin Creek. The plaque reads, “…The earth sings where he touches it… He is pure air and fire… He is indeed a horse…” Susie Raisher photo.
the change in routine, Diversify led wire to wire for a 3 1/2-length win, walking back to the winner’s circle with a rainbow arcing over the eastern end of the track.
He’d race once more, finishing fifth in that year’s Jockey Club Gold Cup, and the Whitney was the final stakes win for Violette, who died on Oct. 21in 2018.
Bred by Fred W. Hertrich III & John D. Fielding and foaled at Majestic View Farms, Diversify was purchased by Maverick Racing, the buying entity WinStar Farm, for $150,000 at the 2014 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale of preferred New York-breds. He raced twice for WinStar, winning both starts, before being sold at the 2016 Keeneland breeding stock sale for $210,000 to Lauren and Ralph Evans, a father-daughter team that owned Diversify until his retirement.
In his 16-race career, Diversity won 10 times and earned $1.9 million. A gelding like Commentator with no stud career ahead of him, he lived for six years at Old Friends in Kentucky, then, like Commentator, he came home to New York, arriving at Cabin Creek on July 28.
Commentator was voted New York-bred Horse of the Year and Champion Older Male in 2005 and 2008, honors that went to Diversify in 2018.
“The Whitney connection, and he won the Commentator Stakes…it just seems like Diversify is supposed to be here,” said Pepper.
Old Friends at Cabin Creek is hosting its annual fundraiser on Sunday, Aug. 3. A cocktail party and silent auction, it will be held at the Marriott Excelsior Springs Event Center, 11 Excelsior Avenue in Saratoga Springs, at 6:30pm.
You can find more information and purchase tickets here.
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