"The chance of a lifetime in a lifetime of chance." In those lyrics to his classic song "Run for the Roses," Dan Fogelberg captured an essential element of the Kentucky Derby. For two glittering moments at Churchill Downs, a three-year-old Thoroughbred is handed the unrepeatable opportunity to inscribe his or her name in the annals of racing history. Regardless of their pedigree, their background, and their prior reputation, those who successfully seize that chance of a lifetime are forever transformed. Sometimes an established star lays claim to greatness, while on other occasions, second-stringers burst from the shadows into the spotlight, or ugly ducklings become swans. In all of Derby lore, arguably no horse has experienced such a startling metamorphosis as Canonero II, who entered the starting gate in 1971 as a scorned shipper from Venezuela, and 1 1/4 miles later, streaked past the wire as an intercontinental idol.
The wildly improbable tale of Canonero is a case of truth being stranger than fiction. He was the archetypal cheap horse who overcame the staggering odds to become a champion, triumphing over the hardships and maladies that were liberally strewn in his path. In a novel twist to this familiar formula, however, Canonero also had the air of a mystery horse winging in from tropical climes, with an idiosyncratic, Spanish-speaking entourage. These two aspects of his biography fused to create a melodrama that riveted the public's attention. Canonero was hailed as a "romantic figure," the "Cinderella horse" and the "storybook horse." Ultimately, he was beloved as the "people's horse."
It could be ventured that Canonero owed his very existence to a Derby -- the famed Epsom Derby. In the 1966 edition of that English classic, his sire, *Pretendre, was sent off as the co-favorite and finished a gallant second, beaten by a neck. Among those impressed by his performance in defeat was Edward B. Benjamin of New Orleans, the owner of the third-place finisher, Black Prince II, and the eventual breeder of Canonero.
The Benjamin colors had also been sported in England by his homebred filly, Dixieland II. Although her pedigree was deliberately crafted to echo that of the great Nashua, she failed to reward Benjamin's clever breeding stratagem. Injured in transit from the United States, Dixieland was unable to race as a juvenile, and when the daughter of Nantallah finally made it to the track, she did not distinguish herself. Dixieland managed to win once from 12 starts before retiring to join the Benjamin broodmare band in Kentucky.
When looking for a suitable stallion for Dixieland's second visit to the breeding shed, Benjamin fixed upon the recently imported Pretendre, who was just entering stud in the spring of 1967. The embodiment of stamina-laden European blood, Pretendre had himself been bred by Princess Mary, the late Princess Royal, sister of King George VI and aunt of the reigning Queen Elizabeth II. With the benefit of hindsight, the Pretendre-Dixieland match might have been billed as a transatlantic union of classic influences.
At the time, however, no one -- not even Benjamin -- had the slightest inkling that the embryonic Canonero would be worth anything at all. Indeed, Benjamin entered Dixieland in an auction when she was in foal to Pretendre. She met with a cool reception. The hard facts were that Pretendre was an unproven stallion with a foreign pedigree ill-suited to the American market, and Dixieland was a small mare from a female family that had gone ice-cold. Benjamin's agent wound up buying her back for $2,700, but her owner/breeder initially did not want her.
A few months later, Benjamin changed his mind and took her back into his ownership. When Dixieland foaled her bay colt on April 24, 1968, at the storied Claiborne Farm near Paris, Kentucky, he was Canonero's breeder of record. From the start, the colt appeared to be a dubious prospect, for his right foreleg was noticeably crooked. Years later, legendary turf writer Charles Hatton wondered if the little Dixieland had been carrying her big foal awkwardly, resulting in his skewed leg. Benjamin resolved to include him in his draft of yearlings to be sold at auction.
Because of his conformational defect, the son of Dixieland did not measure up to the exacting qualifications of the Keeneland Summer Sale, and he was instead cataloged for its Fall Sale. Even in that more forgiving environment, the bay's slanted leg, coupled with his questionable pedigree, rendered him unattractive. Standing forlorn in Keeneland's auction ring as Hip No. 224, he brought a bid of $1,200, which though paltry, was enough to take the colt home. The buyer was listed as Albert, agent, reflecting the company name of Venezuelan bloodstock merchant Luis Navas.
And so the future Derby winner left his homeland bound for South America, where he changed hands once again. Navas sold him, along with two other horses, to Pedro Baptista, the flamboyant magnate of the Venezuelan chrome industry. Perhaps picking up on the musical theme suggested by Dixieland, Baptista named the colt "Canonero," after a type of guitar-strumming singing group known for late-night serenades.
Although Baptista was his owner in fact, the crooked-legged colt did not run in his name. Instead, his official owner was Baptista's son-in-law, Edgar Caibett. A few tales have been spun around this curious fact. It was first claimed that Canonero was a wedding present from Baptista. Then the story evolved into pure superstition on the part of Baptista, who found that his horses ran much better in other people's names. A more prosaic reason, though, was that the financially strapped Baptista was staring at the possibility of bankruptcy and may have been trying to shield his assets.
The young Canonero was likewise beset with problems of his own when he arrived at the barn of horseman Juan Arias, an alumnus of the government-run school for trainers. His right hoof had split open, and he was also suffering from worms. Treatment and time gradually healed both conditions. His afflicted stomach had to be cleansed every 30 days, and he was fed a special diet, reportedly including Australian seaweed.
Under the careful tutelage of Arias, Canonero was ready to make his career debut on August 8, 1970, at La Rinconada, Venezuela's flagship racecourse in Caracas. But the latest obstacle that the Kentucky-bred had to face was the Venezuelan racing program, which did not offer contests for imported two-year-olds. According to the Southern Hemisphere racing and breeding calendar, Canonero was judged to be a three-year-old. As a result, the juvenile Canonero had no alternative but to line up against older horses that had a significant developmental edge over him.
It did not matter. His leg might have been crooked, but his heart was straight and true. In that entry-level, six-furlong event, Canonero thrashed them anyway, drawing 6 1/2 lengths clear and revealing himself as a colt of exceptional potential. Whatever his connections may have thought going into the race, they were formulating a grand strategy afterward.
Fresh off his inaugural score, Canonero was shipped to California, where he would compete against fellow two-year-olds at Del Mar, and at the same time, attract the interest of prospective buyers. It was at the seaside track that the Roman numeral "II" was affixed to his official name to set him apart from another Canonero, foaled in 1956, who had already raced in North America. Although the newly christened colt did not win either of his California outings, he performed creditably. A rallying third in an allowance, he also closed mildly to grab fifth in the Del Mar Futurity.
Canonero's sojourn had not gone unnoticed. He had caught the sharp eye of future Hall of Fame trainer Charlie Whittingham, who was seriously considering purchasing him on behalf of Mary Jones. Whittingham and Jones were already teaming up successfully with the Chilean-bred *Cougar II, and they were no strangers to the merits of South American products. Canonero's handlers could not speak English well enough to negotiate, however, and a definite price was not forthcoming. Whittingham dropped the matter, and the colt's "lifetime of chance" took another turn.
Returned to Venezuela, the Arias pupil climbed the next two rungs of the class ladder by winning a pair of sprints at La Rinconada. Canonero was then assigned a practically impossible task, stretching out to 1 1/4 miles while tackling top-level older rivals in the Clasico Prensa Nacional, on February 7, 1971. It was all too much for the colt, who wound up 11th in a 12-horse field. Canonero dropped back down to lesser competition, with predictably better results. Still racing against older horses, he won three times, including once at 1 1/4 miles, and placed third in the other three outings of his busy campaign.
Gradually, the Baptista colt was working his way up the Venezuelan rankings, but he was still a long way from the top in his adopted country, and he could not boast of any noteworthy accomplishments. Hence, when Baptista decided to aim Canonero for the Kentucky Derby, fellow Venezuelans thought that he was overreaching. Undeterred, in February he nominated him to the Triple Crown -- the Kentucky Derby, Preakness S. and Belmont S.
As with everything else involving Canonero, the nomination process was an outlandish story in itself. The general manager of Pimlico, Charles "Chick" Lang, was in Miami on a recruiting mission, drumming up Preakness nominations, when he received a phone call from a man with a Spanish accent. The caller wanted to nominate an unknown colt named Canonero, and Lang thought that his buddies were playing one of their practical jokes on him again.
"When he said his name was Baptista, I kept thinking of the guy
that Castro had removed from power in Cuba (Batista) and thought someone
was pulling my leg,"
Lang later recalled.
Lang almost didn't follow through when his associates could not confirm the horse's identity. On the off chance that the call was legitimate, though, he forwarded the nomination to his Pimlico office, as well as to Churchill Downs and Belmont Park. So began the far-fetched Triple Crown odyssey of Canonero.
Like a postmodern Odysseus, Canonero encountered a series of travails as he made his way back home to Kentucky for his seemingly hopeless tilt at the Derby. Apparently, he inherited the propensity for travel nightmares from Dixieland. Accounts differ on the details of the exhausting trek northward, but all agree that the ordeal took its toll on the colt within two weeks of the Derby. The first two times he took off from Caracas, the plane had to circle right back to the airport, once because of fire in an engine, the other because of unspecified mechanical problems. Canonero boarded a third flight, which happened to be ferrying chickens and ducks. That plane made it to Miami, but the irritating cackle of the fowl drove him to distraction and made his flying experience miserable.
Canonero's troubled journey continued after he touched down. First, he did not have the medical certificate required to enter the United States. Some sources maintain that the colt was therefore stuck on the hot plane, parked beneath the unrelenting Miami sun, for 12 hours before he was allowed to walk off, verging on a state of dehydration. Regardless of that particular claim, it is a well established fact that Canonero endured a draining time during the several days he spent on the ground in quarantine. Because his blood samples had not been sent ahead of time, he had to stay there, cooped up in his tiny stall without being able to exercise, until his test results came back.
After at last clearing the quarantine hurdles, his rough travel was not yet over. He was then loaded onto a van for a 24-hour ride to Louisville, Kentucky. When the van pulled up to the gate at Churchill Downs, his handlers -- including Arias -- could not communicate with the security guards in English, and they were momentarily not allowed onto the grounds. Finally, the language barrier was surmounted, and a depleted Canonero bedded down on April 24, 1971, his third birthday.
Just one week before the greatest challenge of his life, the colt had lost about 70 pounds. Arias, who had formed a deep bond with Canonero, knew what his pupil needed to regain his strength. If the term had been in common currency at the time, Arias would have been called a "horse whisperer." He lavished affection upon Canonero, and he literally listened to what the colt was telling him, whether he wanted to go to the track that day or not, or what kind of exercise he felt like doing.
"I find that you must treat horses like women, speaking softly to them, and knowing when to give them love pats," Arias said through an interpreter.
One amused reporter observed that Arias "does everything but chew his food for him."
Ever attentive to Canonero's wishes, Arias prescribed walks and leisurely gallops, occasionally without a saddle, in the lead-up to the Derby. North American horsemen, and the denizens of the press box, had never heard of this Venezuelan shipper, and when they saw him training in such an apparently primitive manner, they did not hide their contempt.
"Look at that boy -- he looks like Wyatt Earp," one critic said of the bareback technique.
When Canonero sauntered a half-mile in a slow :53 4/5, the mockery continued.
"Those South Americans have gone loco," another wag said. "Surely they don't think they can win the Derby with that thing."
The implication was that Arias, a Venezuelan of African heritage, did not know how to prepare a horse for the Derby. In fact, his bay colt was blossoming. He regained much of the weight he had lost in shipping, and his coat was beginning to gleam. But the other horsemen did not take notice.
"They made me feel like I was at the Derby to be a clown," Arias said. "They made fun of us at parties. Here in the United States, the trainers think they know everything, and that we trainers from other parts are supposed to be here to learn."
It was the scoffers who did not know what Arias had up his sleeve. In the wee hours of Friday morning, under a cloak of darkness and away from prying eyes, Canonero took to the track under saddle and promptly drilled three furlongs in sharp time. The secret workout, clocked in the vicinity of :35, was not divulged for two years.
While the press disparaged the obscure South American shipper, and his eccentric trainer, they were struggling to come to grips with a muddled Derby picture. The prohibitive favorite over the winter, two-year-old champion Hoist the Flag, had experienced the gut-wrenching part of a "lifetime of chance." When exercising on March 31, he took one fateful misstep and shattered his right hind leg. His life-threatening injury was similar to the one that would befall Barbaro, but Hoist the Flag's outcome was happier. He was eventually saved and became a successful stallion. As Hoist the Flag battled for his life, his sudden absence left a void in the three-year-old division which had yet to be filled. No clear leader had emerged in his wake.
Because the 97th Derby appeared to be up for grabs, 21 horses were entered, prompting the racing intelligentsia to argue about the merits of restricting the size of the field in the future to keep the riff-raff out. Canonero, the joke of the backstretch and the press box alike, appeared to be "Exhibit A" in this regard. Arias was not even extended the courtesy of an invitation to the annual Derby trainers' dinner.
As it turned out, one entrant wound up scratching, leaving a boisterous field of 20 glory-hunters for the May 1 classic. That number exceeded the parameters of the wagering system, so the six least fancied runners were lumped together into one single betting interest, known as the mutuel field. Of course Canonero, a complete non-entity, was among this sextet. Information about his Venezuelan race record was patchy, and his past performances included the bewildering line, "Missing data unavailable at this time." For those who took the trouble to glance at the data that was there, they would have noticed that Canonero was the only runner proven at the Derby distance of 1 1/4 miles.
The Churchill paddock could not accommodate all 20 Derby starters at once. Several horses, including Canonero, were saddled early and then cleared out to make room for the more highly regarded contenders. As a result, Canonero did not even have the honor of a nameplate identifying him in the paddock. Arias was too overcome with the emotion of the moment to tighten up the girth, leaving that duty to Jose Rodriguez, a Puerto Rican-born, Louisville-based horseman who was helping the Venezuelan contingent.
Neither Canonero's official owner, Caibett, nor his real owner, Baptista, made the trip from Caracas, but his jockey, Gustavo Avila, did. A premier rider in Venezuela, Avila was nicknamed "The Monster" in recognition of his penchant for bringing home longshots. Canonero would surely have been a longshot in the Run for the Roses had he been an individual wagering interest. By virtue of his inclusion in the mutuel field, his odds dipped to 8.70-1.
As he was loaded into the starting gate for his "chance of a lifetime," Canonero was briefly blindfolded to make sure that he went in smoothly. At the break, Canonero did not get away quickly, and Avila was content to let him gallop near the rear of the field. After the opening quarter-mile, he was racing in 16th. The colt had clear sailing on the outside, but he was also losing ground by traveling three wide on the first turn. He actually lost position on the backstretch. After a half-mile, Canonero was 20 lengths behind the leader, with only two horses astern of him.
On the far turn, Canonero picked up the tempo. Avila swung him out even wider to keep him out of traffic, and he rapidly circled the field, vaulting from 15th into fourth in the span of a mere quarter-mile. At the top of the stretch, the $1,200 yearling purchase, with the crooked-legged, ungainly stride, was reeling in the pride of the Bluegrass. Canonero kept up his relentless rhythm down the center of the track, and despite gradually drifting to his left inside the final sixteenth, he kicked 3 3/4 lengths clear. As he flashed by, he sent 123,284 spectators, a then-record for the Derby, scurrying through their programs to identify the horse with the number 15 saddlecloth.
"Canonero the Second? Who the hell was Canonero the First?" cried an incredulous journalist, who was not alone in his disbelief.
"It's the mystery horse," Lang exclaimed. "I can't believe it. This is like a fairy tale."
Then, remembering that mysterious nominator back in February, Lang mused, "What if I had just hung up and forgotten about that phone call?"
Another member of the Derby crowd had a more personal memory of the colt. Carter Thornton, who had prepped him as a yearling for the Keeneland sale, reported his view of the scene.
"I saw him in the paddock today, and he still looked crooked in front," Thornton said. "But in the next two minutes or so, it must have straightened out some, because he sure looked all right in the winner's circle."
Benjamin's reaction invoked the storybook theme of the 97th Derby.
"It was just like National Velvet -- but no Liz Taylor," the breeder of the Derby winner quipped.
Canonero's connections erupted in unbridled joy. As at the entrance to Churchill one week earlier, however, Arias had trouble convincing the security guards to let him into the winner's circle. Finally, a bilingual friend explained that this was the Derby-winning trainer, and Arias took his rightful place on that hallowed turf. Back in Caracas, Baptista did not believe the good news when the first congratulatory call came in, but it was not long before the celebration began.
The Venezuelan people were thrilled by the stunning success of their adopted son, and an impromptu song was created in his honor, appropriately enough, by the musicians of the Caracas street corner known as el rincon canonero. The morale boost came at an opportune time. The fledgling democracy, which had emerged from dictatorship just about a decade earlier, was dealing with May Day clashes between students and police. The country's president cabled his congratulations to Avila, while hoping that the spirit of Canonero would spill over to the political realm:
"The great victory will stimulate Venezuela's progress in all its efforts."
The real-life Cinderella story captivated the United States as well, with the glaring exception of racing pundits and rival horsemen. Excuses poured in for the beaten fancies in the Derby, with traffic woes in the 20-horse field factoring prominently. Doubts were cast upon the final time, a tepid 2:03 1/5, and the press box consensus was that Canonero could not duplicate his come-from-the-clouds heroics in the Preakness. Several commentators harped upon the fact that the Venezuelan shipper had last raced at high-altitude La Rinconada, giving him a temporary edge when he descended upon Louisville, but that advantage would wear off by the time he reached Pimlico. There were also concerns about a fever that Canonero reportedly spiked the weekend before the Preakness, and the recent extraction of two baby teeth.
Arias' training methods had not exactly won any converts, either. Despite his astute handling of the colt at Churchill, he was still the subject of stinging criticism in advance of the Preakness. Canonero's only major tune-up was a pedestrian five-furlong stroll, timed in the vicinity of 1:06.
"If I had that horse and he worked that slow, I'd put him on the first boat to South America," one trainer was quoted as saying. "He'll be last."
The voices of the racing establishment were right on one score, but not the way they had envisioned. Canonero did not repeat his Derby performance in the Preakness. Instead of charging from far off the pace as he had done at Churchill, the horse now dubbed the "Caracas Cannonball" pulled a surprise by battling for the early lead at Pimlico. Although Canonero was strumming along at a fast clip, Avila had not yet asked him to run in earnest. When he did, the Derby winner edged away to take the second jewel of the Triple Crown by 1 1/2 lengths. Moreover, he won in a track-record time of 1:54 for 1 3/16 miles, erasing the former mark set by Nashua, whose pedigree so closely mirrored that of Dixieland.
The Preakness was a ringing vindication of the Derby form. Five of Canonero's Derby victims were beaten convincingly again, notably Eastern Fleet and Jim French, who finished second and third, respectively, in the Preakness. The doubters were silenced. Canonero was unassailably the head of the three-year-old class. Although the formal voting did not take place until late in the year, he effectively wrapped up championship honors at Pimlico.
Baptista did not stay home this time, and at Baltimore, he exulted in their triumph.
"We have come up here -- two Indians and a black -- with a horse that nobody believed in, and we're destroying 300 years of American racing tradition dominated by the flower and the cream of your society," Canonero's de facto owner proclaimed.
"I have a right to be taken seriously, and so do my horse and my jockey and my people," Arias said.
His trainer lauded Canonero as "a horse of destiny" and the "champion of all the people -- black and white, rich and poor, American and Venezuelan, everyone."
The people, many of them not racing fans, embraced their hero, and excitement was at a fever pitch as Canonero eyed the Belmont, bidding to become the first Triple Crown winner since Citation in 1948. Alas, midnight was about to strike for the Cinderella horse. He developed a skin disease, with eruptions breaking out especially on his right side. He was also bothered by a case of thrush, a condition similar to athlete's foot, and had to have part of his foot cut out. Both maladies cost him training time, and reports surfaced that Arias originally did not want to run him in the Belmont because of his physical problems. Some discounted the rumor mill, since whatever was supposed to be ailing the colt at Pimlico certainly had no bearing on his record-setting Preakness victory.
Meanwhile, several parties were tendering offers to buy Canonero, and Baptista stood to reap a windfall if the colt swept the Triple Crown. The most quixotic of the prospective buyers was a group from Miami, who had public diplomacy in mind for the colt. Their proposal was to use Canonero's earnings to endow a charitable fund for the poor of South America, along the lines of President John F. Kennedy's Alliance for Progress. Whether it was a viable offer or not, it certainly tapped into the feeling of hemispheric solidarity around the Kentucky-bred, Venezuelan-based star.
Weighed down by these expectations of hemispheric proportions, Team Canonero opted to let him take his chance in the Belmont. Sports Illustrated pleaded for a change of heart, under an item labeled "Siesta, Por Favor," but its intervention was in vain. The courageous colt went straight to the early lead, but though his spirit was willing, his flesh was too weak. A newcomer to the classic scene, Pass Catcher, blew by him turning for home en route to an upset victory. His Triple Crown hopes dashed, Canonero fought on through the stretch, but he could not hold off Jim French and Bold Reason, both of whom he had previously brushed aside. The Derby and Preakness winner struggled home in fourth. The next week's cover of Sports Illustrated featured the blazing headline, "Canonero Should Not Have Run."
Even in defeat, Canonero continued to be idolized, as Hatton noted.
"If they admired the Canonero who grandstanded in the Derby then made the teletimer sing in the Preakness, they love the colt who made such a brave stand with all the dice loaded against him in the Belmont," Hatton wrote.
A cascade of fan mail poured in, and continued for more than one year. Admirers compiled scrapbooks of his Triple Crown adventures. Children named their stuffed animals after him. The Latin American community in New York cherished him as "one of us," and in South America, he was already a legend.
The rest of Canonero's tale is anticlimactic. He came out of the Belmont with an injured hock, so grotesquely swollen that it was said to be as large as a man's head, and his racing career was in jeopardy. After a flurry of negotiations, Canonero was sold to Robert Kleberg Jr. of King Ranch for $1.5 million. He was promptly transferred to trainer W.J. "Buddy" Hirsch, who announced that he would be sidelined for the rest of the year. When the hock finally returned to normal, another frustrating series of problems kept cropping up over the winter as he attempted to resume training. Hirsch found that Canonero "was plagued by just about every infirmity in the book."
Canonero was eventually able to race on as a four-year-old, but he was mired in a losing skid. In an effort to revive the old sparkle, his new connections heeded an idea put forward in the fan mail and brought back Avila to ride him. It worked just once, at least to give the Caracas Cannonball one last blaze of glory. With Avila aboard, Canonero turned in a dazzling performance in the Stymie H. at Belmont. Not only did he defeat 1972 Derby winner Riva Ridge by five lengths, but he set a new track record and equaled the American record of 1:46 1/5 for nine furlongs. Canonero faced the starter once more, finishing second to subsequent handicap champion Autobiography, and was retired when he came up lame on the morning of the Jockey Club Gold Cup, his intended swan song.
The "people's horse" was given an appropriate send-off on Canonero II Day at Aqueduct in November. After parading under silks, he was presented with a silver plaque commemorating the "magic of his name and deeds." Then he was shipped to Kentucky, where he embarked upon a stud career at Gainesway Farm. Unfortunately, Canonero was unable to transmit his endearing qualities to his offspring, and with his life coming full circle, he was once more unappealing in the land of his birth. Ironically, 12 years after he bought the crooked-legged yearling, Navas stepped in as an agent to buy the disappointing stallion, and the Venezuelan hero returned to his adopted homeland in 1981. He died in November of that year at the relatively young age of 13.
Canonero did not leave his mark genetically, but his legacy as a Cinderella horse endures. This year, his ghost has been conjured up in a special way by Peruvian superstar Tomcito, a Kentucky-bred, bargain-basement yearling who was exported to South America, and has now returned to his home state as a Derby aspirant.
As a beacon of hope, Canonero's story touches the innermost being of the sport, whose lifeblood consists of dreams. Despite crushing adversity, he seized his "chance of a lifetime," fulfilling the Derby dreams of his connections, and earning himself lasting glory. A fitting epitaph was penned by legendary turf writer Joe Hirsch, who found it ironic that Canonero's death was ascribed to a heart attack:
"Through all his life, nothing came easy for him. He was tested to the limit, time and again. He didn't pass every test, but his courage was never at fault when he missed. There was nothing wrong with Canonero's heart."
By Kellie Reilly