A Blast from the Past
PHOTO BY T & T ABAHAZY
Super Diamond
Super Diamond and jockey Lafft Pincay win the grade 1 1986 Hollywood Gold Cup at Hollywood Park.
THE MANY FACETS OF A CAL-BRED STAR BY TRACY GANTZ
C
alifornia-bred Super Diamond displayed many memorable traits during his extraordinarily long and successful racing career in the 1980s. Te one people remember most, however, concerns carrots. “Tey’d always pick out the fattest carrots for him,” said Gail Gregson, whose late husband, Eddie, trained Super Diamond. “He’d crunch them in half. You didn’t give him the little ones. You dug out
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the ones that took some muscle to break.” Mark McCreary, Eddie Gregson’s assistant at the time, recalled that when he checked the gelding’s legs every morning in the stall, he went armed with plenty of sugar and carrots “the size of a bat.” Equine artist Nina Kaiser, who later sculpted the bronzes of John Henry and Zenyatta at Santa Anita, was one of Super Diamond’s exercise riders. “He wanted attention,” Kaiser said. “He was always looking for something. Tat horse could do things with carrots I’ve never known another horse to do.
CALIFORNIA THOROUGHBRED ❙ July 2020 ❙ www.ctba.com
He could take a carrot that was the size of my forearm and break it. It was really amazing.” Tat tenacity served Super Diamond well. A bull of a horse with conformation that didn’t lend itself to soundness, he overcame a host of physical ailments to return year after year. In winning major races, he defeated the likes of champion Precisionist and Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1) winner Skywalker. Eddie Gregson’s ability and patience as a trainer brought out the best in Super Diamond. Gregson gave the gelding time whenever he needed it for ailments that ranged from an ankle chip to a bowed tendon.
