Blast from the Past: Super Diamond

Super Diamond

Super Diamond and jockey Lafft Pincay win the grade 1 1986 Hollywood Gold Cup at Hollywood Park.

PHOTO BY T & T ABAHAZY

THE MANY FACETS OF A CAL-BRED STAR

BY TRACY GANTZ

California-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 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. 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.

“Eddie did a superior job with him,” said McCreary. “To see how Eddie managed him was one of the primary reasons Super Diamond ran till he was 9.”

Super Diamond not only ran at age 9 but won the grade 1 San Antonio Handicap at Santa Anita that year. His 10 stakes victories include the 1986 Hollywood Gold Cup (G1) and two editions of the San Diego Handicap (G3) at Del Mar.

He won 16 of 37 starts, with fve seconds and fve thirds, for earnings of $1,469,233. Voted champion Cal-bred older male of 1986, Super Diamond retired in 1989 as the third-leading Cal

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Still going strong at age 9, Super Diamond fnds the wire frst in the grade 1 San Antonio Handicap

bred money earner of all time, behind Snow Chief and Nostalgia’s Star.

Roland Sahm bred Super Diamond from the Gaelic Dancer mare One Chicken Inn and raced him in partnership with his wife, Ramona. Te Sahms owned Del Dios Ranch in Rancho Santa Fe. Gabor Renner, manager of nearby Kentmere Farm, recommended that they breed One Chicken Inn to Pass the Glass, the sire of Super Diamond.

“I compared the two pedigrees and their conformation,” Renner said at one time. “I felt the mare needed a big, strong horse.”

Super Diamond was foaled at Kentmere Jan. 31, 1980. Te Sahms initially named him Super Chicken because of the mare’s name. When Gregson frst saw the colt on the farm, he told the Sahms that he wouldn’t train him unless they changed

Del Sol. By the end of the year, Super Diamond had added a perfect two-for-two season to the barn’s totals.

Kaiser recalled that Super Diamond was very strong, which made him “no picnic to gallop,” she said.

“He was huge and tough on himself,” Gail Gregson said. “But he loved to train.”

After his 2-year-old season, Super Diamond didn’t race again until the following July and didn’t win until the fall Oak Tree Racing Association meeting. He captured his frst stakes during the autumn Hollywood Park meeting in the Golden State Breeders Sires Stakes.

In the 1984 San Fernando Stakes (G1), Super Diamond stumbled and wrenched an ankle, which sidelined him for nearly six months. Tat summer he scored in

tational Handicap (G2) behind winner

Precisionist, a future Breeders’ Cup Sprint

(G1) winner and 1985 champion sprinter.

Te ailments kept piling up. Super

Diamond wrenched a knee in 1985, the

same year he collected his frst San Di

ego Handicap victory. Following the San

Diego, he missed the next seven months.

Dr. Greg Ferraro performced arthroscop

ic surgery, a relatively new procedure, on

the gelding, who returned for his best year

ever at age 6 in 1986.

Super Diamond strung together four

consecutive victories during that season.

After running second in the Californian

Stakes (G1) to Precisionist, Super Dia

mond won the Bel Air Handicap (G3)

against a feld that included Skywalker before defeating Precisionist in the 1 1 ⁄4-mile his name. back-to-back allowance races before runHollywood Gold Cup.

Gregson also recommended one other ning third in the Sept. 3 Del Mar InviLaft Pincay Jr., who regularly pilotmajor alteration. When ed Super Diamond, had the unbroken youngster sprained an ankle in a spill reared up and tried to two weeks before the Gold strike Gregson, the trainer Cup. suggested gelding him. “I didn’t want to quit

Tus, the horse arrived riding because I knew at Gregson’s barn as a the Gold Cup was com2-year-old gelding named ing, and I knew Super Super Diamond. Te Diamond had a chance,” “chicken” part of his name said Pincay years later. “I did sort of stick with him, knew Precisionist would however. Kaiser remembe very tough, but I knew bers that the grooms and if Super Diamond put up hotwalkers gave him the a good race I had a chance barn name of Pollo, the to win.” Spanish word for chicken. In the days between the

Tat year, 1982, Gregspill and the Gold Cup, son won the Kentucky Super Diamond’s victory in the Goodwood Handicap was one of a four stakes Pincay rode despite the Derby (G1) with Gato winning streak in 1986 pain in his ankle. He con

sulted with orthopedic surgeon Dr. Robert Kerlan, who assured him that his ankle wouldn’t break, but that it would take longer to heal if Pincay didn’t rest it.

Pincay decided to ride in the Gold Cup anyway. On the day of the race, Kerlan gave Pincay

two shots in the ankle to temporarily alleviate the pain.

“Te shots hurt like hell,” Pincay recalled. “But they helped me some.”

Herat sprinted to the lead in the Gold Cup, with Precisionist in second and Super Diamond third. Precisionist caught Herat by the time they had traveled a

Trainer Eddie Gregson and owner Ramona Sahm with the venerable Super Diamond

mile. In upper stretch Pincay pointed Super Diamond between Herat on the rail and Precisionist, and the Calbred shot through to defeat a fast-closing Alphabatim by 1 1 ⁄2 lengths, with Precisionist third.

Super Diamond completed the fourrace sweep with the Goodwood Handicap (G3) and On Trust Handicap, defeating Nostalgia’s Star in the latter. Tat earned Super Diamond the trophy as the year’s champion Cal-bred older male.

An injured check ligament kept Super Diamond away from the races until Del Mar, when he added his second San Diego. Gregson was extremely proud of Super Diamond for winning after the long layof.

“He’s not really a ft horse,” the trainer said. “He reached down and got more. Tat’s what good horses do. He’s a horse that’s got such terrible conformation that it’s surprising he ever got to the races. He’s very straight in the pasterns, and he’s run with pain a lot of his career.”

Super Diamond raced through early 1988, winning the Yankee Valor Handicap and the San Pasqual Handicap (G2) before running third in the Santa Anita Handicap (G1). It took two Kentucky Derby winners to defeat him. Four-yearold Alysheba won over 5-year-old Ferdinand by a half-length.

Ten came a layof of almost a year for a bowed tendon.

Gregson brought Super Diamond back one more time, for three graded attempts. Fourth in the 1989 San Carlos Handicap (G2), Super Diamond at age 9 captured the San Antonio Handicap (G1).

“He’s just amazing,” said Gregson after the San Antonio. “He has legs on him like a claiming horse. It’s a big thrill to have this old boy come back and show he hasn’t lost it.”

In contention for the frst part

DEL MAR PHOTO

of the 1989 Santa Anita Handicap, Super Diamond dropped back and fnished last. Te legs had fnally had enough, and Gregson and the Sahms retired him. Super Diamond enjoyed a long life, living well into his 20s. Kaiser recalls that he resided on the Sahms’ property in Rancho Santa Fe, in a large pasture on the corner of Del Dios Road and El Camino Del Norte.

“I would drive by and see him quite regularly,” said Kaiser. “In his 20s, he looked like you could put him back into training and he could go fve-eighths and you could run him. He looked so good. He had two other horses in there with him, and he was totally the ruler.”

It all came back to carrots. Kaiser brought some with her on her visits, and Super Diamond hogged them all, not letting his companions in on the treats. After all, he knew he had earned them.

Super Diamond, outside, gets up to outfnish Judge Angelucci in the 1988 San Pasqual Handicap at Santa Anita, his only stakes win in a year hampered by injury

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