Flatter: Arlington Million, Sword Dancer go opposite directions

A man with the word doctor in his name and a high-falutin’ title on his business card told a darkened room full of horse-racing suits last week in upstate New York that overlapping races at two tracks put as much as a 3% dent in handle.

One wonders how much he was paid to talk over everyone’s head while preaching this obvious dose of common sense to The Jockey Club.

Fair odds: Which Shug is the play in the Million?

Ah, but this is horse racing, where obvious solutions are not put into effect without skid marks of resistance. If anything, the custodians of the sport we love are more likely to double down on the problem.

Take this weekend. Two high-profile Grade 1 turf races for older horses have moved into the same space on the calendar. Something had to give in this showdown for equine talent.

For the last 10 years, the Sword Dancer was on the Travers undercard in late August at Saratoga. All but one of the winners raced in the Breeders’ Cup Turf. Flintshire and Channel Maker would graduate from the Sword Dancer and become Eclipse Award winners.

Since it came back in 2000 from a two-year hiatus, the Arlington Million has been run in early to middle August. Its 21st-century winners include champions Gio Ponti, Cape Blanco and Bricks and Mortar. Most of them went to the Breeders’ Cup in any of three divisions.

Now the New York Racing Association has moved the Sword Dancer to the very same day as the Million. While it achieved the desired goal of distancing the race from nascent, big-bucks stakes at Kentucky Downs, it still had the effect of a shot over the bow of the good ship Churchill.

While the Sword Dancer has grown into a true international destination for horses who can stay 1 1/2 miles, the 1 1/4-mile Arlington Million has eroded into a race that, according to one source, came within one vote each of the last two years from losing its Grade 1 status.

The decline and fall of Arlington Park brought with it the erosion of the Million. Churchill Downs Inc. is the easiest place to point the finger of blame, especially after it rejected the opportunity to add slot-machine revenue at the track six years ago this month. Throw in a dispute with horsemen over the purse structure, a protracted decline in handle and a little thing called COVID, and Arlington’s epitaph wrote itself before the wrecking ball hit the joint two years ago.

And so the Million became itinerant, landing in 2023 at Colonial Downs. From toddlin’ bustle to the scenic mid-Atlantic. Talk about culture shock.

Last year Nations Pride became the first winner of the Million to take part in the Breeders’ Cup since 2019. Based in England, he was part of trainer Charlie Appleby’s successful invasion of North America. Appleby won 14 of 59 races on this side of the pond last year. All those triumphs were in graded stakes. The Million was one of his five Grade 1s with five horses at five U.S. tracks.

This could have been a sign the Million was on its way back to its former glory. Its very name and its seven-digit purse might have bounced from Illinois to Virginia by way of a messy 2022 running on cow-pasture turf at Churchill, but maybe the international pipeline was running again, even if it was only a trickle.

Then the New York Racing Association decided to move the Sword Dancer. The two races are scheduled to be run Saturday only 10 minutes apart. Not that any horse ever was going to run in both races two weeks apart, but it intensify the dilemma. Rather than have Nations Pride defend his victory at Colonial, Appleby and Godolphin chose the Sword Dancer this weekend with a stretch to 12 furlongs in distance and a cutback to $750,000 in available prize money.

Once a race that attracted regular participation from Aidan O’Brien’s Coolmore stable, the best the Million could attract from Europe this year is Cairo, whose 16-race losing streak includes two Royal Ascot losses at triple-digit odds. It is noteworthy and perhaps ironic that this 5-year-old horse was cast off in the spring of 2024 by, wait for it, Aidan O’Brien and Coolmore.

Since Million day was moved to Colonial, O’Brien has not been back. It probably is nothing personal or even geographical. The drop-off in international participation is mostly logistical.

Getting from Europe to Chicago was comparatively easy. It involved a single flight to a quarantine center at Arlington. Getting to Colonial in the heart of Virginia is not necessarily easy for domestic travel let alone for overseas horses.

“They’ve got two options,” the International Racing Bureau’s Adrian Beaumont said two years ago. “They can fly from England at Stanstead to Indianapolis, then they’d (drive) Indianapolis to Churchill, where they’d do 42 hours of quarantine as normal. But then it’s a very long journey from Churchill to Colonial. The other route is to go to the Ark (animal terminal) at JFK Airport in New York, do two days there, and then another, very long, probably seven-hours-plus trip down to Colonial from there.”

It is far easier to get from over there to Saratoga, where it is a flight to JFK, two days at the Ark and then 3 1/2 hours up to the Spa. Appleby chose that for Nations Pride and El Cordobes. It is not exactly a mass equine invasion, but it feels like a sign the Sword Dancer may be passing the Million.

Chad Brown is another sign. He used to be a regular at the Million. He trained three straight winners from 2017 to 2019, the last being Bricks and Mortar on the way to becoming horse of the year. Between 2015 and 2019 he won twice in the Secretariat and in all five runnings of the Beverly D, the big undercard races that used to be Grade 1s. Brown turned Arlington Park into his megabucks ATM.

Since Million day was moved to Colonial, Brown showed up with four horses in 2023 but none since. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Beverly D and Secretariat have been reduced to Grade 2s.

Whither the Million. Integration, who finished second to Nations Pride last year, is a legitimate Grade 1 horse. It is no wonder he will be a strong favorite Saturday. This year he has finished second in the Pegasus World Cup, the Maker’s Mark Mile and the Manhattan, all Grade 1s. His stablemate Fort Washington has a couple of Grade 3 wins this year for trainer Shug McGaughey. Grand Sonata may be an overlay coming off his second to Redistricting in the United Nations (G2). If only the whole field were as good.

Mystik Dan brings a much-needed novelty. He will be only the second Kentucky Derby winner to race in the Million. Gato del Sol finished third in 1984, two years after his Derby victory. The four other horses in the Million field have combined for two graded or group wins.

With all the historic horse-racing money pouring in, Colonial Downs is very much a bull-market track. There are not very many of those anymore. As its stature grows, perhaps the Million can find its footing again, even if the Sword Dancer presents an obvious alternative for route-going turf horses.

I cannot take credit for something that might be obvious here. Keith Nelson, the Fairmount Park announcer who is my podcast colleague, suggested this week that the Million might be a byproduct of an obsession with the long ago.

“Come on, let’s move on,” he said. “Let’s try to better ourselves from the past.”

Maybe it is that simple. Reset the expectational goal posts and perhaps change the name of the race. If we were not trying to compare this Arlington Million to the previous 41, especially the 37 at Arlington Park, would this even be an issue?

Ron Flatter’s column appears Friday mornings at Horse Racing Nation. Comments below and at RonFlatterRacingPod@gmail.com are welcomed, encouraged and may be used in the feedback segment of the Ron Flatter Racing Pod, which also is posted every Friday.