all in The Sport

Speed is the name of the game in horse racing, but fame and glory usually gravitate toward those horses with the stamina to negotiate longer distances of ground in two-turn classics.

Sprinters, the horses who can generate electrifying fractions, are usually in the background, except for a handful of champions who possessed speed so dazzling it left a lasting impression on anyone who ever watched them rocket to the winner’s circle.

Housebuster was one of those brilliant sprinters.

There is no telling how high is high for trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. He just keeps climbing.

To look back is to recall that he came from his native Barbados to South Florida with two horses in 2011. He was winning his share of races in the early years, but he did not have any connections and he was not making any traction with major owners.

Exhibiting brilliance from a mile to 1 ¼ miles, and punctuated by an 8 ¼-length victory in the Nov. 5 Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic, Flightline soared to Eclipse Award heights as North America’s 2022 Horse of the Year.

Let’s talk about coronations.

No, not the one scheduled for Westminster Abbey in London late this spring, although we’ll get back to that.

This is about the coronation of a horse, already talked about before he walked off a racing surface for the final time as the latter-day Secretariat, anointed by the gurus who set such numbers as the best in the world in 2022, equal in status to Frankel.

Once again Oaklawn Park’s Southwest Stakes will offer qualifying points for the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve, only this year there will be more of them to go around.

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