FOR BUCKY

BUCKSPLASHER EUTHANIZED

There are horses who mean so much to their owners and then there was BUCKSPLASHER and his friend Noel Hickey.
A flashy chestnut son of Buckpasser, Bucksplasher helped put Hickey's Irish Acres on the map of top racehorse breeders and even provided Hickey with the best horse he ever trained.
His son BUCK'S BOY won the Breeders' Cup Turf and was one of the most exciting turf horses in North America in the 1990's.
Bucksplasher was euthanized yesterday at the age of 30 at his home in Ocala, Florida.

(Photo of BUCKSPLASHER BY BARBARA LIVINGSTON, who has MORE OLD FRIENDS out in publication now, a wonderful book of our wonderful old racehorse friends.)


Here is a story I wrote on the wonderful old guy and Mr. Hickey this past spring for the BLOOD-HORSE.

Noel Hickey has been racing and breeding horses for more than four decades and has been a leading owner, trainer and breeder in Illinois, Minnesota, Chicago and Florida.

Certainly the best horse Hickey bred was Buck’s Boy, the 1998 Breeders’ Cup Turf winner, an Eclipse Award champion and earner of $2.7 million.

And while Buck’s Boy is living out his retirement in Illinois where he was foaled, Hickey wakes up each morning at his farm in Ocala, Florida to see the aging parents of that star horse.

Bucksplasher, who turned 30 this year, is still a happy and healthy resident at Hickey’s Irish Acres Farm while only a few paddocks away, 25-year-old Molly’s Colleen, who produced Buck’s Boy in 1997, lives out her retirement.

“It’s quite unique,” said Hickey. “I don’t know of any other farm that would have both the sire and dam of an Eclipse Award winner residing there.”

The sire and dam have essentially been living together since the day Hickey purchased the graded stakes placed Bucksplasher for stud duty 25 years ago.

A flashy chestnut with lots of white markings, Bucksplasher was intriguing to Hickey because of his impeccable pedigree. The horse is by Buckpasser out of the Northern Dancer mare Victoria Star.

From the moment his first crop of foals arrived at the races, Bucksplasher was a coup for Hickey and Irish Acres.

He was the continent’s leading freshman sire by number of winners and consistently led the Florida sires lists.

Through his stud career, Bucksplasher sired almost 30 stakes winners, eight of them graded. He was known for producing tough and sturdy runners who were quite versatile.

Molly’s Colleen (Verbatim – Irish Molly, by George Royal) was foaled and raised by Irish Acres and was a winner on the track.

She produced her first foal in 1987, the Bucksplasher colt The Mass Splash, but it would be five years before she was bred to that sire again.

It was at that time, in 1993, that she produced Buck’s Boy, an average-sized, plain bay.

Sold by Hickey privately as a 2-year-old to George Bunn’s Quarter B Farm, Buck’s Boy stayed with the Hickey who trained the gelding. He won his first stakes race as a 4-year-old and finished fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Turf (gr.I-T) that year at Hollywood Park.

The next season, Buck’s Boy, a confirmed front runner, proved he was the best marathon turf runner in the world.

He won the Pan American Handicap (gr.II-T), the Turf Classic (gr.I-T) and capped off the year with a win in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Churchill Downs

As a 6-year-old, Buck’s Boy was third in the Turf, this time at Gulfstream Park. The gelding was retired as a 7-year-old with 16 wins in 30 starts.

Bucksplasher has been retired from stud duty for several years and Molly’s Colleen produced her last foal in 2003. She had five other foals after Buck’s Boy including two others by Bucksplasher.

The mare lives in a paddock close to Bucksplasher with Cherry Flare, a 20-year-old mare and dam of this year’s graded stakes winner Take d’Tour.

Much like the 79-year-old Hickey himself, Bucksplasher has always had a young appearance about him.

“He looked very spritely and healthy out there,” said Hickey. “He has always been a nice stallion a very kind and a very happy fellow.”

While ‘Bucky’ goes in to the barn at night, Molly’s Colleen lives as a pensioner outdoors.

“Molly’s Colleen is showing her age a bit. She stays out all day with her retired lady friend.”

VICTORIAN QUEEN - champion on and off track

The 1975 champion older mare and champion grass horse in Canada, VICTORIAN QUEEN, will be honoured with an Ontario sired stakes tonight at Woodbine.

Owned by Grovetree Farms and trained by Gil Robillard, VICTORIAN QUEEN (Victoria Park-Willowfield) was stakes placed many times as a 3yo but her best season was at 4.
She won two stakes events - the Canadian and Ontario Sire Stakes - but also went south of the border and was 2nd in the Grade 2 Diana and Matron Handicaps.
She won 12 of 51 races and $188,000.

Victorian Queen was a star in the breeding shed too.
Her son JUDGE ANGELUCCI was fun to watch in 1987 and 1988. He often chased the likes of
ALYSHEBA and FERDINAND (3rd in the Breeders' Cup Classic in 1987) and was a white-faced chestnut who tried hard every time. The Judge won $1.5 million as a multiple Grade 1 winner.

Speaking of Grade 1 winners, VICTORIAN QUEEN also produced Blue Grass Stakes winner WAR and John Henrey Handicap winner PEACE. Her last foal to race was a Storm Bird filly in 1994 named Extraterrestrial - herself the dam of 4 stakes horses and big-priced yearlings that are selling these days at Keeneland.

The VICTORIAN QUEEN STAKES, worth $125,000, features stakes winner SIMPLE SISTER (Compadre) going for 2 consecutive stakes wins.
There are 3 offspring from first crop sire D'WILDCAT in the field including LADY D'WILDCAT, who won her only race for Shyman Farms and trainer Steve Roberts.


NEWSPAPERS AND HORSE RACING COVERAGE FROM BLOOD-HORSE BY PAUL MORAN Commentary: Beatdown
Date Posted: October 2, 2007
Last Updated: October 2, 2007

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The sentence was clearly spoken and went directly from the ear to a neuron in the brain responsible for the far reaches of disbelief.

“Racing is no longer a full-time beat.”

That opinion came from the sports editor at the newspaper at which I had first been employed more than 22 years before to cover racing as a full-time beat.

Six months later, Rags to Riches’ historic victory in the Belmont Stakes (gr. I) a fortnight-old and the summer meeting at Saratoga on the horizon, the same person said: “All the big races are over.”

In a completely involuntary reaction, my jaw dropped.

In retrospect, recognition of the inevitable was a more appropriate reaction than surprise. I have occupied a front-row seat from which to witness the erosion of racing’s presence in the nation’s mainstream newspapers to the point at which it is scant even in the largest markets…and I remember with great fondness a more robust era.

As a young writer who had found the job of his dreams, I met Red Smith and Jim Murray at Churchill Downs, and Pete Axthelm at Hialeah Park. When I moved from Florida to New York, Bill Leggett looked up from the corner seat of the bar at Esposito’s, almost a pilgrimage on a new guy’s first night in the big city, and said: “You’re in the right place.”

Though many immortals of racing journalism had departed before my arrival, I have enjoyed and benefited from the counsel and friendship of Joe Hirsch. I’ve shared adult beverages with Sam McCracken, Ed Schuyler, Billy Reed, Dale Austin, Jack Mann, Bob Harding, Bill Christine, and about anyone else who has covered racing for print media in the last 30 years; been a member of the pack that covered Seattle Slew, Affirmed and Alydar, and Spectacular Bid; and spent winters in Florida, summers at Saratoga, and made the odd sojourn to California, Chicago, or almost anywhere a big-time horse showed up to race.

Not so long ago, every large newspaper with a racetrack within its marketplace employed a Turf writer. Now, digest this: Five people in the whole of the United States cover racing full-time for mainstream daily newspapers. Two, Jennie Rees and Maryjean Wall, are based in Kentucky; the others are at the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and New York Post.

The decline of racing’s presence in the nation’s newspapers follows in lockstep the absence of editors from the decision-making structure who were interested in the sport at a time when racing was considered a part of the culture—something that no longer exists outside Kentucky. In my early days in New York, the paper’s publisher was an owner of horses who was regularly in attendance at the races. Four people were involved in covering racing and we were part of a large fraternity found daily in the press boxes of Aqueduct, Belmont Park, and Saratoga. Every paper in the metropolitan market was represented, the largest by more than one writer.

If the sports editor of a major newspaper in New York believes that all the big races are over in June, it is no wonder that press boxes are routinely almost vacant. A rare horse can break out of the niche and into the general media consciousness, but unless the story comes to life during the Triple Crown, it does not illuminate the radar screens in the majority of American newsrooms.

Consider the low mainstream profile of Invasor, arguably the best older horse to race in this country since Spectacular Bid, in the print media, which last took note of an older horse about 12 races into Cigar’s remarkable streak of 16 more than a decade ago.

Uninterested in responding to the changed structure of the racing marketplace, newspaper executives point to declining attendance as a measure of public indifference without taking into consideration the real size of an audience that has migrated to places off-track or online. Inevitably, the void in the mainstream has given rise to a new racing media.

The industry, in the Internet age, has already begun telling its own story on Web sites owned by National Thoroughbred Racing Association, the Breeders’ Cup, the trade media, and individual racetracks. News portals have come online to service a neglected niche. A community of bloggers has emerged and the growth of a new digital racing media remains yet in infancy.

If there is a market, it will be served.

ENJOY OPENING NIGHT OF THE N.H.L - GO LEAFS GO!!