Twenty years ago this week, a field of 12 older horses lined up for
the 1991 Donn Handicap at Gulfstream Park. Then as now, it was the first
Grade 1 race of the year for the nation’s top older horses, but in 1991
it was the start of something even bigger: It was the first leg of the
inaugural American Championship Racing Series, a short-lived innovation
that may have been ahead of its time but seems well worth revisiting
now.
The ACRS, conceived and administered by Barry Weisbord, was an
attempt to organize the year’s major races for older horses leading up
to the Breeders’ Cup Classic into a coherent and meaningful series. A
bonus system offered $1.5 million to the four horses who accumulated the
most points for 1-2-3 finishes in the Donn, Santa Anita Handicap,
Oaklawn Handicap, Pimlico Special, Nassau County Handicap, Hollywood
Gold Cup, Pacific Classic, Iselin and Woodward.
A generation later, it looks like a golden year. The series attracted
consistently big fields, and what proved to be a deep division had
repeated and meaningful matchups throughout the year while
criss-crossing the country. Seven different horses won those nine
races: Farma Way (Santa Anita Handicap, Pimlico Special) and Festin
(Oaklawn, Nassau County) each won two, while Jolie’s Halo (Donn),
Marquetry (Gold Cup), Best Pal (Pacific Classic), Black Tie Affair
(Iselin) and In Excess (Woodward) each won one ACRS race in a division
that also included Unbridled, Summer Squall, Pleasant Tap, and Flying
Continental.
Farma Way won a $750,000 bonus for the best record in the series,
with $375,000 going to Festin, $225,000 to Marquetry, and $150,000 to
Jolie’s Halo. Black Tie Affair, however, won the Eclipse Awards as
champion older male and Horse of the Year for finishing his season with
five straight wins including the Breeders’ Cup Classic, where he beat a
field full of ACRS veterans including Festin, Marquetry, Unbridled,
Summer Squall, as well as the 3-year-olds Fly So Free and Strike the
Gold.
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