Gray Goblin The Galloping Recalling the life of an Oklahoma-bred legend • by Michael Cusortelli Whether in black Al Horton has fond memories of a young colt by Silver Ghost who commandeered a pasture and white or at his McAlester, Oklahoma, farm during the spring of 1992. color, the gray “He was a very aggressive young colt,” Horton recalled. “We had about 10 other babies foaled Silver Goblin the same year he was [1991], and they all grew up together in a 20-acre pasture. But I could always tell he was the leader of the pack. It was very obvious to me that he was the toughest one became a popular out there. figure at “Of course, at that time nobody could predict the success he’d have,” he added. Remington Park That strapping and precocious yearling, Silver Goblin, was eventually gelded, and what success and around the he had indeed. Following his final race on February 9, 1999, at Oaklawn Park, the flash of gray country in the retired with a record of 16 wins from 26 starts and brought a lifetime bankroll of $1,083,895 mid-1990s. back to that very same pasture in eastern Oklahoma, where he lived until his death 12 years later in 2011. To come up with Silver Goblin, Horton bred one of his homebred broodmares, the winning Zonic mare Molly O’Horton, to the winning Mr. Prospector stallion Silver Ghost. A Korean War veteran, Horton and his wife of 62 years, Lona, saw Silver Ghost win a couple of races during one of their regular visits to Oaklawn Park. 32 Southern racehorSe • JanuarY/februarY 2014 1 “Lona and I started going to Oaklawn in the early ’50s, right af- the 1 /16-mile, $300,000 Remington Park Derby (now Oklahoma ter we were married and I was discharged from the Marine Corps,” Derby) on April 9. Horton said. “It’s become an annual trip for us. I liked the way Silver His streak came to an end in the marquee event, however. After Ghost ran and the way he looked on the track, and I made the deci- stalking a quick pace set by Smilin Singin Sam, Silver Goblin lacked sion that when Molly’s racing days were over, I’d breed her to Silver his usual stretch response and finished third as the 2-5 favorite, five Ghost.” lengths behind that rival. The rest, as they say, was history. “It turned out that he bled in that race,” said Smith, a third-gener- ation horseman whose father, Paul Smith, still trains Thoroughbreds The Beginning of a Legend on the New Mexico circuit. “I never ran him on Lasix before that race With all of his success, Silver Goblin began his career less than because I’d never needed to. At that time in my career, I thought like auspiciously—he ran second to a longshot named Frosted Mug in a a lot of trainers did and still do, that you shouldn’t race a 2-year-old 5 1/2-furlong maiden special weight at Remington Park on Septem- on Lasix. ber 18, 1993. The gelding’s “We scoped him after legend actually began in all of his previous races, his next out, a mere eight and he never bled in any days later, when he was of them,” he added. “But stretched out to six fur- that day he bled.” longs and jumped in class In the eyes of Oklaho- by his trainer and Horton’s ma’s racing fans, despite nephew, Kenny Smith. Sil- that defeat, Silver Goblin ver Goblin defeated a non- had already joined the winners-of-two allowance ranks of a pair of other field by nearly nine lengths state-breds who made in 1:10.80, a quick clocking headlines around that Remington Park for a 2-year-old making just Silver Goblin’s first major stakes victory was time, Brother Brown and his second start. a 7 ½-length score in the $271,600 Mathis Clever Trevor, as Sooner That second race was Brothers Futurity at Remington Park. State racetrack legends. what made believers out of Silver Goblin’s owner and trainer. The As such, the mood of the crowd was subdued after the race. runner-up, Get Up and Shout, was a highly regarded Horton-bred Dale Day, the current director of publicity and track announcer son of the What a Pleasure stallion First Baptist. Get Up and Shout at Remington, had just begun his career at the track a few months had broken his maiden earlier that summer at Ruidoso Downs. earlier. He recalled the moment vividly. “A lot of people around me thought Get Up and Shout was the “When Silver Goblin first burst on the scene he didn’t just win, he better of the two, but it didn’t take Goblin long to prove that he was won impressively,” Day said. “He wasn’t just eking out wins by a half better,” Horton recalled. “He got in some traffic problems in his first of a length or so, he was dominant, and he did most of his running on race, like a lot of young horses do, but he closed really fast at the end the front end or close to it. He showed energy from the time the gate of it to run second.” opened, and he still had plenty left almost every time down the stretch. “Silver Goblin was in the one hole in that first race, and he broke “He’d built up a big following in the six months before the Rem- slow and they came up on top of him,” Smith remembered. “He was ington Park Derby, and after that race I remember seeing people a 2-year-old, and I think he just got intimidated on the inside part of standing on the apron of the grandstand who were visibly shaken,” he the track and couldn’t get through. added. “He was a fan favorite, and when he didn’t win—let alone win “He’d never experienced anything like that before,” added the by five or 10 lengths—people were in shock.” trainer. “Looking back now, it might have been the best thing that “That was one of the most disappointing days of my life,” Horton could’ve happened to him. It was a good learning experience.” admitted. “But I think he did well by running third after he’d bled. After his first victory at Remington, Silver Goblin put together Most horses would’ve just dropped back and quit.” a spectacular five-race win streak at the Oklahoma City track that included a pair of 2-year-old stakes in October, the Prevue and the Facing the Best in the Nation $271,600 Mathis Brothers Futurity, and a pair of 3-year-old stakes Horses don’t have vocabularies like people do, but if Silver Gob- early in 1994 with the Budweiser and Great West as local preps for lin did, the word “quit” wasn’t part of it. After the Remington Park Southern racehorSe • JanuarY/februarY 2014 33 Derby, Smith took the gelding to Oaklawn, where Smith has been Goblin in the Oaklawn Handicap, while he was giving the Oklaho- the meet’s leading trainer three times, to race on Lasix in the Grade ma-bred just one pound on the weight scale, was victory number six 1 2, $500,000 Arkansas Derby at 1 /8 miles. Silver Goblin had a three- in what eventually became a 16-race run. length lead at the head of the stretch, but he was run down late by “There’s a porch-like area at Oaklawn from where the owners and both the winner, Concern, and runner-up, Blumin Affair, who also trainers can watch their horses race,” Horton said. “I went out before happened to run second in the Remington Park Derby. the post parade of that race, and Mr. Paulson was standing next to 1 Silver Goblin’s connections decided to skip the 1 /4-mile Kentucky me. I introduced myself to him, and we visited for a while. Derby at Churchill Downs, which in those days was run just two “He asked me which horse I had in the race, and I told him,” weeks after the Arkansas Derby. Horton added. “He then showed me a straight $200 exacta ticket in “Running third in a race like the Arkansas Derby to horses which he had his horse on top and Silver Goblin second. He told me, like those was nothing to be ashamed of, but we felt we didn’t ‘This is how highly I think of your horse. This is the only bet I made have any business running him in the Kentucky Derby at a mile- on this race.’ and-a-quarter,” Horton said. “The Preakness is a little bit shorter, and “I was tickled to death about that and that Silver Goblin ran sec- we’d have five weeks to prepare for that, so that’s the race we pointed ond, because he ran a heck of a race,” continued Horton. “He outran him to.” Concern and Best Pal, and there was another horse in there, Urgent Silver Goblin ran eighth, about 12 lengths behind winner Tabasco Request (Ire), who’d earned a lot of money. There were five million- 3 Cat, in the 1 /16-mile Preak- aires in that race, and ness Stakes. And that was Goblin’s money that day the last time he tasted de- ($150,000) put him over feat during his sophomore a million.