Racing Museum and Hall of Fame Class of 2025: Smarty Jones and Controversial Omissions
photo courtesy of NYRA
The inductee list for the 2025 Class for the National Racing Museum and Hall of Fame is an odd one. None of the contemporary human nominees were selected for induction despite impeccable credentials. It continues a recent trend. Only one of the contemporary horses nominated, Smarty Jones, received enough votes for induction.
This results in the upcoming annual ceremony celebrating only one living inductee, Arther B. Hancock III, selected by Pillars of the Turf Committee along with Edwin L. Bowen and Richard Ten Broeck, who were each elected posthumously by the same committee. Trainer George H. Conway was also chosen by the Historic Review Committee posthumously. In addition, the Historic Review Committee selected two horses, Decathlon and Hermis, for induction.
Many racing people, including this writer, believe some, if not all, of the nominated contemporary trainers and one jockey nominated deserve induction. It is somewhat puzzling as to why none received the required majority vote. Speculation by one voter expressed in a letter to the editor of the Paulick Report, a racing publication, based their vote on a preference for nominees being retired prior to induction, which, in the case of trainers who often train well into their years, proves problematic.
This was painfully highlighted by the recent passing of trainer Christophe Clement, at the age of 59, who has been on the ballot numerous times without garnering the required votes. His accomplishments, as well as those of all of the other nominees this year, are stellar. In Clement’s case, he garnered more graded stakes wins than many Hall of Fame members, some of whom are quite prominent. In a career that spans decades, I would posit that retirement should not be a factor, but apparently it is with some voters.
Caton Bredar, a member of the fourteen-member Nominating Committee, expressed some surprise that none of the human nominees were selected: “Voters seem to be randomly self-limiting or changing criteria for inclusion. The instructions are clear: vote for as many candidates in each category as are deemed worthy. I would love someone to explain to me why someone like Christophe Clement is NOT Hall of Fame-worthy—or any of the candidates for that matter. To be on the ballot, each candidate must clear a very high bar. To me, it is imperative that voters treat each candidate individually and evaluate him or her on a standard set of criteria—and as if they are going to be gone tomorrow. The point of the Hall of Fame is to memorialize the accomplishments of great horses and individuals, not to wait until they are dead to do so.”
Certainly, there have been numerous significant oversights over the years (to this writer, trainer Jose Martin, who developed no less than three champions in Groovy, Wayward Lass, and Lakeville Miss, being a very notable one). It is submitted that a tweaking of the admission criteria to permit a super-majority of the Nominating Committee to induct a nominee regardless of vote total should be considered going forward.
Despite the controversy, The National Racing Museum and Hall of Fame will conduct its ceremony on Friday Aug. 2 at 10:30 a.m. at the Fasig-Tipton Sales Pavilion in Saratoga. It is open to the public and free of charge.
The most prominent inductee this year will be the horse Smarty Jones. The colt was an extremely popular horse with the public during the triple crown campaign of 2004, winning the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and then running second in the Belmont Stakes before an absolutely huge (and frightening) on-track crowd in Elmont. Clearly, Smarty Jones captured the imagination of the public with his name, his connections, and his wins across the country. But his abbreviated career of only 9 starts in two seasons, with none past the Belmont Stakes, makes his induction somewhat controversial to racing historians.
Among the human inductees, Arther B. Hancock III’s election seems well overdue. From one of Thoroughbred racing’s most influential families, he established industry-leading Stone Farm and owned or bred Kentucky Derby winners Gato del Sol, Sunday Silence, and Fusaichi Pegasus; as well as Kentucky Oaks winner Goodbye Halo. He is quite clearly a deserving entrant.