Hovdey: This year's racing wars produce long casualty list

Welcome to the giddy buzz of Christmas in September – better known in racing as the Keeneland yearling sales – and its parade of colts and fillies bred like Hapsburgs and Romanovs, price-tagged and on display with bright eyes, good hearts, and untroubled shins.

In a perfect world, these beautiful babies would defy the odds and go on to great things beyond their residual value, in blissful defiance of what has become a 2018 season fraught with the loss of way too many horses who were supposed to carry the load.

Cool-headed followers of the sport are constantly aware that it takes a tough, brave Thoroughbred to stand the gaff and make it all the way to the prestigious fall, where awards and riches await. The first of many weekends filled with intoxicating sport takes place Saturday at Parx Racing with the Pennsylvania Derby and Cotillion Stakes.

One year ago, there was West Coast doubling down on his Travers victory with a sharp score at Parx in the derby, while It Tiz Well, a daughter of Arch, was no less impressive on the same program winning her Cotillion. The future was bright for both, but then came reality. This year West Coast has made only two starts and none since March (though he’s currently working toward a return), while It Tiz Well was injured in January and retired.

One of the most highly anticipated showdowns of the summer and fall was supposed to pit the emerging star Fault, winner of three graded stakes at Santa Anita in three tries, and Unique Bella, the champion female sprinter of 2017 who was handling two turns with equal aplomb. Then Fault fractured a hind leg preparing for Belmont’s Ogden Phipps, and Unique Bella injured an ankle not long after winning the Clement Hirsch at Del Mar.

Both of those fillies are only 4, just like Bee Jersey, Mo Town, Girvin, and Always Dreaming, all major stakes winners from the boys crop of 2014 who would have added considerable depth to the second half of the 2018 season.

Bee Jersey was a dazzling winner of the Metropolitan, Mo Town’s victory in last fall’s Hollywood Derby tipped him as a turf force this year, and Girvin seemed on track to regain his 2017 Haskell-winning form with a solid second to Bee Jersey at Lone Star. Then, in a matter of weeks, all three were retired with soft-tissue damage.

As for Always Dreaming, it was hoped he could once again reach the heights of his 2017 Kentucky Derby triumph, but two losses this year convinced his people that the colt was better off at stud.

The news from abroad has been no less frustrating. Wuheida, the winner of the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Del Mar, commenced her 2018 campaign on a high note by winning the Group 2 Dahlia Stakes at Newmarket in May. One week later her retirement was announced, her people blaming a recurrence of old injuries.

More recently, a cluster of high-profile European retirements has shuffled the deck for major autumn events. Alpha Centauri, the filly sensation and early favorite for the Breeders’ Cup Mile, injured an ankle running second in the Matron Stakes at Leopardstown last weekend and was retired. Later that same day, Coolmore’s best 3-year-old Saxon Warrior suffered a career-ending tendon injury trying to beat Roaring Lion in the Irish Champion. Then, Tuesday morning, Michael Stoute had to tell everyone that Poet’s Word, Europe’s best older male, was finished for the season, perhaps longer.

Back home, there is still grumbling across the land over the retirement of Triple Crown winner Justify, who suffered the equivalent of a flesh wound but was too valuable to risk any longer as a racehorse. Depending on your point of view and party affiliation, he had either done far too little or more than enough, but he was certainly good fun while he lasted.

Three-year-old males are always in the high-risk demographic. Magnum Moon, winner of the Rebel Stakes and Arkansas Derby, required surgery after a career-ending injury to a foreleg at Belmont Park in June. Good Magic, the Haskell winner and Kentucky Derby second, made it as far as his dull Travers before Chad Brown pulled the plug on his season. And then there was poor Mourinho, Justify’s stablemate and winner of the Smarty Jones, who suffered a fatal injury in March before anyone could find out how good he might have been.

The news this week revealed that two of the most exciting kids of the Del Mar summer – Instagrand (a $1.2 million 2-year-old) and Roadster (a $525,000 yearling) – are through for the year. They would have been in the thick of the conversation for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, but now they are relegated to the back burner, their prospects as classic 3-year-olds on hold.

Still, in an effort to fill the glass to at least half full, it’s not always a bad thing for a 2-year-old to tip his mitt early and then disappear for a while. American Pharoah ended his juvenile season in late September after just three starts. Silver Charm was done as a 2-year-old after winning the Del Mar Futurity around Labor Day, while Big Brown raced just once as a 2-year-old in September and did not return for six months. And all they did was collect seven classic races among them.