Woodbine Mohawk Park: Goalie Jeff still the NA Cup winner that shocked them all
The C$1,000,000 North America Cup is rich in tradition from its origins at Greenwood Raceway in 1984 to the current home at Woodbine Mohawk Park. As the first major stakes event for 3-year-old pacers on the calendar, the North America Cup helps to create the pecking order in the division and potentially launch a horse to new heights.
Saturday’s 36th edition of the Cup marks the 30th anniversary of the longest-priced winner in the history the race. Despite coming off a very successful 2-year-old campaign where he won seven of 16 races and over $300K, no one was giving Goalie Jeff much love heading into the 1989 Final.
The track handicapper in the program stated he would need “the best race of his career” to win the North America Cup from post eight. The public agreed, sending the son of Cam Fella off at odds of 45.80 to 1 despite the presence of top Canadian Steve Condren in the bike.
“I had a choice of another horse, too, and I took him because of people that I knew in the business,” said Condren. “He had the eight-hole and he was a longshot and I was just trying to get a check. He ends up just winning by a nose. It must’ve been a five or a six minute photo to separate them, though it wasn’t 22 minutes like the (Kentucky) Derby inquiry.”
Whether you were at Greenwood Raceway that night three decades ago or simply watching the memory on YouTube today, you’d be hard-pressed to think Goalie Jeff had a chance of winning as the race progressed. Condren had him parked every step of the mile and while he did pick up cover on the second turn, he was three-wide before the stretch and was trying to win a race from off the pace that was won by the top-of-the-stretch leader in four of the first five years.
Watching Goalie Jeff’s grinding 28 2/5 final quarter stretch rally from today’s perspective, when if you finish in over 27 seconds you can’t gain, is a bit surreal. Despite his odds, despite the long trip, despite the fact that few people gave him a shot, Goalie Jeff had the heart and simply wore down race-favorite Kentucky Spur slowly but surely for Condren and trainer Tom Artandi.
“He was a grinder, so it worked out in his favor that the fractions weren’t that fast,” said Condren. “I thought he won, but I wasn’t 100 percent sure when the photo took so long.”
Goalie Jeff would use the North America Cup to catapult him to divisional honors as the best sophomore male pacer of 1989. He won 17 of 31 races that year including the Breeders Crown and Little Brown Jug. Said semi-regular driver Mike Lachance in a 2007 Hoof Beats article by Dean Hoffman, “Nothing bothered that horse . . . He was like a bull.”
After a solid stallion career, Goalie Jeff passed away at the age of 28 in 2014. While he may not get the press of other stars of decades ago, unless one of the longshots in Saturday’s North America Cup can display his heart and determination, Goalie Jeff and his $93.60 winning mutuel will stay in the record books for at least another year.