An End With No Finish

The star that rose out of Suffolk Downs two springs ago fell to earth unexpectedly last Saturday, accompanied by unusually grim fanfare, even for the hand of fate. The crack of a foreleg placed wrong, followed by the thud of a three-year-old colt hiring Belmont's hard dirt track at full speed, were the sounds to which the celebrated horse Timely Writer, made his final exit from racing.

The horse with the greatest potential--and the worst luck--whose very story was a fairy tale of racing history, ended his career on the home turn of the running of the jockey Club Gold Cup. He broke from the inside and sat in third place for most of the way, until that single fatal stride canceled an almost certain victory in his last scheduled race before retirement.

What is so significant about Timely Writer's career is the style in which he repeatedly came back from injury and disappointment. Throughout every misfortune he demonstrated he was the same talented colt, with perhaps the greatest courage seen in any athlete so beset with ill fortune.

Timely, Writer was a Filene's basement yearling, purchased by the Martin brothers (lately of meat-packing fame), for far less than he earned in his first racing season. He proved his talent first at Suffolk, where much of the competition is only a step or two away from the Alpo factory. But "the Boston horse," as he became known around the peak of that first season, continued to win races beyond the Hub. By the time he had won the Flamingo Stakes and the Florida Derby--two key prep races for the Kentucky Derby--he was being touted as the next Triple Crown horse. And not unreasonably so. In the parading he exhibited a rare kind of self-assurance, and out on the track he proved he had talent, leaving great gaps of home stretch between himself and his rivals.

But between Timely Writer and the Triple Crown' stood the unhappy timing of a bizarre intestinal twist which left the colt recuperating from emergency surgery while the spring's Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes passed him by. The experts gave the horse only even odds to survive the operation, but by August he had put in a victorious appearance at Saratoga. This served notice that the son of Staff Writer had regained his earlier form, and going into the Jerome Handicap in early September he looked like the Boston horse of old.

But somehow an illegal medication showed up in his pre-race tests, and Timely Writer had to scratch from the Jerome. He showed he needed the exercise at the Marlboro on Sept. 18, when he finished well behind upstart Lemhi Gold. But the fans could not resist backing Timely Writer in light of his past triumphs, and he went to the post the favorite.

Last Saturday he was the favorite again, and almost surely would have pulled out another win to enhance his career record. But Lemhi Gold again look the honors in the death-shadowed final event of the fall championship series at Belmont.

Autonomy

On Sunday they buried Timely Writer near another immortal--the filly Ruffian on Belmont's grassy infield. They buried him quietly, one-eighth of a mile from the post, fitting symbol of the colt's shortened career. There won't be any future generations of Timely Writer breezing around American tracks in 'his fine tradition. But people in Boston and elsewhere will remember this horse for his extraordinary courage, as he lies on Long Island forever one furlong from the finish line.