My Jagged Heart

• Email
• Print
• Tweet

Business is carrying on as usual these days at the Santa Anita stable of Tim Pinfield. The tears have long been wept. The smiles are starting to return again. There are now only subtle hints that the barn has lost its hero, that a pal is gone forever.

Big Jag was halfway around the world -- and well off racing's radar -- when he died Sept. 24, a grand oak cut down by unfortunate circumstance. For those who knew him best, the hole will never be fully patched.

"I've been close to horses before, but I never felt like that," Pinfield recently admitted. "It was like losing a friend. I've never been like that. Never."

Then again, there has never been one quite like Big Jag. He was blue-collar, cut out to be average at best. His pedigree wasn't great. His knees were even worse. But somehow he transcended it all, and the ride he gave Pinfield, his wife Debbie, owner Julius Zolezzi, and a legion of fans was simply unforgettable.

There were days like the 1999 Breeders' Cup, when it took two future champions, Artax and Kona Gold, to beat him in the Sprint (gr. I). There was that magical night in Dubai, when the son of Kleven broke running and never gave 'em a chance in the inaugural Golden Shaheen. And there was that run through early '99, when he took on Kona Gold and beat him two out of three at Santa Anita.

Yet his appeal went beyond what he won or who he conquered.

"He was just such a character," said Debbie Pinfield, Big Jag's exercise rider, traveling companion, and closest admirer. "He was one of the family."

To the Pinfields, the horse was very nearly a person. They say he knew the difference between winning and losing, that his emotions were manifested. Peppermints were his weakness, while each day, he downed a pint of Guinness with his feed. And when the rider was thrown aboard on game day, look out. Big Jag would immediately stomp his feet, pawing the ground like a raging bull ready to explode.

"He knew he was good," recalled jockey Jose Valdivia Jr. "He knew damn well people were there to see him. And he loved it. He loved that attention."

These eyes first beheld the massive gelding on Halloween 1998, the day Big Jag got stopped cold in the heat of the Cal Cup Sprint. Somehow he managed to win anyway. Right there, I'd seen all I needed to see. Appropriately -- his name derived from tuna fishing lingo -- I was hooked.

He was a writer's dream. His size alone -- easily over 17 hands and 1,300 pounds -- made him an ideal subject for sharp metaphors and imagery. How a horse that big could attain such speed was beyond belief.

On the track, Big Jag was the cynosure, captivating racegoers far and wide with his power and panache. But last March, the sesamoids in his left front ankle gave way while he was preparing for a Dubai title defense. Suddenly, Big Jag's will was put to its sternest test.

It was a bad break, yet the prognosis was positive, and Big Jag began a precarious recovery at the Dubai Equine Clinic. For six months, he was the perfect patient, enjoying a Pepsi and donut each day as part of his rehab (no Guinness was available). Recently, there were even thoughts that a return home was near.

"Wherever he was going to go, he had to be around people," Debbie said. "He'd have been quite happy just being looked at."

Sadly, he never got the chance. Big Jag took an abrupt turn for the worse in late September, "like he dropped off the end of a cliff," according to his trainer. This time, there was no hope.

Yes, a hero has fallen, and the pain will not be forgotten. What will endure, though, are the flashes of excitement, the lasting memories of one horse's durability and desire.

The image that still burns the brightest is of a single day, an overcast January afternoon, when Big Jag nailed Kona Gold in the final heartbeats of the Palos Verdes Handicap (gr. II). Later on, I caught up with Big Jag outside his barn. The Pinfields let me move in close. So I felt Big Jag's brawny neck. I touched his sturdy shoulder. And I got a true glimpse into the eye of a champion.

Thanks for the thrills, big guy.

• Email
• Print
• Tweet