Le Glorieux (GB), winner of the Grade 1 Washington, D.C., International at Laurel Park, was the perfect representative for the famed turf test - the English-bred colt was owned by a West German (Werner Wolf), trained by a Frenchman (Robert Collet) and ridden by the all-time leading jockey in the U.S. (Laffit Pincay Jr.), a native of Panama.
Gjatsk (Rus), the first runner from the U.S.S.R. to compete in the U.S. in 21 years, finished 13th. But diplomatic relations couldn’t have been better. “I am glad to be back,” said trainer Nikolai Nasibov, who decades earlier had been his country’s leading rider and rode in the International eight times. “I hope this opens the door for more competition between our countries. . .
Isn’t it better for our countries to compete with our Thoroughbreds instead of by building up the military?”
On the eve of the race, U.S. and Soviet officials announced that long-awaited summit meetings to work toward a nuclear arms treaty would begin in Washington.
• Laurel’s two Grade 1 races for juveniles, the Laurel Futurity and Selima, were run on the grass for the first time as part of the first International Turf Festival.
Nelson Bunker Hunt’s Antiqua won the Futurity; Allen Paulson’s Minstrel’s Lassie captured the Selima.
Minstrel’s Lassie, a Maryland-bred daughter of Windfields Farm sire The Minstrel, was the second graded stakes-winning juvenile filly on the day for her breeder, Allaire du Pont. She sold Minstrel’s Lassie at the Keeneland July yearling sale for $85,000, but still owned Betty Lobelia, winner of the Miss Grillo Stakes-G3 at Aqueduct. Betty Lobelia was a daughter of another Windfields sire, Assert (Ire).
• “Michael Dickinson’s name is not a household word in America?–?yet. But look out for it to happen soon,” wrote Lucy Acton about the arrival of one of Britain’s top steeplechase trainers.
Dickinson, who moved to Fair Hill Training Center earlier in the year to establish a flat racing stable, had assembled an impressive list of horses in short order. His stable of 34 included 29 2-year-olds.
Dickinson sent out his first American stakes winner in September–Lois Salmon Duffey’s Secret Amie in Philadelphia Park’s Mt. Ash Stakes.
• Broad Brush, the leading Maryland-bred money earner of all time, was retired in early October after exiting Saratoga’s Grade 1 Whitney Handicap (in which he finished third) with strained sesamoidian ligaments. The setback kept the 4-year-old son of Ack Ack out of the fall’s key races. Owner/breeder Robert Meyerhoff noted his iron horse was sound, but decided not to bring him back the next year.
The multiple Grade 1 winner of $2,656,793 was being syndicated to stand at Gainesway in Kentucky.
