Maryland horse racing has lost another link to its golden age, a time when local runners were national titans and their human connections ranked among our country’s elite.
Trainer Bud Delp died Friday at his Ellicott City, Md., home at age 74. He was a throwback to the days when racing’s leaders talked loud, feared no oneand backed it up. And boy could Delp back it up on a daily and legendary basis.
The Hall of Famer was part of the “Big Four” that dominated Maryland’s claiming races in the 1970s. King Leatherbury, Dick Dutrow, John Tammaro and Delp regularly raided each other’s stables for the best horses. Fans followed the quartet like some rock band. They were that good.
“I think [Delp] was a super trainer, one of the all time great trainers in Maryland and in the nation as far as that goes,” Leatherbury said. “He was one of my idols when I first started training horses. In order to compete with him I had to build my stable up.”
Delp finished ninth with 3,674 career victories, but will be best remembered for Spectacular Bid and his claim that the 3-year-old Maryland colt was “the greatest horse to ever look through a bridle” despite not winning the 1979 Triple Crown. It was haughty talk on the heels of legendary Secretariat (1973), Seattle Slew (1977) and Affirmed (1978) all sweeping the crown impressively.
Secretariat and Citation, widely argued as the greatest runners ever, were the only horses Delp said came close to the gray wonder. That’s tantamount to Roger Clemens saying only Pete Rose and Ty Cobb could handle his heat.
Spectacular Bid won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes and seemed destined to become thoroughbred racing’s 12th Triple Crown champion when Delp arrived at the Belmont Park barn at 6 a.m. to find everything had changed.
Bid stepped on the safety pin covering one of his bandages during the night. The groom forgot to tape over it and the colt nuzzled the pin loose. Delp would have scratched the 3-10 Belmont Stakes favorite from any other race, but felt history tugging on him.
Delp packed the hoof in mud, epsom salts and vinegar to draw out the infection, but Bid wasn’t right. He never changed strides in the stretch under a poor ride by jockey Ronnie Franklin andfinished third.
Years later at his Laurel Park barn for an interview on a book of champions I was writing, Delp told me the loss was a combination of the injury and Franklin’s ride.
“If [jockey Bill] Shoemaker has been on him in the Belmont, Spectacular Bid would have won the Triple Crown,” Delp said. “Hindsight is always 20-20 and I should have scratched him. He never changed leads [indicating hoof problems]. He always changed leads like a piston.”
Spectacular Bid later earned 1980 Horse of the Year and three Eclipse Awards while winning 26 of 30 races. He set seven track records at seven different racetracks over five distances.
Bid’s farewell saw no one even enter against him in the 1980 Woodward Stakes, the first “walkover” major stakes race since Coaltown won the 1949 Edward Burke Handicap at Havre de Grace.
Racing hasn’t crowned another Triple Crown winner since Spectacular Bid’s loss. Delp kept training, but never touched such greatness again despite winning stakes with 70 horses.
Maryland race goers miss both of them.
Rick Snider has covered local sports since 1978. Contact him at [email protected].
