Da Hoss

Da Hoss (foaled January 18, 1992) by Gone West (by Mr. Prospector) out of Jolly Saint (by Welsh Saint) is a bay Thoroughbred gelding best known for twice winning the Breeders' Cup Mile.
Background.
He was bred in Kentucky by Fares Farms and originally owned by Prestonwood Farm as well as Wallstreet Racing Stables.
Da Hoss was purchased for $6,000 as a yearling at the Keeneland Sales, by Kevin Eikleberry and Clifford Thygesen, bringing the lowest price for a Gone West yearling for all of 1993. The horse had physical problems, bone spurs in his hocks, and a previously infected hoof that had rotted away part of his coffin bone. After being purchased, and determined to be healthy enough to attempt a racing career, Da Hoss was taken to Turf Paradise in Phoenix, Arizona.
Racing career.
1994–1996: Early career.
Da Hoss was undefeated in his two-year-old season, consisting of three starts. After winning his first race, at Turf Paradise, by one length, he followed that effort up with an allowance score before concluding his first season on the racetrack with a stakes win, the ATBA Sales Stakes, where he completed the six furlong distance in what was then a record time of 1:07 1/5.
In his first start at three, Da Hoss took the Grade III "'Best Turn Stakes" (now known as the Jimmy Winkfield Stakes), the Grade II Jersey Derby and the Grade II Del Mar Derby, and came second in the Grade II Gotham Stakes, Illinois Stakes, Swaps Stakes, and Pegasus Stakes, in addition to winning another allowance. The horse he finished second to in the GII Swaps Stakes was that year's Kentucky Derby and Belmont winner Thunder Gulch. He also ran third in the G1 Crown Royal Hollywood Derby. In his first Breeder's Cup appearance, the 1995 Breeder's Cup Sprint on dirt, Da Hoss finished 13th; it would be the only time in his 20 race career that he failed to hit the board.
1996 began with a third place finish in the Poker Handicap at Belmont Park, and Da Hoss found himself in the winner's circle again in his next start, the G3 Fourstardave Handicap. Next for Da Hoss was a win in the Pennsylvania Governor's Cup Handicap, then a second in the Kelso Handicap, before entering the starting gate at Woodbine for the 1996 Breeder's Cup Mile, under jockey Gary Stevens. Da Hoss won the race by one and a half lengths to the call of "it's da American, Da Hoss, in da Mile!"
Da Hoss would not race again for 715 days.
1998: Comeback.
Da Hoss' physical problems kept him out of the starting gate for nearly two years. Each time they put him back into serious training, Dickinson said, the competitive animal would try too hard and overexert himself, causing an injury to flare up and putting him back on the sidelines. Dickinson was determined to get the horse back to the Breeder's Cup, but by the fall of 1998, he was running out of time. Managing to get Da Hoss fit to race by October, there was time for only one prep race for the 1998 Mile, which was an allowance event at Colonial Downs written specifically to get the horse in a race. After Da Hoss won by three parts of a length, Dickinson entered him in the 1998 Breeder's Cup Mile. It is likely the horse would have been refused entry had he not won the race previously, as the committee wanted to avoid another incident like Rick's Natural Star. He wanted Gary Stevens to ride Da Hoss, but the jockey's agent had committed him to another horse. John Velazquez ultimately took the mount, and Dickinson challenged Stevens' agent, Ron Anderson to a $1,000 personal bet as to who would finish in front of the other - Da Hoss, or Among Men, who Anderson had put Stevens on for the race.
After a delayed start caused by several horses not wanting to load in the starting gate, Da Hoss settled comfortably in sixth in the early stages of the race allowing the speed horses to battle it out in front of him, and was among those closing in on Favorite Trick heading to the final straight. Da Hoss neared the front at the top of the stretch, to the surprised call of "Da Hoss is in with a chance on the outside!" Surging to the lead, Da Hoss was approached in the stretch to his outside by Hawksley Hill, who took over the lead by a nose nearing the finish. With no one challenging from behind, it seemed clear that Da Hoss would finish second, ahead of Among Men, and Favorite Trick, and Labeeb, and all the others, a testament to the training job that had gotten him back to the top level. But the same competitiveness that had prolonged his comeback finally worked to the gelding's benefit. Da Hoss gained back the ground lost and put his nose back in front just before the wire to take his second Breeders' Cup by the narrowest of margins. Announcer Tom Durkin yelled, "Oh, my, this is the greatest comeback since Lazarus! He's had one race in two years!" Twenty years later, Catholic Boy re-rallying twice to defeat Analyze It stirred up memories of Da Hoss' famous win in the 1998 Mile.
The 1998 Mile was Da Hoss' final race. In his twenty starts, he won 12 races, placed in 5 others, and came home third twice. His career earnings amounted to $1,931,558, nearly $3.1 million dollars adjusted for inflation.
Until Ouija Board took her second non-consecutive Breeders' Cup win in 2006, Da Hoss was one of only six horses to ever win two Breeders' Cup races and the only one to win in non-consecutive years.
Retirement.
Da Hoss now lives at the Kentucky Horse Park in the Hall of Champions, in Lexington, Kentucky. His primary caretakers are Rob Willis, Laura Kramer, Jenny Leslie and Paul Caywood, who work with all of the Hall of Champions' equine residents on a daily basis. Other current Thoroughbred residents are Kentucky Derby winners Go For Gin and Funny Cide, as well as 2001 Horse of the Year Point Given.
The residents of the Hall have jobs as ambassadors for their respective disciplines, and all are donated or on long term lease to the Park. In the summer, the horses have a set schedule of bathing, grooming, and showing. They meet their public daily, creating new fans and indulging old ones, and are turned out in their paddocks in the evening. Da Hoss is known for giving kisses, or pressing his nose to a person's cheek in exchange for a treat, a trick which was taught to him by Joan Wakefield during his racing career. As the resident stallions are territorial over their stalls and paddocks, Da Hoss and three of the other five geldings at the Hall of Champions are stalled in the Park's "Big Barn" on days that they are not on the show schedule.
Da Hoss shares a paddock with Standardbred pacer Won The West during the show season, and the two are inseparable, needing to be stalled near each other and shown in the same presentations. Da Hoss lives with, in addition to Won The West, Be A Bono (Quarter Horse) and Mr. Muscleman (Standardbred trotter) in the winter, when they are turned out and allowed to just be horses 24/7.