Thirty-two years ago, three separate winners of 1982’s Triple Crown races convened at Saratoga Race Course for the Travers, the Mid-Summer Derby. In a field of five, all three, Kentucky Derby winner Gato del Sol, Preakness hero Aloma’s Ruler and Belmont Stakes victor Conquistador Cielo, managed to lose to an upstart gray Canadian-bred named Runaway Groom, who was entered on a whim by his owner who used to sneak into Saratoga when he was growing up in nearby Schenectady, NY. In winning the Travers for Canadian trainer John DiMario and Canadian Hall of Fame jockey Jeff Fell, Runaway Groom once again documented Saratoga’s on-going legacy as the Graveyard of Champions.
Runaway Groom’s owner, Albert Coppola, used to jump a fence to gain admission to Saratoga as a kid. ‘That was my lifelong ambition: to get to Saratoga and race horses,’ he said.
It took awhile. He established the Washington Business School and operated several others. He was 54 when he met DiMario in 1978. Coppola bought his first horse a year later, a two-year-old named Skit who won one race before breaking a coffin bone.
Undeterred, Coppola decided to buy a yearling. After visiting Gainesway Farm in Kentucky, he became enamored with one of Gainesway’s accomplished stallions, Blushing Groom, and one of his yearlings. That yearling, Runaway Groom, was Hip No. 460 out of 460 yearlings catalogued at the November Fasig-Tipton Yearling Sale. Coppola got him for $39,000, the lowest price paid for a Blushing Groom yearling the entire year.
Because of a bucked shin and a virus, Runaway Groom didn’t make his debut until April 2, 1982, at Keeneland, finishing second by a nose. After another second and a maiden win, Runaway Groom finished second at 38-1 in the $150,000 Queen’s Plate, the first leg of the Canadian Triple Crown. After winning an allowance race in his grass debut, Runaway Groom finished second in the Heresy Stakes at Woodbine, then won the second leg of the Triple Crown, the $75,000-added Prince of Wales Stakes, by a head, at Fort Erie. After the race, Coppola told DiMario, ‘Now for the Travers.’ DiMario remembers thinking, ‘My God, what’s he talking about?’
The three-year-olds awaiting Runaway Groom in the Travers included Gato del Sol, a powerful gray closer who had rallied from dead last to win the Kentucky Derby before finishing a distant second on a sloppy track in the Belmont Stakes.
After missing three months in his three-year-old season with an injured left front ankle, Aloma’s Ruler captured the Withers Stakes and the Preakness before finishing ninth in the Belmont. He was third against older horses in the Suburban, first by a nose in the Jersey Derby and second in the Haskell Invitational.
Then there was Conquistador Cielo, who would be named the 1982 Three-Year-Old Champion Colt and Horse of the Year. Soreness and a persistent cough kept Cielo out of the Derby and the Preakness before he devastated older horses in the prestigious Metropolitan Mile, winning by 7 _ lengths in a stakes and track record of 1:33. People thought his Hall of Fame trainer, Woody Stephens, had lost it when he entered Cielo in the Belmont Stakes five days later. On a sloppy track, Cielo won by 14 lengths. He then won the Dwyer and the Jim Dandy, stretching his winning streak to seven. A week before the Travers, a 75 per cent interest in Cielo was syndicated for $36.4 million, 40 shares at $910,000 each.
Only one other three-year-old was entered in the 113th running of the $221,500 Travers: Lejoli, who had finished sixth in the Belmont Stakes, fourth in the Jersey Derby, third in the Haskell and second by a length in the Jim Dandy.
In post position order, Gato del Sol went off at 4-1, Lejoli 14-1, Runaway Groom 12-1, Cielo 2-5, and Aloma’s Ruler 5-1.
Aloma’s Ruler, ridden by Angel Cordero Jr., and Cielo, with Eddie Maple up, treated the Travers as if it was a match race, slugging it out on the front end for the first mile-and-an-eighth in the mile-and-a-quarter event. They alternated on the lead, Cielo on the rail and Aloma’s Ruler right alongside. In the final 50 yards, Aloma’s Ruler finally prevailed over Cielo.
Then, everyone saw the gray colt closing quickly down the centre of the track. Was it Gato del Sol, the gray closer who won the Derby? No, it was Runaway Groom, who surged past Aloma’s Ruler to win by a half-length. Cielo was third.
Runaway Groom won his next start, the Breeders’ Stakes at Woodbine, before losing his final eight races, including all six as a four-year-old. But, by then, he already stamped his place in history at Saratoga, North America’s grandest racetrack with an improbable and impressive triumph.
