rip
The winning horse’s name [in the Grade 2, $500,000 Smile Sprint] certainly says it all “Nightmare Affair”.
Ah, now, don’t make fun of his name. I love Mr. Nightmare…
Hard-knocking little horse who never hit it big, or even dreamed of hitting it… until now. I am shocked (:eek: ) and proud :yes:
My girlfriend bred Weigeria who was beat at the wire and came in 3rd … word has it that Lost in the Fog has a quarter crack and it flares up… allegedly… and this is simply rumor I got from some down there it was acting up.
I put my $$$ on Weigeria to win and lost… but they were wailing and whining at the ITW as most put the bucks on Lost in the Fog and he didn’t win either.
For what its worth…
Possibly this was the end of his career …
DRF 7-15-06 “Nightmare Affair takes Smile”
Lost in the Fog, the 125-pound highweight, raced in midpack and was never a serious factor. He lost for the third time in his last four starts after beginning his career with 10 straight victories.
“Certainly the 125 pounds didn’t help us, but it didn’t make us run eighth or ninth, either,” trainer Greg Gilchrist said after the race. “You can’t put a good spin on a race like this no matter what you say. He just didn’t run well for whatever reason. He had a quarter crack that really got to bothering him here earlier in the week - at one point we were 50-50 not to run - but he seemed to be going really good on it the last couple of days.”
Gilchrist said he will assess Lost in the Fog’s condition when he returns to California, but did not rule out the possibility that the Smile may have been the 4-year-old’s last race.
Quarter Crack?
I remember he was battling a quarter crack previously - last season, was it? Any idea if this is the same crack or a new one? Is it pretty standard in the industry to keep racing a horse (if it’s winning, obviously) that has a crack? I’ve heard the technology’s gotten better for dealing with them, but how much can they really do to help?
Daily Racing Form July 18, 2006
Retirement a possibility for Lost in the Fog
By CHUCK DYBDAL
In the wake of Lost in the Fog’s ninth-place finish Saturday in the Grade 2 Smile Sprint at Calder, trainer Greg Gilchrist said that he and owner Harry Aleo are giving thought to retiring the colt. Lost in the Fog, the champion sprinter of 2005, will get a rest, Gilchrist said, and a decision on his future will be made when he returns to training.
“We’re not leaning one way or the other,” he said. “We’ll give him time to get his feet underneath him and see how he is. We want to determine if he can be competitive at the level he should be. If it were going to take two or three months to bring him back, and there was only one race left for him this year, we’d probably retire him.”
Gilchrist said Lost in the Fog didn’t seem to try in the Smile, in which he carried high weight of 125 pounds and was the even-money favorite. Aleo and Gilchrist have said that Lost in the Fog, a 4-year-old by Lost Soldier, would race as both a 4-year-old and 5-year-old, and this is the first time they have questioned that plan. …article continues …
Y’know, I really hate it when good racehorses like Lost in the Fog are retired so young. I think the racing public would enjoy seeing more of his races, assuming he can return to his ultra-competitive ways.
I would assume then with the very sad news of him having a cancerous mass - lymphoma - likely confined to the spleen that the great wicked fast train will be retired 
It was a good run and I can only assume if this has been growing (its the size of a cantaloupe!) that his last start is really a throwout accordingly.
A photo from better days: at Saratoga winning the 2005 Kings Bishop (G1) with Russ Baze up
Daily Racing Form Aug 16, 2006
Lost in the Fog faces cancer
By CHUCK DYBDAL - Daily Racing Form
Eclipse Award-winning sprinter Lost in the Fog’s life is in jeopardy and his racing career appears over after doctors discovered what they believe is a cancerous mass in his spleen. Lost in the Fog, 4, will undergo a procedure Friday at the University of California at Davis to determine whether the cancer has spread to other parts of his body.
The mass, which doctors suspect is lymphoma, was discovered Sunday when Lost in the Fog underwent a stomach sonogram at the UC-Davis veterinary school, said his trainer, Greg Gilchrist. A biopsy was performed Tuesday on the mass.
On Friday, a miniature camera will be inserted in the colt’s abdomen to see if there has been any spread of cancerous cells.
While admitting that it’s “not a good situation,” Gilchrist said, “Let’s not everybody jump in the grave yet.”
“They know the mass is in the spleen itself,” he said on Wednesday. "Right now, it looks good. It hasn’t metastasized and moved to other parts. But when you look at a sonogram, it won’t show very small things. That’s why they’re doing the camera search.
“If they find more, it is not a good thing. At that point, we probably wouldn’t do surgery. If it does look good, at the middle of next week surgery will be performed to remove the spleen. It’s a very delicate operation. They say there’s a 50-50 chance he will make it through. If all goes well, he will recover and live a normal life.”
Gilchrist said that if Lost in the Fog makes it through the surgery he could still become a stallion. He called the surgery a better option for the colt than radiation and chemotherapy.
Lost in the Fog ran ninth in the Grade 2 Smile at Calder on July 15, and Gilchrist said the colt was bothered by quarter cracks. Since that race, Gilchrist has said that if Lost in the Fog could not be readied to race again this year, he would be retired.
Lost in the Fog won his first 10 starts, earning triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures in each and setting track records at Turf Paradise and Golden Gate Fields. The streak ended with a seventh-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint last year.
This year, he ran second to Carthage in his comeback in the Golden Gate Fields Sprint on April 22 and then won the Grade 3 Aristides at Churchill Downs on June 3.
Owned by Harry Aleo, Lost in the Fog has earned $978,099 with 11 wins and 1 second in 14 starts.
San Francisco Chronicle 8-16-06 “Top sprint horse Lost in the Fog might have cancer”
Gilchrist is waiting for the results of the procedure at the University of California, Davis veterinary school before fearing the worst about his charismatic colt. But Lost in the Fog’s racing career likely is over, even if his life can be saved.
“When you’re in this business, you never get yourself too high or too low, (but) something like this is pretty shocking,” Gilchrist said.
Louisville Courier-Journal 8-16-06 “Sprinter Lost in the Fog believed to have cancer”
“If they do find more, there will be no surgery,” the trainer said.
If the cancer is limited to the spleen and the colt comes through the operation in good order, Gilchrist said the prognosis is good that Lost in the Fog could go on to a stud career and normal life.
Lost in the Fog, a Florida-bred son of Lost Soldier, won 11 of 14 starts and earned $978,099. He was ninth in his last start, Calder’s $500,000, Grade II Smile, to bring his future into question as Gilchrist felt he wasn’t the same horse. The trainer said the tumor helps explain the poor effort.
"I think most people would agree if you were running with a nine-inch Gilchrist said. "If the horse had a cantaloupe in him like that, it would not be that comfortable."Gilchrist said.
And more commentary from Greg: TB Times 8-16-06:
“It’s difficult to take and it was a surprise,” Gilchrist said. "I’ve trained horses for 30-some years, and as far as I know I’ve never had a horse that’s had cancer. It’s sure too bad that, whoever the racehorse gods are had to pick this horse to give it to. But, you have to take the bad with the good. We’ll look at what’s in front of us. We’ll make logical decisions and we’ll do what’s best for the horse. We’ll find the best surgeons possible and we’ll just move forward and hope it works out.
“He won’t give up easy, this is a race he needs to win,” said Gilchrist, who conditions Lost in the Fog for Harry Aleo.
More tests will be done on Friday to determine whether the cancer has spread and to dictate a course of action for the champion and Grade 1 winner who began his career with ten consecutive wins.
“On Friday, they will probably move a camera up his abdomen and check around to see if there is any other cancer,” Gilchrist said. "At this point, the doctors don’t feel that it has [spread] from the feedback I’ve been getting from them. However, if it has, probably there will be no surgery and we will have a whole different set of circumstances to deal with.
“But if it hasn’t, he’ll probably be operated on the middle of next week some time,” Gilchrist continued. "It’s a very tedious operation. They’ve already told me it’s a 50-50 deal of surviving, because your spleen carries your blood and filters it. If we get through that, he’ll be a normal horse, none of this will hurt his reproductive organs, and we can just move on. But like I said, it’s one step at a time, and right now we have to get through Friday. That’s just the next hurdle, we hope we get good news and then we move on to the next step."
horrible
I am sure he is in good hands. I am very sad. He has been a fave of mine for a long time.
Cross-posting Candle Page for Foggy
Just copying this from Foggy’s other topic:
http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/candles.cfm?l=eng&gi=Foggy
So far, about 100 folks from 4 countries have visited.
(edited to fix link… thanks, Louise!)
link doesn’t work
at least not for me.
Horses can find almost as many ways to break your heart as they do to win it…:no:
How true.
Jingles for Lost In The Fog and his many connections, and most especially for his wonderful owner, Harry Aleo.
“About a week ago, I started noticing small things,” Greg Gilchrist said. "His eating habits kind of changed, he seemed a little lethargic, and his temperature elevated about a half-degree to a degree and then back down again. One thing by itself is not an alarm, but when you put them all together, it is. We ran a bunch of tests and couldn’t find anything, so we just kept monitoring him.
“At about 4 p.m. Sunday, my assistant called and said his temperature had gone up to 102, which is about 1 1/2 degrees over his normal. But at 102, you have to start thinking what if it goes higher? He was showing discomfort in his stomach, and you’re thinking it’s a classic case of colic.”
– snip –
But he ran the worst race of his career in a ninth-place finish in the Grade 2 Smile Sprint Handicap on July 15 at Calder.
“Harry and I discussed it, and we said enough is enough,” Gilchrist said. “He is so valuable as a stallion that it becomes a deal where you have everything to lose and nothing to gain by continuing to race him. Even winning races wouldn’t necessarily do any good, except winning the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. We were pointing to that race (Nov. 5 at Churchill Downs) for the end of the year, but the foot problems never went away. Things weren’t going our way, and it’s the time of the year when farms are interested in purchasing new sires.”
So Lost in the Fog ended his racing career with 11 wins and a second in 14 starts for $978,099 in earnings.
“On Friday, they’re planning on running a small camera through his abdomen to check and see if there is any more cancer,” Gilchrist said. “We hope they don’t find anything, and if they don’t, you move on to the next step. The choices are chemotherapy, radiation or surgery. If you do nothing, the horse would make it maybe a year. Neither Dr. Smith nor I felt chemo or radiation was good, so that leads to one choice: an operation to remove his spleen.”
Note photo of Harry and LITF: Photo by Mark Costantini
Good grief. I have been watching this thread, and reading the articles.
I am sick about this, and will definitely say a prayer for him. Jingling here in Virginia for LITF.
Regarding his retirement …
Source: San Mateo 's the Daily Journal 8-17-06
Ironically, Gilchrist said he and owner Harry J. Aleo agreed on Sunday morning — hours before Lost in the Fog became ill — that they would retire the 4-year-old colt from racing. They had planned to make the announcement Monday.
Regarding the medical team for the operation …
Gilchrist. “The surgery is very complicated and we’re searching all over for the best doctor for the job. It’s not very common and it’s hard to find someone who takes spleens out of horses. A lot of people care about this horse and a lot of people are helping me find the best surgeon we can.”
