One of the more odd connection to LITF!
Miami Herald 7/8 “Porn star to Death Row inmate: Story behind ‘Lost in the Fog’”
since this is a registration required site, I have the whole article here
Porn star to Death Row inmate: Story behind ‘Lost in the Fog’
BY CLARK SPENCER
cspencer@herald.com
As horse stories go, the one involving Lost in the Fog has its share of spicy characters. There is the porn queen and one-time prostitute, who claims partial credit for the colt’s rise to stardom in her recent letter to the Adult Industry News. There is the Death Row inmate, who applauded the decision not to race the horse in this year’s Kentucky Derby. And then there is Joe DiMaggio, who meekly fouled out on Harry Aleo’s ‘‘dinky’’ curveball in a 1940 pick-up game.
OK, so DiMaggio’s nebulous link to the horse is a bit of a stretch. It exists only because Aleo, who once pitched for a junior college team in California and faced the Yankee Clipper in an unscheduled exhibition game, owns Lost in the Fog.
But when the high-octane colt that turf writer Andrew Beyer has described as ‘‘the most exciting horse’’ in America vaults from the starting gate in Saturday’s ‘‘Summit of Speed’’ at Calder Race Course, his cheering club will extend from South Florida to San Quentin, Calif., and perhaps to the halls of the Kit Kat Guest Ranch, a legal brothel in Nevada.
Say this for Lost in the Fog, who has never lost a race: He may not be the best-known 3-year-old thoroughbred in the country – an unofficial title affixed to Triple Crown racing star and fellow Florida-bred Afleet Alex – but he has one diverse mix of supporters.
That cast includes not only skin-flick actress Sunset Thomas and convicted murderer Ronald Sanders, but also the legion of horse fans and bettors who lead more traditional lives and admire the atypical horse with equal fascination.
Lost in the Fog should command the disproportionate share of the wagering dollars on the Summit of Speed stakes card, which transforms the sleepy, summer track into a one-day blast of raw horsepower multiplied eight times over. The eight-stakes program devoted strictly to sprinters is the only one of its kind in the country, and its $1.9 million in purses makes it an even richer event than Gulfstream Park’s Florida Derby Day.
‘‘This horse is something else,’’ said Aleo, a San Francisco-area real estate executive who has owned thoroughbreds for 27 years but added he has never had one as talented as Lost in the Fog. ‘‘It’s probably the best horse that 99 percent of all people have ever had.’’
A DECIDED FAVORITE
Lost in the Fog is listed as the 3-5 favorite to win Calder’s Carry Back Stakes and improve his unbeaten record to eight straight races – all sprints of under a mile. After the colt won the Swale Stakes at Gulfstream in March, many figured he would go on to run in the Kentucky Derby like the majority of top-echelon 3-year-olds.
But Aleo and trainer Greg Gilchrist resisted temptation and the pleadings of some horse fans, deciding that the 1 ¼-mile Derby was too long and perilous for their short-distance star. Their reservations were validated when a wickedly quick pace in the Derby drained the front-runners of their stretch kicks and catapulted late-running Giacomo to victory.
‘‘He probably would have been up there on that suicide pace and probably would have died a horrible death about the quarter pole,’’ Gilchrist said of Lost in the Fog.
Said Aleo: ‘‘He’s too nice a horse just to say we ran in the damn Kentucky Derby.’’
The decision to eschew the Derby was hailed by Sanders, the convict who wrote Gilchrist from his prison cell expressing his sentiment.
‘‘That guy has been writing to me since 1994, writes me five or six times a year,’’ Gilchrist said. ‘‘I guess there’s probably not a whole lot to do where he’s at, but I want to keep him happy. He might have some friends on the outside.’’
Gilchrist bases his stable at Golden Gate Fields in Northern California and maintains a thoroughbred roster that includes the filly Sunset Thomas, named in honor of the adult-film actress who goes by the nickname of ‘‘The Princess of Porn’’ and stars in the HBO series Cathouse. She wrote that ‘‘track pundits’’ think her four-legged namesake might serve as an inspiration for Lost in the Fog, her stablemate and the better looker of the two on the track.
PLANNING AHEAD
Gilchrist and Aleo just think Lost in the Fog is inherently fast, a freak of nature.
Their tentative long-range plans call for the horse to race at Saratoga this August and the Breeders’ Cup Sprint in late October. Aleo, who has declined offers as high as $2.5 million to sell a horse he bought for $140,000, wants to continue racing the horse the next couple of years instead of retiring him to stud.
Because sprint races carrying high purses are few and far between, Lost in the Fog has made five coast-to-coast trips this year to compete at his home track in California, Gulfstream (twice), and New York’s Aqueduct and Belmont (once each).
‘‘I don’t think that works in his favor, because only two of those times have been at his home race track,’’ Gilchrist said. ‘‘We’re always having to come to their ball yard to play.’’
That’s OK with Gilchrist and Aleo, though. Lost in the Fog continues to win wherever he goes.
Aleo, who is 85, said he became interested in owning thoroughbreds after a former son-in-law gave him an article titled ‘‘How to make money when your horse loses.’’
‘‘Probably the only good thing he ever did,’’ Aleo said.
He has been at it ever since and has missed just three of his horse’s races (once while in Bora Bora and another time when his daughter was in the hospital) through the years. Nothing is going to keep him away from Lost in the Fog and Saturday’s race at Calder.
‘‘Does the sun shine in the daytime?’’ he said.
