The captivating appeal of sports is largely driven by competitors performing astonishing acts that defy expectations. Similarly, thoroughbred racehorses constantly prove that spectators can witness the unimaginable on any random afternoon at the track.
A quintessential illustration of this is Da Hoss in the 1998 Breeders’ Cup Mile, whose miraculous return from a series of physical setbacks culminated in a tenacious victory over Hawksley Hill, stunning the live crowd, television viewers, and legendary announcer Tom Durkin alike.
To be clear, the saga of Da Hoss differs from the classic tale of an ignored or underappreciated longshot. He showed exceptional talent from the very beginning of his career, securing three consecutive runaway victories as a juvenile under the care of trainer Michael Dickinson. The gelding, sired by Gone West, extended his undefeated streak to four with a three-length triumph in the Grade 3 Best Turn Stakes in March 1995. Over his subsequent seven appearances, he was entered four times on the main track and three times on the turf, remaining undefeated on the grass while placing second in four graded events on dirt. However, following a 13th-place performance in the 1995 Breeders’ Cup Sprint—marking the sole time he finished out of the money in his 20-start career—Da Hoss transitioned into a dedicated turf runner.
After kicking off his 1996 campaign with a third-place effort, Da Hoss secured back-to-back stakes victories and then missed by a head in a runner-up performance, setting the stage for a lifetime-best effort in the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Woodbine. Ridden by Gary Stevens, who guided him using a detailed map drawn by Dickinson indicating the best paths on the Woodbine course, Da Hoss tracked the leaders from third before pulling away in the homestretch to secure a 1 ½-length victory.
Yet, despite the immense ability Da Hoss displayed over his first 18 starts, reaching those 10 victories required him to conquer a succession of severe health challenges.
“His setbacks began in his infancy with a foot infection that necessitated removing a portion of his coffin bone. Following that, as a yearling, he developed a pair of bone spurs that resulted in hock arthritis,” Dickinson recounted to BloodHorse.
Based at Tapeta Farm—the training center owned and run by Dickinson alongside his life partner Joan Wakefield—Da Hoss struggled constantly with unsoundness throughout 1997.
“In February of that year, a tendon flared up, followed by fetlock issues in June,” explained Dickinson, who would later develop the Tapeta Footings synthetic track surface utilized at Woodbine and other premier North American venues. “By September, he went lame in his hindquarters—an issue he’d never faced before—prompting us to give him a break until December.”
Just as he was on the verge of making a comeback in the spring of 1998, Da Hoss suffered another major setback.
“That spring, he was only two workouts away from entering a race when he suddenly went stiff and moved terribly,” Dickinson recalled to BloodHorse. “I told my team, ‘We have to stop with him,’ which made his groom, Miguel Pedra, burst into tears. Jon-boy [Ferriday], who rode him in workouts, began weeping as well, and Joan joined in. The entire barn was in tears.”
Exercising extreme patience, Dickinson rehabilitated the gelding with four weeks of walking followed by four weeks of jogging to gradually restore his fitness. Following a layoff of nearly two years, Da Hoss was finally prepared to run, but bad luck struck once more when two preferred turf races were transferred to the main track due to rain. Consequently, Dickinson opted to race him in a $30,000 allowance contest at Colonial Downs on October 11, 1998, which the champion won by three-quarters of a length.
With just a single minor allowance victory under his belt over the two years following his 1996 Breeders’ Cup Mile triumph, Da Hoss sat as the first alternate when the selection panel assembled the lineup for the 1998 Mile. He gained entry into the starting gate when Wild Rush was pointed toward the Sprint instead, allowing Dickinson and his staff to prepare the gelding for his historic bid.
Already widely regarded as a racing “genius” for conditioning the top five finishers in the 1983 Cheltenham Gold Cup and capturing 12 victories from 21 starters in a single afternoon, the trainer was about to secure another legendary milestone in his career.
Dispatched at odds of 11.60-1, Da Hoss settled in the middle of the pack under jockey John Velazquez while tracking a brisk tempo. Velazquez guided the gelding to the outside around the bend to find daylight, and Da Hoss made a powerful move to take the lead with a furlong remaining. However, the battle was far from over. Hawksley Hill rallied furiously from the back of the 14-horse field to poke his head in front with only a sixteenth of a mile left. Yet, having conquered so many obstacles, Da Hoss refused to surrender, digging in courageously on the rail to snatch back the lead right at the wire. Following one of the most thrilling stretch duels in the history of the championships, announcer Tom Durkin famously proclaimed the triumph as “the greatest comeback since Lazarus… he had one race in two years!”
Exceeding the bounds of a conventional longshot tale, Da Hoss proved to be truly extraordinary.
