By this time, the colt who would become Smarty Jones was at an Ocala training center, and word was reaching Chapman that he had real potential. After the murder of Robert Carmac, the Chapmans asked bloodstock agent and friend Mark Reid to suggest a new trainer. While they had sold their farm and drastically reduced their racing and breeding stock, they did retain a handful of young thoroughbreds, among them their colt by I’ll Get Along and Elusive Quality. The news of their longtime trainer’s murder solidified the Chapmans’ decision to divest more of their breeding stock, including Smarty Jones’ dam I’ll Get Along, who was sold in 2001. His health precipitated the Chapmans’ decision to sell Someday Farm and some of their broodmares. He was confined to a wheelchair and relied on an oxygen tank to breathe.
The stepson had been stealing from the Carmacs and, when confronted about it, violently reacted and shot them both.Īt the time of this horrible tragedy, Roy Chapman had been in declining health for many years due to emphysema. However, before their I’ll Get Along colt even had the name Smarty Jones, Robert Carmac was murdered along with his wife in their New Jersey home by his stepson over stolen checks. That pairing produced a foal born on the Chapmans’ Someday Farm in Chester County, Pennsylvania on February 28th, 2001. In 2001, the Chapmans’ longtime trainer Robert Carmac suggested that they breed their mare I’ll Get Along to Kentucky stallion Elusive Quality. The Chapmans bred and raced a handful of stakes winners, but they will forever be linked to a homebred, born on their Pennsylvania farm, named Smarty Jones.
#SMARTY JONES SERIES#
Roy Chapman grew up in a working class section of Philadelphia and made his fortune through a series of car dealerships in and around his hometown.
Roy and Patricia Chapman, the owners of Smarty Jones, were native Philadelphians who entered the thoroughbred business in the 1980s. The human connections associated with Smarty and their local connection to Philadelphia all contributed to a perfect storm of media attention, record-breaking crowds, and a frenzy that surrounded the Triple Crown that hadn’t been seen since Secretariat’s run in 1973. Smarty Jones’ story was more than just the story of a dominant colt who won eight of nine career races, including two legs of the Triple Crown, and banked over $7 million in earnings. While horse racing’s glory days are a distant memory, for a fleeting few weeks in 2004, Smarty Jones put racing back on the map. Without further adieu, let’s take a look back at one of my favorite horses of all time… Through a strange twist of events that started with me reminiscing over a pile of newspaper articles from 2004, I ended up writing a very long account of the Smarty Jones’ Triple Crown run. This week, after an unintentional two-week hiatus from this site, I’m doing something a little different and posting an article about recent horse racing history.
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