By Dick Jerardi
Two horses that finished ninth and fifth behind Taiba in the 2022 Pennsylvania Derby finished 1-2 in Saturday’s Grade I $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational at Gulfstream Park.
Those same two horses, now 7-years-old, cost a total of $77,000 at an Ocala, Florida 2-year-old sale in 2021 and have now combined to win $13,175,170.
Saffie Joseph, who trains both horses, had his breakthrough win with 31-1 Math Wizard for prominent Parx owner John Fanelli in the 2019 Pa. Derby. Seven years later, he has become one of America’s best and most prominent trainers.
White Abarrio, the defending Pegasus champion and 2023 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner, ran a heroic race to finish second Saturday. He really looked like the winner until the relentless Skippylongstocking came along to run down his stablemate.
Skippy, a $37,000 purchase, made his debut on July 20, 2021. The horse has also run at Aqueduct, Pimlico (Preakness), Belmont Park (Belmont Stakes), Mountaineer, Parx, Tampa Bay, Keeneland, Charles Town (won the CT Classic twice), Santa Anita, Oaklawn Park, Churchill Downs, Saratoga and Del Mar.
The horse had run in the Pegasus three times before – seventh, pulled up, third. Skippy had won 10 graded stakes, but had never won a Grade I in 11 tries.
Joseph was more emotional about White Abarrio’s performance than he was thrilled by Skippy’s win. White A, who made his debut Sept. 21, 2021, was a vet scratch in the post parade of the 2025 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile. The horse’s training had been anything but smooth leading up to the Pegasus. There were many who wondered if he would be a vet scratch again. Joseph was apparently among them. And he knew if anything happened to the horse during the race, he was going to take the heat.
Whatever the perception, the reality was White A ran another amazing race in an incredible career that also includes wins in the Florida Derby and Whitney. All told, the horse, a $40,000 purchase, has raced 25 times, with 10 wins, three seconds, three thirds, earnings of $7,713,920 and nine 100+ Beyers. Joseph lost the horse to another trainer for a time during the year he won the Whitney and BC Classic, but then got him back and, once again, had him at his absolute best at his home track where he has raced 11 times with eight wins and two seconds.
As it became obvious what the result was going to be, it crystalled once again why those of us who love the game with such passion feel the way we do. It is because of horses like Skippylongstocking. In his 36th start (13 wins, three seconds, seven thirds and $5,461,250 in earnings), the horse broke through with the biggest win of an epic career that now includes nine 100+ Beyers. This should only happen in movies, but it was absolutely real.
On a brutally cold late January day in the Northeast with a foot or more of snow on the way, it was hard not to smile and to cheer when a week that began with an impossible dream of an Indiana college football championship 7 miles east of Gulfstream ended with another overachiever proving that one quality that can rarely be measured with precision is heart.
