Horse saved from slaughter was bred to win

By VICKIE MOSS, Herald Managing Editor

Clever Allemont was bred to be a champion.

He was born in February 1982 in Illinois and sold as a yearling for $77,000. His father, or “sire” as fathers are known in the horse industry, was a successful thoroughbred racehorse named Clever Trick.

He benefited from a triple threat in leadership: his owner, W. Cal Partee, a lumberman, was posthumously inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame; his trainer, Lynn Whiting, was one of the top trainers in the industry; and he often was ridden by Hall of Fame jockey Pat Day.

HERALD VIDEO: http://www.ottawaherald.com/localvideo/

Indeed, Clever Allemont started strong. He won his first six races in 1984 and early 1985, including the Southwest Stakes and the Rebel Stakes.

“This is a quality colt,” trainer Whiting was quoted in The Blood-Horse magazine April 16, 1985, just after his victory in the Rebel Stakes, which he had been favored to win.

A good performance in his seventh race, the Arkansas Derby, and he likely would have been headed to the Kentucky Derby, the pinnacle of thoroughbred racing.

But Clever Allemont finished sixth in Arkansas and suffered a crack in a small bone in his leg, according to “The Longest Shot” by John Eisenberg, a book written about Partee and Whiting’s 1992 Derby win.

The injury apparently didn’t keep Clever Allemont down long; he raced again six weeks later and placed third.

In 1986, he was sold to Eugene Klein, another well-respected owner, and trained by D. Wayne Lukas, one of the most successful trainers in the sport.

Clever Allemont raced under Klein and Lukas until January 1988, when he was purchased in a claiming race.

In all, he won eight of 47 starts and earned $316,329. He later served as a stud.

Exactly how he ended up in Kansas, bound for a slaughterhouse, isn’t clear.

By the time Kristin Chambers rescued him, Clever Allemont was 26 and somehow had lost one eye and much of the luster that comes from high-stakes thoroughbred racing.