Seconds later, Badgett's exhilaration turned to horror. With the finish line in sight, Go for Wand stumbled, pitched forward and crumpled to the ground. "She was going great...giving it her all," jockey Randy Romero said afterward. "She was in front...and her leg just snapped."
The sight of the frightened, struggling filly's shattered right foreleg brought many in the crowd of 51,236 to tears. Badgett jumped the fence and ran to the critically injured horse; his wife, Rosemary, 23, who was Go for Wand's exerciser and had been sitting with the Thoroughbred's owner, Jane du Pont Lunger, rushed to join him. "I saw her leg was just completely broken off," says Badgett, choking up. "There was nothing anybody could do other than just put her out of her misery." Veterinarians erected a blue screen around the horse and prepared to administer a painless, lethal injection. "There were all these strangers holding her down," says Rosemary. "Every time I close my eyes, I think of her lying there, looking into my eyes. She died in my arms." No one had a better rapport with the horse than Rosemary. "She was so human," she says. "I knew everything about her. You can't get as close to a human as you can to a horse because horses depend on you."
Even more sadly, Go for Wand's injury was only the latest in a bizarre string of accidents at the track. In the third race that day, a 4-year-old colt named Mr. Nickerson reared up in mid-race and died of an apparent heart attack. Another horse, Shaker Knit, tripped over him and had to be destroyed. The day before, two others had broken down. The rash of accidents left Belmont officials baffled and shaken. Although some horsemen suggested that the dryness of the track may have caused the breakdowns, Badgett and New York Racing Association officials disagreed. "It was a safe track," says Badgett. "[Go for Wand] had never run up against a horse like Bayakoa, and she was feeling a lot of pressure. She was probably running a bit faster than she ever had in her whole life. When they're running that hard, all it takes is a misstep or an overreach, and they can go."
This was to have been the Badgetts' happiest week. Married a month ago, they had delayed a planned honeymoon in Jamaica until after the Breeders' Cup. For the couple, who live in Floral Park, N.Y., Go for Wand had always been a special horse. Often, Rosemary would return to the stables just to watch her sleep. "She was so powerful when she was under you," she recalls. "But two minutes later, in the stall, she could be so gentle."
Billy Badgett's life has revolved around horses for as long as he can remember. His father, Zeke, had trained 2-year-olds for philanthropist Harry F. Guggenheim on Long Island. At 28, Billy went off to serve as an assistant trainer to the fabled Woody Stephens. In 1985 he struck out on his own. As word spread about the victories he was coaxing out of second-and third-string horses, owners like the Whitneys and Du Ponts began sending him their better animals.
Badgett had just opened his own training barn at Belmont in 1985 when Rosemary Mundy, then an 18-year-old novice rider from Queens, applied for a job. Badgett hired her and taught her to ride exercise horses. Three years later, when Jane du Pont Lunger asked Badgett to train Go for Wand, Badgett put Rosemary on the horse. He knew he had a winner. "From the start, we thought she was a rare filly," Badgett says. "When we brought her up to Saratoga last year and put Randy Romero on her, he came back yelling, 'This is my Breeders' Cup horse!' "
In the end she had won 10 of 13 races and racked up $1,373,338 in prize money. "The Wand had a lovely disposition and she tried so hard," says owner Lunger. "She died a champ." For Rosemary Badgett, the loss is hard to accept. "People say, 'You'll have another,' but they don't understand," she says. "Her power came from the heart."
That much is indisputable. Seconds after Go for Wand collapsed, she heaved herself up on three legs and lurched forward a few steps, dragging her shattered limb toward the finish line. The filly had given what had been asked of her. When she fell for the last time, it was in front of the Belmont winner's circle.
—Susan Reed, J.D. Podolsky at Belmont Park
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
