Akuna Matata'

Afleet Alex passed away in the same 24 hour circle as John Shirreffs, the circle of life, yes Akuna Matata.

Autumn, 2004. The Lone Star State dressed itself in pageantry and bourbon confidence, and I found myself at Lone Star Park — Grand Prairie, just outside Dallas — for the Breeders’ Cup. The air carried that particular electricity one only finds when ambition and immaturity converge. Two-year-olds, you see, are less racehorses and more unfinished symphonies.

It was there I was introduced to a compact little assassin named Afleet Alex.

A $75,000 purchase out of Timonium. Owned by Cash Is King LLC and Chuck Czaney — a name that, in one of life’s delicious ironies, would circle back into my own orbit some fifteen years later as my partner in Ms Locust Point. Racing is a small world disguised as a vast one.

I was seated in the auxiliary press box, that wonderful perch where rumor travels faster than fact. A collection of radio men — sharp, opinionated, caffeinated — spoke of little else.

“Afleet Alex is the best two-year-old in the country.”

There was, however, a whisper. There’s always a whisper.

“My only worry is him bleeding.”

Curious how brilliance always comes with a footnote.

He had drilled a crisp 59 seconds leading into the race — efficient, controlled, suggestive of latent violence. He was third choice at 3–1, behind Roman Ruler and Proud Accolade. Logical favorites. Respectable résumés.

And then, from the vast and indifferent Texas sky, emerged a name no one had circled in red ink.

Wilko.

Jeremy Noseda. Paul Reddam. Twenty-eight to one. The sort of number that seduces the reckless and punishes the arrogant. He descended late, swallowed the leaders whole, and left the favorites fumbling for relevance. Afleet Alex finished a neck ahead of Sun King — gallant, but defeated.

It was not on my bingo card.

But that, of course, is the point.

Champions are not revealed in uninterrupted dominance. They are refined in discomfort.

Alex resurfaced at Oaklawn the following spring in the Rebel Stakes and, quite unceremoniously, stopped. Not faded. Not weakened. Stopped. The memory of that Lone Star whisper returned to me with unsettling clarity.

Bleeding?

When a horse halts that abruptly, one searches for invisible enemies.

And then — as the truly great so often do — he answered the question in the only language that matters.

The Arkansas Derby.

Eight lengths.

Not merely a victory. A declaration.

There is something intoxicating about a horse who suffers a public blemish and returns not with apology, but with annihilation. Afleet Alex had reminded us that precocity is charming… but resilience is lethal.

Texas introduced him to the world.

Arkansas reminded the world who he was.

Churchill Downs… ah yes.

One would have expected a coronation. After Arkansas, after that emphatic declaration of superiority, Afleet Alex arrived beneath those Twin Spires as though destiny had already cleared its throat.

And yet destiny, like bourbon, has a way of burning on the way down.

He loomed the winner — and then he didn’t. From inevitability to third in a matter of heartbeats. Giacomo, trained by the late great John Shirreffs, came charging through improbability itself. Closing Argument followed.

The favorite was left explaining something no one quite understood.

Did he bleed again? The question lingered, quiet and impolite.

He wore front wraps that spring as a 3yo— a small, almost intimate detail. In racing, front wraps are like a gentleman’s cufflinks. Decorative to the casual observer. Deeply telling to those paying attention. Perhaps there were leg concerns. Perhaps something pulmonary. Champions rarely move through history without carrying a few invisible fractures.

But Pimlico… now that was revelation.

Sent off favored in the Preakness, Alex clipped the heels of Scrappy T mid-stretch and nearly introduced himself to the dirt at terminal velocity. His nose skimmed the track. His jockey performed what can only be described as acrobatic theology.

And then — impossibly — he recalibrated.

He did not panic. He did not sulk. He gathered himself with the quiet dignity of a prizefighter rising from a knockdown and won by 4¾ lengths. It remains one of the most iconic recoveries in American racing. When confronted with adversity, he did not negotiate.

He asserted.

The Belmont Stakes was almost anticlimactic. No theatrics. No catastrophe narrowly avoided. Just a decisive move and a seven-length dismissal of opposition. It was, in many ways, his swan song — a final statement delivered without flourish.

But here’s what separates him from so many others: his legacy did not conclude at the wire.

He became an ambassador for Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, helping raise millions for childhood cancer research. There’s a certain poetry in a horse who flirted with fragility becoming a symbol of resilience for children fighting battles far more profound than any stretch duel.

At stud, he endured. Fifteen seasons. More than fifty stakes winners. Over $54 million in progeny earnings. Grade 1 winners like Afleet Express, Texas Red, and Iotapa. He passed along not just speed, but constitution. Grit. That ineffable refusal to concede.

And then… as this game so deliciously insists… the circle closed.

We sent Taxi Dancer — our Not For Love mare — to Gainesway Farm and booked her to Afleet Alex. In 2017 she foaled a filly. Darby Shaw. Named for the indomitable heroine in The Pelican Brief — portrayed, of course, by Julia Roberts alongside Denzel Washington.

A political thriller about conspiracy and survival.

An apt name.

She was precocious. Balanced. A good mover. The sort of filly that suggests promise without begging for attention. But adversity — how faithful it is in this sport — followed her as well. Little things. Persistent inconveniences. The thousand paper cuts that erode potential.

So you did what wise stewards do. You listened.

We retired her. In 2022 and bred her to Paynter. She produced a colt — Banksy’s. And he carries the look of Afleet Alex, with a trace of Awesome Again lingering in the architecture.

Isn’t it extraordinary?

Twenty years ago, we watched Afleet Alex defy gravity and humiliation on the national stage. Today, now we walk into our barn and see his bloodline blinking back at you over a stall door.

Racing is not linear. It is circular. A grand, looping narrative of risk, memory, and inheritance.

We convince ourselves we are chasing the next great horse.

In truth… we are often rediscovering the last one, akuna matata.