I saw Zoot Suit for the final time last year when I was in Sweden for the Elitlopp, but I remember well his days on the track in the 1970s and even his birth.

The foaling season had just started at Stoner Creek Stud in Kentucky in the late winter of 1973 when it became apparent that there was a monster loose in one of the fields.

Ironically, it was a pacing mare named Good News who gave the first indication of the bad news. She aborted her filly in early February to sound the alarm.

I was fresh out of college and working as an assistant to the manager of Stoner Creek Stud in 1973, and I remember the wave of panic that swept over the farm.

The monster rhinopneumonitis----called “virus abortion” by people in the horse business---had invaded that field. At that time, I don’t know of anything that struck more fear into the hearts of breeders. Virus abortion was highly contagious and could turn a field of life into a field of death.

It’s difficult to fight a foe that you cannot see. And when virus abortion finally showed up in a field of mares, it was too late to do anything. The infected mares would either abort or deliver dead or weak foals.

We decided that the mares in that field had to be quarantined from the other mares on the farm. These mares became Stoner Creek’s own colony of lepers.

Then there was nothing else we could really do except pray for the best. There were some very special mares in that field. Certainly the celebrity in the group was a young mare named Pillow Talk whose son Super Bowl had swept the Triple Crown of trotting just a few months earlier.

Pillow Talk was then carrying a foal by Nevele Pride and those are the foals that breeding farms dream about. We couldn’t afford to lose this one.

But Pillow Talk was not the only celebrity in the field. Some of the other trotting mares were:

*A nice young stakes-winning Florican mare named Pompanette, who would later produce Filet Of Sole, Piggvar, and King Of The Sea. She is also the granddam of Hambletonian winner Duenna.

*The grand old mare Filet Mignon, dam of Porterhouse, an outstanding aged star of the 1960s.

*A young mare named Scenic Route, whose Nevele Pride 2-year-old in ’73 was Madison Avenue, who later sire international trotting star Meadow Road.

The field was not limited to trotting mares, of course. There were a number of wonderful pacing broodmares in the “virus abortion” field, headed by the 13-year-old Glad Rags.

But one thing separated Glad Rags from the other pacing mares: they were in foal to the best pacing stallions in the sport while Glad Rags was in foal to Nevele Pride.

Yes, everyone thought it was a bit of a joke, breeding the champion pacing mare to the champion trotting stallion. Only someone as foolish as her owner Norman Woolworth would try that. Someone suggested that the foal should be named “Norman’s Folly.”

Of course, we weren’t concerned with naming foals after Good News aborted her foal. We were just praying we would have some foals that would live long enough to get a name.

The news got worse when the mare Abbey Cadabbey slipped a colt by Speedster. Then a beautiful mare named Radiance lost her Nevele Pride filly.

Everyone on the farm was nervous as March 13, the due date for Pillow Talk, drew closer. A nice Nevele Pride colt from her could bring a record price, but the odds didn’t look good for getting a live foal.

The odds got worse on March 12. Pillow Talk’s three-quarter sister, Valorama, delivered a foal by Nevele Pride that night. He was weak at birth. In 30 minutes he was dead.

A dark cloud of depression settled over Stoner Creek Stud. The breed was losing some of the best and brightest of its future stars. We were terrified of what the darkness of nightfall would bring.

On the night of March 16, I was at the main foaling barn busy with a young Speedster mare named Exciting Speed who was delivering her a foal by Nevele Pride.

As I was leaving the foaling barn, I saw farm superintendent Bobby McDonald with the white overalls that he wore when handling one of the virus abortion mares. Bobby was walking out of the smaller barn where the virus abortion mares were quarantined when they were due to foal.

Something was wrong. Bobby was smiling. He never smiled. A friend and I wanted to find out why, so we walked into the small barn. There was Pillow Talk lying in the straw with a big colt still attached to her by the umbilical chord. The newborn looked as healthy as any foal ever born. And he was a three-quarter brother to Super Bowl!

Now, finally, we had reason to smile. In Kentucky, they celebrate with bourbon, not champagne. And we might have celebrated a little that night.

The celebration was short-lived. Two days later the pacing mare Cathie Hill delivered a dead foal. Then another pacing mare had a filly that lived only a few minutes.

It was that way the entire spring. One mare would have a normal foal, and another mare would have a dead foal. It was a life-and-death lotttery.

Welcoming a newborn into the world is one of God’s greatest miracles, a celebration of life. But when one of the mares from that virus abortion field started to foal, we didn’t know if we were attending a celebration or a funeral. It was awful.

Almost a month after Pillow Talk, it was time for Glad Rags to foal. We were relieved when she had a healthy colt by Nevele Pride. Glad Rags and her son were one of the few winners in this lottery.

There were other lucky ones, too. Filet Mignon had a foal that spring named Burger Queen and her first foal was the Hambletonian winner Burgomeister. The Nevele Pride colt from Pillow Talk was named Stanley Cup, but he never amounted to much on the track.

Norman Woolworth named the youngster Zoot Suit after the baggy “clown costumes” that hep cats wore many years ago. It was a comical name for a colt with a comical pedigree.

Except that no one ever clued Zoot Suit in on the joke. He took his trotting seriously and developed into a superb Grand Circuit performer as a 2-year-old in 1975.

I recall seeing him race at Delaware that year where he hooked up in a dual with Soothsayer, trained and owned by Mike Crocco. Norman Woolworth loved to recall how he stood next to Crocco during the final heat yelling, “C’mon, Zootie! C’mon, Zootie!”

Meanwhile, Crocco was yelling to his colt, “C’mon Soothie! C’mon, Soothie!”

Woolworth later laughed and said, “People looked at us as if we were nuts.”

Zoot Suit played second banana to the champion colt Nevele Thunder in the Stanley Dancer Stable that year, but as a 3-year-old Zoot Suit was much improved.

He had improved enough to win the first heat of the ’76 Hambletonian with Vernon Dancer driving. Nevele Thunder was driven by Stanley Dancer and broke down during the second heat.

Armbro Regina and Steve Lobell won subsequent heats of the Hambletonian, setting up a raceoff.

Armbro Regina lead Zoot Suit and Steve Lobell through moderate fractions in the fourth heat and then they fanned out for the drive in the homestretch. Armbro Regina drifted out, impeding Zoot Suit and allowing Steve Lobell to sweep past both of them to victory.

Armbro Regina was placed third for interference and I know that Norman Woolworth always believed that Zoot Suit would have won the Hambletonian if he hadn’t been carried wide.

Zoot Suit was a reliable 4-year-old and then started to tail off. By this time Woolworth was becoming more familiar with the allure of Swedish racing and he sold him to Menhammar Stuteri as a stallion.

Since his mother was a champion pacer with a lot of strange names in her pedigrees, Swedish breeders gave Zoot Suit a rather chilly reception, but when his offspring began racing and winning, the situation turned around.

I know that it gave Woolworth extraordinary satisfaction to see Zoot Suit honored by Swedish breeders and trainers. From the start of his stud career, he sired wonderful, long-lasting horse that trainers loved. His best was the durable Zoogin, a winner of more than $3 million in American dollars. He also sired the classy From Heaven Above, the 2003 Elitlopp winner. Norman followed the success of Zootie’s offspring and enjoyed having the last laugh for mating a champion pacing mare to a champion trotting stud.

Zoot Suit remained active in the breeding shed until the last year or two and Norman took great pleasure in visiting Zoot Suit several times a year in Sweden. He made it a point to compare Zoot Suit and his breeder.

“We both like to eat and we’re getting old, but we’re still going strong,” Norman often said with a laugh.

We’re weren’t sure that Glad Rags would produce a live foal in the spring of 1973, but Zoot Suit enjoyed life for more than 32 years.

Norman Woolworth died in the summer of 2003, and now his beloved Zoot Suit has joined him for a reunion in the great beyond.

By Dean A. Hoffman

Courtesy of The USTA