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Some races shouldn’t be won. They should be declared a dead-heat based on the deserving, gut-busting effort of the horses who gave it all they had to reach the finish line first.

This year’s $50,000 Carolina First Carolina Cup was such a race. Kinross Farm’s Sur La Tete (Chris Read) won by a head over Hirapour (Matt McCarron) and Preemptive Strike (Robert Walsh). And while the son of Sky Classic deserved to win, an equal case could be made for his foes.

Though only four entries ran–F. Lee McKinney’s mare, Feeling So Pretty (Michael Traurig) rounded out the field–the racedidn’t lack for drama.

The three geldings have repeatedly knocked heads. Their last meeting, the 2004 Colonial Cup over the same course, ended with Hirapour (the 2004 Eclipse Award winner) over Preemptive Strike (the 2004 Carolina Cup winner), and Sur La Tete (the leading steeplechase earner in 2004) was third.

With a front-runner in Preemptive Strike, a late-closer in Sur La Tete and Hirapour’s lightning-fast stretch run, it all came down to tactics.

Preemptive Strike led the race until the last two fences as his front-running predilection dictates. Hirapour sat close behind, refusing to let the big chestnut have it all his own way. The mare slotted in behind Hirapour, and Sur La Tete was right behind her.

On the backside of the course, where races are won and lost depending on smooth jumping and strategic riding, Read moved up on Hirapour’s outside. A spectacular jump at the last of the five backside fences put him a little closer to Preemptive Strike.

Feeling So Pretty had run and jumped well to this point, but she started to fade as the field moved around the wide-sweeping turn for home. She finished a distanced fourth.

McCarron, who won the Colonial Cup with a bold move up the inside from the second-last fence, tried the same tactic again, but Walsh and Read had his number.

“Robbie wouldn’t let Hirapour up his inside. I was also making Sur La Tete lean on Preemptive Strike so we shut Hirapour down pretty good,” said Read.

Hirapour was forced to check slightly and then go around Preemptive Strike and Sur La Tete.

They raced to the last. Read couldn’t have jumped the fence better, and Sur La Tete touched down running. Preemptive Strike struggled to hold on, Hirapour, with ground to make up, turned on his after-burners, but Sur La Tete had momentum on his side. Even though Hirapour got to him in the final strides, he dug in, prevailed and won by a head.

“It was heartbreaking,” said Doug Fout, the trainer of Hirapour. “We used Hirapour to push Preemptive Strike. We knew ‘Striker’ would be dangerous on the front end at the shorter distance of 23³8 miles. It was a calculated risk, and then when we got trapped on the inside and had to swing 5 lengths wide it was over. Robbie [Walsh] did some good race riding, no doubt about it.”

Fout’s original tactics were thwarted when his other entry in the Grade III race, El Capitano, colicked the night before. Fout had planned to push Preemptive Strike with El Capitano’s frontrunning and set the race up for Hirapour to come from behind.

Fout thought that if the race been just a little bit longer, Hirapour would have run Sur la Tete down. Read said no. “My horse wasn’t going to let anyone by,” he said. “He was determined as I’ve seen him, and we like this horse for a longer distance.”

No matter who’s right, all theories will be tested again shortly as both camps are pointing their horses at the $150,000 Royal Chase grade I hurdle stakes at Keeneland (Ky.), April 29.

Read picked up a second score when he piloted Miles Ahead to the win in the allowance timber. With his second win in two starts over timber, Miles Ahead has people talking timber stakes horse potential.

“He has a really high cruising speed. When he ran against the good horses over hurdles he got jumped off his feet a little because of the speed. The longer distance and the little slower pace of timber really suit this horse. He does have a kick at the end of the race, too, which is going to make him a tough horse to beat,” Read said.

Read also added that the horse has a fast learning curve. In the horse’s first start at Callaway Gardens (Ga.) in November, Read had to set him up to jump because he was so green. In the Camden race, Miles Ahead started to look for his own take-off spots, allowing his jockey to ride him down into the fences.

“He’s a wonderful ride, very uncomplicated,” Read said. “He feels like a horse that can go forever.”

The two wins in Camden, especially Sur La Tete’s triumph, provided an emotional roller coaster for the Kinross crew. Trainer Neil Morris’ wife, eventer Beale Morris, died March 22 (see obituary April 1, p. 77), and the Kinross Farm crew has struggled to maintain normalcy.

“It was an emotional roller-coaster type of day,” said Read.