Trainer Sanna Hendriks was worried; McDynamo still didn’t look right.

He was coming off a disappointing start to the 2006 spring season, plagued by a pull-up at Keeneland (Ky.), a fever at Iroquois (Tenn.) and a bad abscess. Although Far Hills (N.J.) had always been the gelding’s favorite venue, Hendriks knew he faced more obstacles than usual at this year’s $250,000 Breeders’ Cup Steeplechase.

The big, bay Thoroughbred had come to the meet with a reputation to uphold–he’d already won an unprecedented three Breeders’ Cups at Far Hills in 2003, ’04 and ’05. But with an off start to 2006 and tough competition that October day, Hendriks wasn’t sure if the horse could do it again.

She didn’t believe her star hurdler was indicating he was ready to retire–after all, he’d easily won at the Meadowlands (N.J.), a warm-up race a few weeks earlier, with a 10-pound handicap, but at 10 years old and with seven years of racing behind him, she couldn’t rule that thought out completely.

If the story ended there, McDynamo still would have had an admirable record. He had already reached–and sustained–a pinnacle few horses in the steeplechase world will ever ascend: three consecutive Breeders’ Cup titles, $1.1 million in prize money, two National Steeplechase Association Horse of the Year awards, two Eclipse Awards and perhaps most telling, the adoration of lay people who know little about the sport, but who have come to recognize the 16.3-hand reddish bay by sight, or by name.

What makes this horse’s story unique is not one great season, but several; not one person touched by his success, but many.

Back at Far Hills, Hendriks watched the horse walk quietly around the paddock. About the only time the typically calm animal got keyed up was before a race, but now McDynamo was eyeing the puddles of standing water around him with reservation, as if to say, “You want me to run in this?”

Jody Petty noticed too. The 5 1/2 foot, 35-year-old jockey who earned the ride on McDynamo halfway through 2005 wondered why the horse was just walking around the enclosure, instead of marching as he had done a few weeks ago at the Meadowlands. In the tack a few moments later, however, Petty felt the horse perk up. It was show time.

At the start, Mauritania took an early lead, and Petty sat McDynamo just behind the leader. He still marveled at how easily he could adjust the veteran. McDynamo took the hurdles along the 2 5/8-mile course with ease, and by the time he reached the three fences around the last turn, Petty cruised him around a flagging Mauritania. Then Petty felt McDynamo open up on his own. He encouraged him, then realized he couldn’t hear the hurdlers behind them anymore.

“I came up to the last hill and turned around to look; there was nobody there!” Petty said. “I had to break my neck again to look behind me. In soft going, especially, you should never relax to the last fence, but he took that last hurdle like it was nothing. We were even a tiny bit long. I continuously patted him on the neck from the last fence to the finish line, and I took a lot of grief because I was smiling so much.”

By the time Petty and McDynamo “walked” across the finish line, they were 22 lengths ahead of the second-placed finisher. Hendriks watched the horse charge up to her after the race, ears pricked, head held high. For 2006, McDynamo was back.


The Early Years
McDynamo is a proud-looking horse. He has an athlete’s body and a regular sort of head, marked with a small white star, but the people in his life say his most distinguishing feature is the way he carries himself. If you stood him in a crowd of other large bay horses, his body wouldn’t stand out as much as his posture: ears pricked almost all the time, head raised, alert. He radiates authority and self-importance.

“He holds himself differently now than when he was younger,” said Hendriks’ assistant trainer Brianne Slater, who has cared for McDynamo since he came to Hendriks’ yard as a 3-year-old. “He absolutely soaks up attention. You just look at him, and you know he’s a good horse.”

When McDynamo’s owner, Mike Moran of Unionville, Pa., saw the horse as a yearling at Keeneland (Ky.), he was attracted to the animal’s intelligent head, his rangy limbs, his big walk. Moran liked his sire, Dynaformer, for his body type and running style, and he thought the traits had passed well to the bay yearling before him. It didn’t much matter to him that people rarely shopped for steeplechasers at Keeneland. He bought the colt for $82,000.

“When I was at the sale, a guy named Steve McDonald came up and offered to split him with me,” said Moran. Eventually, the three names–McDonald, Dynaformer and Moran–would be collapsed to form the horse’s official name: McDynamo.

“He actually wasn’t precocious at all as a youngster,” continued Moran. “He was stumbling and uncoordinated, and his 2-year-old year became a strength-building period.”

The horse also seemed to have claustrophobia. His attentiveness to outside stimuli had prompted Moran to nickname him Curious George, but when it came to being inside, the animal would circle his stall like a lion pacing his cage, and the only solution was to tie him to a hay net. Moran didn’t run McDynamo in a race until he was 3, and the enclosed space of the starting gate proved to be problematic. In their first start at Pimlico (Md.), he came in dead last.

Moran ran McDynamo on the flat during his 4-year-old year, and he continued to gate-school the animal when he could. The horse won a few seconds and a few thirds, but McDonald wanted out of his share of the horse, so Moran bought the other half of McDynamo that year for $20,000.

Meanwhile, Moran had asked Sanna Hendriks to take over the training on the horse. Hendriks, now 38, trains out of a stable a few miles away from Moran at Augustin Stables in Cochranville, Pa.

“I had McDynamo six weeks before his first start over jumps at Far Hills,” Hendriks said. “When he ran it, he was a powerful jumper from the beginning. He has a short back and a tremendous stride, and when he was younger he was very keen. As he’s gotten older, he’s mellowed a bit.”


Finding His Calling
After winning his maiden over fences at Far Hills, Hendriks knew that getting McDynamo to relax on the racecourse was key. In his fifth start at Belmont (N.Y.), the horse was so aggressive that he fell at the seventh fence.

“He had to learn to be a bit more conservative,” she said. “He thought he had wings.”

McDynamo’s jockey at the time, native New Zealander Craig Thornton, guided the horse through most of his early hurdle wins. After a successful novice year, the horse continued to show his maturity in open company. Back at Keeneland in April 2003, he won the $159,625 Royal Chase for the Sport of Kings, his first race in open company. He also won the $175,000 Breeders’ Cup Steeplechase in Far Hills, in October and then the $100,000 Colonial Cup at Camden, S.C., in November.

It was clear the colt had come into his own. Since converting to steeplechasing in 2001, McDynamo had won eight out of 10 starts by the end of 2003 and had racked up $466,429 in prize money. Over the next three seasons, McDynamo continued to score win after win.

After a lull in 2004 with a fall and only one win out of two starts, the horse soared back in 2005, winning twice and placing second three times in six starts ($265,425 that year). And in 2006, he won three of four starts ($285,000).

Hendriks said that 2006 was perhaps the horse’s best year to date. Not only did he make an impressive comeback, but he also earned more in winnings than any other year and was honored with his third Eclipse Award, the sport’s highest honor, from the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, the Daily Racing Form and the National Turf Writers Association.

What stuns most of McDynamo’s admirers is that rarely, if ever, do steeplechasers manage to have more than one remarkable season. The horse hasn’t been immune to ups and downs–surgery to place a screw in a hind leg fracture took him out for a time, and like any athlete he’s had his share of falls or bobbles or soundness flare-ups–but afterward, the horse has always managed to return like new, much to the delight of his fans.

“This horse has beat the best in the country over the years, and he continues to do so, which is really unusual,” said Richard Hutchinson, a retired steeplechase enthusiast in Chadds Ford, Pa., who said he’s seen almost every race of McDynamo’s life, including his flat races as a youngster.

“It’s fortunate for marketing steeplechase in America; he’s a true champion, and we’re blessed with many years of being able to watch him,” Hutchinson added. “The thrill is that it seems he’ll continue to be able to do so in 2007.”

The secret to his success? Hendriks will say that McDynamo is simply gifted, but she’ll also admit he’s on an unorthodox care and training regime that seems to keep him mentally as well as physically primed.

First, McDynamo is treated much more like a horse than other elite and fragile competitors. Though swaddled in blankets in the winter, he gets turned out year-round with a pokey, graying ex-race horse named Josh. His companion on the road is a miniature Shetland named Garth, and the two share a stall on overnight trips.

The veteran athlete’s nickname George fell out of favor years ago, and now he’s simply called by his professional title, McDynamo, or sometimes Big Mac, if someone is feeling silly. The horse doesn’t seem to particularly care what you call him, but he does take issue with boring workouts, so Hendriks or Slater or sometimes even his current jockey take him foxhunting regularly.

“He’s the chick ride,” said the 27-year-old Slater, “and one of the best hunters out there. He’ll stand quietly as the whole field gallops by him. Of course we don’t want to get him hurt, and we don’t jump him out there, but his big thing is that he doesn’t like to train in the same place two days in a row.”

Although his ground manners are impeccable, and he rarely gets zoomed up anymore, except in the brief period before a race, McDynamo still can’t help pacing his stall once in a while if he’s left inside and too many other horses are around him. And although he’ll run well in the hard or the soft, he’s never really outgrown a hatred for rain.

“You go to walk him out of the barn at that point–if it’s pouring–and he’ll kind of pause and be like, ‘I really don’t want to go out there,'” said Hendriks.


An Amiable Partnership
It would be hard to find someone more hyped about McDynamo’s accomplishments than the person who has shared the last six of them with him: Jody Petty.

The jockey has enjoyed his own amount of fame after a stellar season on other mounts in 2005 earned him the ride on McDynamo. Exuberant and fearless, Petty not only foxhunts, but also events at intermediate level in between races.

“One chance to ride McDynamo is worth riding all the bad jumpers in the world,” Petty said. “Certain horses have to have the right conditions before they can win, but, with McDynamo, we can put him on the front end, and he can win. Or, if there’s a speed horse, we can tuck him in behind that runner and he’ll also do great. He has this amazing ability like no other; he’s a great mover, a wonderful jumper, and he wants to win like no other. It’s the whole package.”

As for future steeplechases, nobody wants to jinx a great player in a risky sport, but Hendriks said that as long as the horse is healthy and enjoying his job, he’ll continue to compete in 2007 and beyond. After that, Moran said, McDynamo will be welcomed into a rightful place of prominence back on their family farm, with as much time spent out on the hunt field as he cares to enjoy.

Erin Richards