Jacqueline Ohrstrom’s Demonstrative, a three-time Grade 1 winner in 2014, heads the 23rd annual National Steeplechase Association Theoretical Handicap with a rating of 162 pounds. Close behind the 2014 Lonesome Glory Champions Award winner is Bill Pape’s Divine Fortune, a two-time Grade 1 winner who was assigned 160 pounds.
NSA Director of Racing Bill Gallo Jr., who created the Theoretical in 1992, evaluated all 36 horses who placed in NSA open and novice stakes races in 2014. Demonstrative’s rating was only slightly below the 163-pound average of annual highweights.
Trained by Richard Valentine and ridden in all his races by Robbie Walsh, Demonstrative went on a tear beginning with the Saratoga Race Course meet. After a narrow second in the A. P. Smithwick Memorial (Gr. 1), he dominated Saratoga’s New York Turf Writers Cup (Gr. 1), Belmont Park’s Lonesome Glory Handicap (Gr. 1), and the Grand National (Gr. 1) at Far Hills, N.J.
His 2014 earnings totaled $362,500, which crowned him as the Lonesome Glory Champions Award winner as the year’s leading earner.
Divine Fortune, who headed the 2013 Theoretical with a 156-pound rating, bookended his season with Grade 1 victories in the Calvin Houghland Iroquois and the Marion duPont Scott Colonial Cup.
The dominance of the sport’s two leaders, who accounted for five of the year’s six Grade 1 races, was reflected in the eight-pound gap to the third-ranked horse, Irv Naylor’s Able Deputy, a recent import who dominated the International Gold Cup’s David L. “Zeke” Ferguson Memorial (Gr. 3). Naylor also campaigned the fourth-ranked horse, Decoy Daddy, winner of three Grade 3 races in the only three starts of his 12-year-old season. Decoy Daddy was rated at 150 pounds.
Below are the rankings of all 36 horses in the 2014 NSA Theoretical Handicap:
Demonstrative…………………… 162
Divine Fortune………………….. 160
Able Deputy…………………….. 152
Decoy Daddy…………………… 150
Gustavian…………………………. 148
Italian Wedding………………… 146
Makari……………………………… 146
Address Unknown…………….. 144
All the Way Jose……………….. 144
Barnstorming……………………. 142
Top Striker……………………….. 142
All Together……………………… 140
Awesome Pearl…………………. 140
Bluegrass Summer…………….. 140
For Non Stop……………………. 140
Parker’s Project…………………. 140
Pleasant Woodman……………. 140
Schoodic………………………….. 140
Staying On……………………….. 140
Inti………………………………….. 138
Spy in the Sky…………………… 138
Cat Feathers……………………… 137
Rudyard K……………………….. 136
Syros……………………………….. 136
Tempt Me Alex…………………. 136
Bob Le Beau…………………….. 134
Dr. Skip……………………………. 134
Kingdom………………………….. 134
One Giant Step…………………. 134
Sporty……………………………… 134
Dugan……………………………… 132
Easy Reach………………………. 132
Fog Island………………………… 132
Sharp Numbers…………………. 132
Street Fight………………………. 132
Casual Creeper………………….. 130