BY BROCK SHERIDAN
MAY 31, 1982—Conquistador Cielo’s seven-and-a-quarter-length victory in the 1982 Metropolitan Handicap (Grade 1) was not the first chapter in his championship year story, but it does mark the initial point of national interest. Yes it was a track record performance by the 3-year-old colt against older horses in one of America’s most prominent races, but it then set up his victory five days later in the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes, the first of five consecutive wins in the classic for Hall of Fame trainer Woody Stephens.
A winner of two of four starts as a 2-year-old including the Grade 2 Saratoga Special, Conquistador Cielo was considered a contender for the Kentucky Derby after winning an allowance race at Hialeah by four lengths in February of 1982. However, a minor leg injury convinced Stephens to wait for later classics and choose an easier allowance race for the colt. Conquistador Cielo easily won the allowance at Pimlico on May 8 by three lengths.
Still patient, Stephens skipped the Preakness and entered Conquistador Cielo in another allowance race, this time going a mile at Belmont Park on May 19. Conquistador Cielo romped by 11 lengths prompting Stephens to choose the $125,000-added Metropolitan Handicap against older horses on May 31.
With Eddie Maple aboard, Conquistador Cielo tracked Carter Handicap (G1)-winner Pass the Tab and Florida-bred Eminency, winner of the Grade 2 Oaklawn Handicap, through a half mile in :45 flat. Conquistador Cielo put away those two around the turn and shot to the lead at the top of the stretch, drawing clear in the run for home to win in 1:33 flat, breaking the previous mark of 1:33 3/5 set by Stop the Music in 1973. (Click here to watch the Met Mile.)
Five days later Conquistador Cielo won the Belmont, defeating Kentucky Derby champion Gato Del Sol by 14 lengths in the slop. That started a historical run by Stephens in the Test of Champions that was completed by Caveat (1983), Swale (1984), Crème Fraiche (1985) and Danzig Connection (1986).
Conquistador Cielo was also the fifth Florida-bred winner of the Belmont after Needles in 1956, Hail to All (1965), High Echelon (1970) and Affirmed (1978).
A week after the Belmont, he was syndicated for $36.4 million.
Conquistador Cielo next won the Grade 2 Dwyer by four lengths on July 5 at Belmont then the Grade 3 Jim Dandy by a length at Saratoga on Aug. 8. In his last race, he finished third in the Travers (G1) won by Runaway Groom with Florida-bred Aloma’s Ruler second and was named the Eclipse Award-winning Champion 3-Year-Old and 1982 Horse of the Year.
He was the fifth Florida-bred to be named Horse of the Year after Roman Brother (1965), Dr. Fager (1968) and Affirmed in 1978 and 1979. Florida-breds Holy Bull (1994) and Skip Away (1998) are also Horse of the Year honorees.
He stood his entire career at stud at Claiborne Farm where he sired 65 stakes winners including multiple Grade 1-winning millionaires Marquetry, multiple graded stakes-winning millionaire Forty Niner Days, multiple graded stakes winner Mi Cielo, multiple graded stakes winning Florida-bred Wagon Limit, an earner of $992,000; and multiple graded stakes-winner Lexicon, who earned $820,965. He was euthanized because of founder on Dec. 17, 2002 and according to Blood-Horse, is buried next to Florida-bred Unbridled in the farm’s Marchmont Cemetary.
Conquistador Cielo was bred in Florida by Lewis E. Iandoli, a Pompano Beach, Fla., shopping center owner who conducted his Thoroughbred operation at his Heather Hills Farms in Ocala.
Out of the Bold Commander mare K D Princess, Conquistador Cielo was by Mr. Prospector, who had become the nation’s leading first crop sire of 1978 while standing in Florida at Aisco Farm near Ocala before moving to Clairborne Farm in Kentucky in 1980.
Conquistador Cielo was a $150,000 yearling purchase by Henry deKwiatkowski at the 1980 Fasig-Tipton Yearling Sale at Saratoga and later sent to trainer Woody Stephens.
Return to the May 31 issue of Wire to Wire
