Port Eighty, Kit, & Halo Miss America: who would have believed absolutely nothing?

Lest we annoint young horses, specifically first-out winners too quickly: imagine being at Saratoga on August 15 and 16 of 1997, and seeing three 11-horse maiden special weights on fast tracks for 2-year-olds over the two days. With the way the races were won, you have thought you had gotten lucky and really seen something. A Bill Mott, Forty Niner colt named Port Eighty won by 9 1/2 lengths, with 15 1/2 on 3rd, and 21 1/2 over 5th. The other division on the 15th was won by fellow first-time starter Kit, a Carson City who won by 5 1/4. I'm not sure how fast Port Eighty and Kit ran, but despite the more spread-out field in Port Eighty's race, he was less than a tenth of a second faster than Kit. The next day, the odds-on favorite and first-time starter Halo Miss America won by 7, with 9 lengths over 3rd, and 14 over 4th. A John Oxley, John Ward filly, her year-older brother American Champ had already won four stakes in '97.

Port Eighty, Kit, and Halo Miss America were all flops after their resounding maiden wins. Each made just six or seven more starts. Port Eighty and Kit won again, but just once and at the allowance level, while Halo Miss America never did. Sometimes horses who looked very promising and didn't make it show long layoffs soom after the early fireworks, but that was not really the case with Halo Miss America, and definitely not the case with Port Eighty and Kit, who continued right on racing, but just seemed to have lost the magic. The average career earnings for the three horses was $45,699. As a group they barely doubled what they won in those first maiden special weights.