A hickory-tough colt with a proclivity of getting into trouble in his races, Caveat crammed a demanding 21-start career within a 12-month span, which ended with a classic win.
Bred by Ryehill Farm, he was a son of Kentucky Derby-G1 winner Cannonade out of Cold Hearted (by The Axe II), a mare who had given Ryehill Farm’s Jim Ryan his first stakes win in the 1977 Poinsettia Stakes at Hialeah. Campaigned by August Belmont IV, Bob Kirkham and Ryan, Caveat captured the 1983 Belmont Stakes-G1 in what would be the final race of his career. He was a member of what has readily been acknowledged as the best group of Maryland-bred 3-year-olds ever raised in the state, as he joined Irish Sweeps Derby winner and European champion Shareef Dancer and Preakness winner Deputed Testamony as classic winners that year.
Trained by Woodford C. “Woody” Stephens, Caveat launched his career on the turf at 2. His first two wins were at a mile on the grass in New York – he broke his maiden at Saratoga by nine lengths – his first stakes win came in the mile and a sixteenth Prince John Stakes at Belmont Park, and he missed by a head in the Grade 3 Pilgrim Stakes over Aqueduct’s turf course. But he proved competitive on the dirt as well, with stakes placings in that year’s Breeders’ Futurity-G2 at Keeneland, finishing second by a nose, and thirds in the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes-G3 at Churchill Downs and the inaugural running of the Maryland Juvenile Championship Stakes at Laurel, the richest race ever run for Maryland-breds. Finishing ahead of him in the latter was Dixieland Band, named Maryland-bred champion 2-year-old male, and Deputed Testamony.
Caveat made 11 starts that year, and finished in the top three in nine straight. Stephens had the colt in Florida by December, with a target on the key Derby preps.
Florida clearly didn’t agree with Caveat. In his four starts in the Sunshine State at 3, his best finish was a fast-closing second in the Grade 2 Tropical Park Derby at Calder (one week after concluding his juvenile campaign with a third in a Calder allowance). Two starts at Oaklawn Park were more promising as he finished second in both, including the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby, in which he was bumped hard going into the far turn but recovered to beat 12 others as they all chased freewheeling Sunny’s Halo home.
Stephens sent Caveat out for his third start in April in the Derby Trial, one week before the Kentucky Derby, and with Lafitt Pincay aboard scored his first win of the year. The next week, Pincay guided Caveat to a third-place finish in the Kentucky Derby. He broke from the 20th post position that day and saved ground early. But as he began to make his move he was forced very wide coming out of the far turn. Still digging in, he finished a strong third—a neck behind Desert Wine, who was two lengths behind winner Sunny’s Halo.
Stephens elected to skip the Preakness, and instead tightened up the colt for the Belmont with a mile and a sixteenth allowance race against older horses on Memorial Day, which Caveat won by three easy lengths.
The Belmont, named for the great-grandfather of one of his owners, turned into a roughly run race in which he bounced off the inside rail twice while making his winning move on the far turn. Undeterred, he flew for home three and half lengths ahead of Slew o’ Gold; others behind him in the 15-horse field included Deputed Testamony and Dixieland Band.
Only four horses ever ran the mile and a half Belmont faster than Caveat, who covered the distance in 2:27 4/5. And he became only the second Maryland-bred in history to win the classic, joining 1877 winner Cloverbrook.
Caveat exited with an injury which forced his retirement. Syndicated for $7 million, he entered stud at Windfields Farm in Chesapeake City, Md., and was a success. He became one of the nation’s premier sires of turf runners and ranked as Maryland’s leading sire four times, three consecutive (1991-1993) and in 1995, the year he died of an apparent heart attack that February at age 15. Among his offspring are Maryland Thoroughbred Hall of Famer Awad.