Smarty Jones Pens 'Daily News' Column, Joins Guild, Starts Blog

By: Joe Strupp It turns out that Triple Crown contender Smarty Jones is not just a quality racehorse and a viable champion.

He's also not a bad writer. For a three-year-old, that is.

Just ask editors at the Philadelphia Daily News (Click for QuikCap), who have been running a column by the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes champ for nearly a month.

Along with having his photo in the paper each day and a prominent news section slot, Jones has also received a Newspaper Guild membership and his own Web log page, editors said.

Since his first piece on May 6, which dealt with being thrust into the limelight after the Derby win, the Philadelphia-bred beast has written about topics ranging from his disbelief in jinxes to the city's latest dispute over the treatment of carriage horses.

"From what I hear, these poor, working-class horses spend day after day sweating in the hot sun, dragging tourists around the streets of Old City, tripping in potholes, dodging cabs and listening to out-of-towners complain about the smell," the four-legged freelancer wrote. "Every time one of them comes within 50 feet of Independence Hall, a park ranger interrogates him like he's a suspected Arabian."

Dubbed "From the Horse's Mouth," the column began as a way for readers to find the inside feelings of the most famous Philadelphia underdog since Rocky Balboa as he makes his way to Saturday's Belmont Stakes.

"When it started, we didn't think it would keep going more than a couple of days," said City Editor Kurt Heine. "But it has gone a couple of weeks and he has expanded to cover other stuff."

After a few weeks of basic news columns, the stabled scribe took off in other directions, penning a movie review of Brad Pitt's "Troy" (giving it two hooves down for the limited Trojan Horse screen time), shooting a photo (yes, his nose got in the way), and even trying his hand at an editorial on flies (he's against them.)

"He's pretty clever, but I think he was a little out of his league with the sex advice column," remarked Jill Porter, a fellow Daily News columnist, who says she is not jealous of her equine colleague. "He's a bit of a horse's ass, always showing off his shoes. But it is something nice to have with everything else going on in the world."

But Jones is not doing it all alone. Working alongside the paper's newest newsy is veteran reporter Don Russell, who does the actual writing for Jones. "He and I are of the same mind," Russell says when asked how he can properly present the horse's thoughts. "He is definitely a Philly guy, he has a real wise-acre attitude about him. But he is completely rational -- he has all four feet firmly on the ground."

At the rival Philadelphia Inquirer, editors don't feel like they missed out on an opportunity to get such exclusive stories. "We've mostly concentrated on the facts," Inquirer Managing Editor Anne Gordon says about her paper's Smarty Jones coverage. "There are no talking horses in The Philadelphia Inquirer."

But that doesn't mean the Inquirer isn't giving Jones attention, according to Editor Amanda Bennett. She said the paper ran a souvenir poster of the Kentucky Derby on Thursday, with a Smarty Jones poster slated for Friday's edition, and a cutout of a "triple crown" for Saturday's feature section. The Inquirer is also sending five writers to cover the race.

The horse's column is just one of several ways the Daily News has taken its city's Triple Crown frenzy into the news pages. Along with Jones' daily diatribe, the paper has run a caption contest for a photo of Smarty Jones and Gov. Ed Rendell, assembled a panel of horse-racing experts to answer reader questions about racing, and planned a 26-page wrap-around for Friday's paper.

"I think people appreciate the diversity he has brought to our newsroom," Russell said about the newest staff member. His own reaction to working with an editorial equid: "I'm far more accustomed to talking to the other end of the horse."