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Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 25, 2000
20 horses are killed in barn fire
Cam Knows Best, a world-record holder and the runner-up in the 1998 Little Brown Jug, was among 20 standardbred horses killed in a barn fire in Manalapan, N.J.
One horse escaped the Thursday night blaze at Gaitway Farm, officials said Friday. The horses competed at Freehold Raceway and the Meadowlands.
The cause of the fire was believed to be a portable, submersible electric water heater.
"They must have left it in a bucket of water. The water evaporated," Timothy Hundertpfund, general manager at Gaitway, said.
The Monmouth County prosecutor's office was attempting to contact a man who was in the barn an hour before the fire. Officials would not give his name.
Deputy county fire marshal Richard Hogan said the fire appeared to be an accident.
Hogan said the electric heater was placed in a plastic bucket despite the manufacturer's recommendation it only should be used in metal containers. The bucket had been left unattended against a wooden wall where the fire started. The barn did not have smoke alarms or a sprinkler system, but neither was required, Hogan said.
"It went up very quickly. We could see flames miles away," Hogan said.
It was one of the worst barn fires ever, said Genevieve Sullivan of Harness Racing Communications, a division of the U.S. Trotting Association.
A motorist stopped and saved one horse, but the heat was too intense for him to free others.
Cam Knows Best, a 5-year-old, was co-holder of the record for a mile on a five-eighths mile track, 1:49 1/5 on April 10 at Dover Downs. He also set a world record of 1:58 3/5 for 1 1/16 miles on the half-mile Freehold track in 1999.
MORE HORSES: Jerry Romans, one of Churchill Downs' winningest trainers, died Thursday after a long illness. He was 58. He had not been active as a trainer since a cerebral hemorrhage and stroke in July 1998. Romans' 199 victories rank 15th in Churchill history. ... Reciclada, the favorite in a field of eight fillies and mares, raced to a 11/4-length victory in the $150,000 Delta Airlines Top Flight Handicap at Aqueduct in New York. Country Hideaway was runner-up, 23/4 lengths in front of Critical Eye. ... Surfside, with Pat Day in the irons, led wire-to-wire for a 4-length victory in the $445,600 Grade II Clark Handicap for 3-year-olds and up at Churchill Downs. The 3-year-old daughter of Seattle Slew and Flanders covered the 11/8 miles in 1:48.75 and paid $5.20, $3.60 and $3.60.
CRICKET: Australia moved closer to victory on the second day of the first Test against the West Indies in Brisbane, reducing the visitors to 25-2 after building a first-innings lead of 250 runs.
GOLF: Defending champion Aaron Baddeley shot 3-under-par 69 for a share of the second-round lead with first-round co-leader Greg Turner, who shot 70, in the Australian Open in Melbourne. Scott Laycock shot 69 and was in third place at 4 under. Peter O'Malley (73), one of three first-round leaders, Greg Norman (69), Robert Allenby (72) and Nick Faldo (70) were tied for fifth. Former U.S. amateur champion Matt Kuchar, making his pro debut, was six back after 75. Mark O'Meara, the 1998 Masters and British Open champion, missed the cut at 150 after 74.
SKATING: Maria Butyrskaya put on an exquisite short program to take the lead at the Lalique Trophy meet in Paris, and a Canadian couple led the pairs event. Butyrskaya, the 1999 world champion, scored marks mostly between 5.7 to 5.9. In second place was Russian Victoria Volchkova, who had high jumps but low presentation marks. Jennifer Kirk, the 16-year-old American who was the junior world champion in March, was fourth. She completed all her jumps, but they were low and she was marked down for technical merit compared with other big jumpers. The pairs event was led by Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, who skated almost perfectly to a jazzy interpretation of Come Rain or Come Shine.
SKIING: Picabo Street, who missed the past two seasons with injuries, said she plans to return to the World Cup circuit Dec. 6 when the women race a super-G in Val d'Isere, France. Street, 29, had intended to make her debut last week in Park City, Utah, or this week in Aspen, Colo. But she had arthroscopic surgery 10 days ago to repair torn cartilage in her left knee. Street was the silver medalist in downhill at the 1994 Olympics, and she won the 1995 and '96 World Cup downhill titles. After winning the downhill at the '96 World Championships, she tore her left ACL while training. She rebounded to win the Olympic super-G in '98 in Japan but crashed a month later in Switzerland, tearing her right ACL and shattering her left femur. She has had five operations. ... Michaela Dorfmeister gave the powerful Austrian women's team its first victory, taking a World Cup super-G on Aspen Mountain. After wins by German, Swiss and Croatian women in the first three races of the season, Dorfmeister gave her country a winning margin of .29 seconds over Regine Cavagnoud of France. ... Defending champion Martin Schmitt jumped 128 meters in the first round, then held off Sven Hannawald to win the World Cup opener in Kuopio, Finland.
SOCCER: England defender Rio Ferdinand agreed to terms with English Premiership club Leeds United and will complete his British record 18 million-pound ($26.1-million) transfer from West Ham if he passes a medical exam today, Leeds' Web site reported. If he passes the medical exam and agrees to undisclosed terms, the 22-year-old Ferdinand would become the world's most expensive defender, eclipsing the 13-million pounds Roma paid for Argentine Walter Samuel in June. ... Luis Figo and former winners Rivaldo and Zinedine Zidane were nominated for FIFA's World Player of the Year award. The award, to be announced Dec. 11 in Rome, is based on votes by 130 coaches.
TRACK: Sprinter Butch Reynolds, whose world record at 400 meters stood for 11 years, is quitting international competition. His 400 record of 43.18 seconds was broken by Michael Johnson at the 1999 World Championships. Reynolds, 36, anchored the U.S. 1,600 relay team to gold at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and finished second in the 400 there. He was suspended in 1990 by the International Amateur Athletic Federation, which said he tested positive for the steroid nandrolone after a 1988 meet in Monte Carlo. Reynolds denied the charge but served a two-year suspension while fighting the charge in court. He won a $27.3-million judgment, but the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the award in 1994. He did not qualify for the Sydney Games. ... British shot putter Carl Myerscough, a sophomore at Nebraska, was suspended for two years by Britain's track and field federation for a drug offense. UK Athletics found Myerscough guilty of a doping violation after he admitted that metabolites of banned steroids were contained in his urine samples in a drug test in May 1999.