The Thoroughbred is known for its athletic prowess and tenacious spirit, qualities that the humblest of claimers or the grandest of champions can show when put to the test. When an injury sends a horse to the sidelines, their performance when they return to the racetrack can show fans what that particular competitor is made of.

When injury halted Bricks and Mortar’s career for more than a year, owners Klaravich Stables and William H. Lawrence and trainer Chad Brown had no guarantees that the colt would find that form again. Instead, Bricks and Mortar came back even better, topping off his stellar final season with a Breeders’ Cup victory and the title of 2019 Horse of the Year

A Promising Beginning

Seth Klarman parlayed his childhood visits to Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Md. into a racing partnership with Jeff Ravich in 1993. As Klaravich Stable, the pair raced horses together until 2006, when Ravich went out on his own in California. Klarman then brought Lawrence on as his partner, and in 2017, the pair won their first Triple Crown race, the Preakness Stakes, with Cloud Computing. That February, Bricks and Mortar debuted in the red and white Klaravich silks, taking a 1 1/16-mile maiden special weight race on Gulfstream Park’s turf course.

Bricks and Mortar winning Hall of Fame Stakes. (Eclipse Sportswire)

Purchased for $200,000 at the 2015 Keeneland September yearling sale, Klaravich’s newest winner boasted a strong turf pedigree — his sire (father), Giant’s Causeway, had Group 1 wins in England, Ireland, and France, including a win in the St. James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot in 2000, and had come within a neck of beating Tiznow in the Breeders’ Cup Classic that same year. Bricks and Mortar’s dam (mother), Beyond the Waves, was a stakes winner in France before coming to America and finishing second in the Grade 3 Bewitch Stakes at Keeneland in 2003. Bred by George Strawbridge Jr. of Augustin Stable, Bricks and Mortar spent his earliest days at August Hancock III’s Stone Farm before his 2015 sale to Klaravich Stable.

Unraced at 2, Bricks and Mortar’s February 2017 debut victory showed trainer Chad Brown that the Giant’s Causeway colt had great potential. Another win in his second start, this one at Belmont Park, led to the Klarman colt’s stakes debut in just his third race. He raced last of seven through the first six furlongs in the one-mile Manila Stakes for 3-year-olds. Jockey Joel Rosario then angled him four-wide entering the stretch and gave his colt the cue to pour on the speed, finding the front at the finish line. Bricks and Mortar followed with his first graded stakes victory in the Grade 2 National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame Stakes at Saratoga.

In the Grade 3 Saranac and then the Grade 3 Hill Prince Stakes, though, troubled trips impeded Bricks and Mortar, whose late turn of foot allowed him to make up enough ground to finish third in both races. After the Hill Prince, though, a troubling development threatened to end Bricks and Mortar’s career after just six starts.

A Winding Path to Greatness

Bricks and Mortar in 2019. (Eclipse Sportswire)

In late 2017, Bricks and Mortar developed stringhalt, or equine reflex hypertonia, in his right hind leg. This neuro-muscular condition affected his ability to gallop and required surgery to correct, putting the Klaravich color bearer out of commission for more than a year.

“The horse was getting ready for the Hollywood Derby, and he worked at Belmont and when he came out of the work that day he developed what is called a stringhalt walk,” Brown told Thoroughbred Daily News’s Bill Finley in 2019. “It’s very rare. It’s when a horse has an exaggerated extension with their hind leg, where they’ll pick it up like they’re walking over something. They really hike it up like they’re walking over something in their way. I was quite nervous about it. He had a remarkable record at the time and had two narrow defeats. I thought he easily could have been undefeated. I was really disappointed.”

Klarman and Lawrence sent the dark bay or brown Giant’s Causeway colt to Larry Bramlage, D.V.M., of Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital for the corrective procedure. Thirteen months after his November 2017 surgery, Bricks and Mortar was back where he started, racing on the Gulfstream turf in an allowance-optional claiming race in late December 2018. He successfully navigated the one-mile test, winning by a half-length.

With the Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational Stakes a month away, would the Klaravich colt be able to return to the form he had shown at 3 in time for his 5-year-old bow in the $7 million stakes?

With Irad Ortiz Jr. in the saddle, Bricks and Mortar joined nine others in the starting gate at Gulfstream for the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Turf. Facing the likes of graded stakes winners Channel Maker, Yoshida, and Next Shares, he raced in midpack through the three-quarters of a mile and then went three wide on the far turn to find running room, his late kick powering Bricks and Mortar to a 2 ½-length win. The Klaravich star was back.

After a win in the Grade 2 Muniz Memorial Handicap at Fair Grounds, Brick and Mortar bested 12 others in the Grade 1 Old Forester Turf Classic on Kentucky Derby day at Churchill Downs. With his sights set on the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita Park, Brown sent his star to Belmont Park for the Grade 1 Manhattan Stakes, which Bricks and Mortar won by 1 ½ lengths, and then Arlington International for the iconic Arlington Million, where he came home three-quarters of a length in front.

For his final start, Bricks and Mortar faced 2019 Epsom Derby winner Anthony Van Dyck and multiple Grade 1 winner Channel Maker among others in the 1 ½-mile Breeders’ Cup Turf. With jockey Ortiz in the saddle, he accelerated through the Santa Anita stretch to catch United at the finish line, sealing an undefeated season with a thrilling win by a head.

“This is a special horse. He might be the best I’ve ever ridden,” Ortiz told the BloodHorse. “Today, he was a little keen with me, so we were closer to the pace than normal. So, I just tried to get him to relax. When I asked him to run, I looked behind me and saw we were clear. He saw that other horse in front of us, and he fought all the way to the wire. I knew it was very close, but I thought we won it.”

The following January, Klarman, Lawrence, and Brown were on hand to collect their champion’s honors at the Eclipse Awards. His campaign of six wins at six different racetracks after his long layoff was enough to earn Bricks and Mortar both champion turf male and Horse of the Year honors.

“I’ve been thinking about the last few months, and for both Seth and myself, he’s the horse of a lifetime,” Lawrence told the BloodHorse at the time. “I grew up near Saratoga and dreamed about owning a racehorse. So, to have the best horse in the country, it’s incredible and extremely gratifying.”

Bricks and Mortar ended his racing career with a record of 11 wins and two thirds from 13 races and $7,085,650 in purse earnings. In early August 2019, Teruya Yoshida of Shadai Farm purchased the Klaravich champion’s breeding rights, so in early 2020, the newly minted Horse of the Year was shipped to Japan. His time on the racetrack done, Bricks and Mortar currently stands stud at Shadai Stallion Station in Abira, on the island of Hokkaido.