X – #6 – Dr. Fager – horseracing20thcentury99.com

Top Ten Turf Males Twentieth Century

#6

Dr. Fager

(1966 - 1968)

Dr. Fager raced only once on turf. It was the 1968 United Nations Handicap, a 1 3/16 mile test at Atlantic City Race Track in New Jersey. The 4-5 favorite, Dr. Fager won the race by a neck over 30-1 shot Advocator, with the 1967 Turf Champion Fort Marcy finishing third. The son of Rough’n Tumble carried 134 pounds, 22 more than the runner-up.

Photo; Thoroughbred Times Collection – Keeneland Library

PEDIGREE

Bay H

OWNER

Tartan Farms

TRAINER

John Nerud

BREEDER

Tartan Farms

Some Facts

Fager was born on April 6, 1964. He was bred by Tartan Farm, which was owned by Mr. William L. McKnight, and raced in the colors of Mr. McKnight’s Tartan Stable. Throughout his career, Dr. Fager was managed and trained by John Nerud, who also owned 25% of him.
Fager’s dam, Aspidistra, was a former $6,500 claimer. She produced fourteen foals, two of which, Dr. Fager and his half-sister Ta Wee, became champions and were eventually inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Fager was voted the 1968 turf champion after only a single race on grass. Trainer John Nerud entered him in the 1968 United Nations Handicap to help Atlantic City race track gain some publicity. Nerud never intended to run him, but with an eighteen-day respite since his last race, he decided to let his horse run.
The 134 pounds Dr. Fager carried to victory in the 1968 United Nations Handicap was the second-greatest weight ever carried by the winner of this historic race, second only to the great Round Table, who carried 136 pounds to victory in 1959.
When Dr. Fager won the 1968 United Nations Handicap, he defeated an all-star cast. Second place finisher Advocator, in receipt of twenty-two pounds, finished second in the 1966 Kentucky Derby and third in the Belmont. Finishing second to Dr. Fager by a neck, the five-year-old horse would go on to win the mile and one-half Sunrise Handicap at Atlantic City over Sea Castle, and Tobin Bronze in his next start ten days later in a time of 2:27 1/5, a course record. Third-place finisher Fort Marcy would be voted the top turf horse in 1967 and share that honor with Dr. Fager in 1968. This hard-hitting future Hall of Famer would be named Horse of the Year along with Personality in 1970. Fourth place finisher Tobin Bronze, an Australian Bred, was a two-time winner of that country’s most important race, the Cox Plate, and after a career in which he won seventeen stakes, was voted into the Australian Hall of Fame. Fifth-place finisher, Flit-to, was no slouch either, winning six important stakes on turf, including the 1967 United Nations Handicap.
Fager and Advocator battled each other throughout in a thrilling head-and-head performance that saw Fager lose the lead three times and yet come on to win the race by a neck.
Trainer John Nerud openly stated that Dr. Fager did not like running on turf, especially turf that wasn’t firm. It rained the night before the big race, and though the turf was listed as firm, it was anything but. Dr. Fager struggled and found the turf slippery, which prompted his jockey, Braulio Baeza, to say, “It was like he was skating on ice. He was slipping and sliding the whole way around, and he had difficulty grabbing hold of it, so much so that at times, as hard as he tried, it seemed like he was going nowhere.” Still, Dr. Fager persevered and managed to cope and come away with the victory.
The U.N. Handicap was so hard on Dr. Fager that Nerud, who planned to enter him in the Woodward Stakes and what would have been a fifth meeting with Damascus, decided to pass the race and point him to the Vosburgh instead. Many believed that Damascus would win the Woodward easily and all but clinch another Horse of the Year title, but he was upset by Mr. Right.
Fager was assigned 136 pounds in the Experimental Free Handicap for turf horses three years old and up, a record that stood until 1978 when Exceller was weighted at 137 pounds and Tiller 136. (Turf horses were not weighted until 1963).
Fager is still the only horse to win four titles in the same year: champion handicap horse, turf horse, sprinter, and Horse of the Year. He was voted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1971. He died in 1976.