Welcome to HorseRacing20thCentury99.com.  The primary purpose of this site is to preserve the historical importance of thoroughbred horse racing in North America, with our main focus on the twentieth century and, to a lesser degree, the nineteenth century.  If you feel nostalgic and miss the past, this site is for you.  We intend to provide our readers with detailed accounts of many of racing’s gallant stars, some of whom we are familiar with and still remember today, and yet so many others that we have forgotten over time.

Like all sports, North American horse racing is rich in history.  The twentieth century is full of stories of many of racing’s immortal stars, beloved icons such as Man o’ War, Seabiscuit, Secretariat, and Ruffian.  They are legends, their careers characterized in numerous books and articles along with many other great superstars such as five-time Horse of the Year Kelso, an ambitious gelding who made 63-lifetime starts and won at nine different distances on both dirt and turf; the blazingly fast and ultra-tough Dr. Fager, a world record holder and the only North American thoroughbred to win four titles in the same year; the three-time Horse of the Year Forego, a giant weight-carrying gelding who was famous for his heart-stopping finishes; Native Dancer, racing’s “Grey Ghost” who was television’s first equine star; and Secretariat’s sire, Bold Ruler, a former Horse of the Year and a member of that fantastic three-year-old crop of 1957.

These superstars are racing’s heroes, their stories captivating testimonials commemorating tremendous careers and sensational feats.  Many of us, even those who are remotely interested in the sport, know or have at least heard about them.  And yet, there are so many other incredible tales of past fan favorites that we rarely discuss anymore, stories that are just as compelling.

In one of racing’s golden periods, the nineteen-forties, the magnificent Citation was all the rage.  His fantastic career and total dominance were so profound that today he is still considered in the top three or four American racehorses of all time, and rightfully so.  Many people rate his three-year-old campaign, when he won an astounding nineteen of twenty starts, including the Triple Crown, as the best single season ever.  His impact on the sport was so remarkable that it inspired several books and numerous articles, all attesting to the incredible feats of this greatest of all Calumet Farm stars.  But until Milton C. Toby’s excellent book Noor was published, how many people today know about this relatively unknown English-bred who was imported to America by Seabiscuit’s owner, Charles Howard, and would stamp his place in history by defeating the mighty Citation four times in that memorable spring in 1950?

In today’s racing, rarely is a horse asked to carry more than scale weight, even in a handicap, and when they are assigned additional poundage, it is often just a pound or two above scale.  Simply put, there are no great weight carriers anymore, and the weights assigned to our current handicap stars are often below scale.  Such was not the case back in the day of the mighty Discovery, one of America’s greatest-ever weight carriers.  This Alfred G. Vanderbilt star was assigned 130 or more pounds twenty times in his superb career, including 143 pounds in the 1936 Merchants and Citizens Handicap, a race he won the year before when carrying 139.

Many racing fans today know or have at least heard about Discovery.  When we think about America’s great weight carriers of the past, this son of Display, who was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1969, invariably comes to mind.  And yet there are others whose weight-carrying feats were much more remarkable, such as “The Big Train,” Roseben, a gelded son of Ben Strome, who went to the post 111 times and carried 130 or more pounds an astounding fifty-nine times, and in twenty-nine of those starts, was burdened with 140 or more pounds.

Nor do we remember the mare Pan Zareta, who, when the scale of weights is applied, was perhaps the most incredible weight carrier of all.  This phenomenal daughter of Abe Frank, the beaten favorite in the 1902 Kentucky Derby, was asked to carry between 140 and 146 pounds seven times in her 151-race career, winning five of those, including toting a whopping 146 pounds when she defeated older males with second place finisher Seneca carrying 46 pounds less.

We often hear and read about the legendary match race between the ill-fated Ruffian and the Kentucky Derby winner Foolish Pleasure at Belmont Park in 1975.  Whenever anyone talks about match races, this one is often at the top of the list alongside other celebrated challenges such as Man o’ War and Sir Barton before 30,000 at Kenilworth Park in Windsor, Ontario in 1920, and the much-ballyhooed clash between Seabiscuit and War Admiral in 1938 at Pimlico before 40,000 extremely excited fans.  Not to be overshadowed was the famous east versus west “grudge” meeting between the Preakness and Belmont winner Nashua, and the Kentucky Derby winner, Swaps.  This highly anticipated televised event at Chicago’s Washington Park on August 31, 1955, was so popular that it generated an estimated 160,000 written words by the on-track sports writers covering the event.

Those races were classic and are still often talked about today.  Rarely, however, do we talk about The Great Match Race between American Eclipse and Henry that took place before 60,000 fans in New York in 1823, racing’s first highly publicized event that was front page news in just about every newspaper in the nation.  Nor do we talk about The International, a match race that occurred before 75,000 at Belmont Park one hundred years later, celebrated because it was the first-ever meeting between the winners of England’s Epsom Derby and America’s Kentucky Derby.  This race polarized both nations, was front-page news in the largest newspapers in both countries, and was instrumental in bringing thoroughbred horse racing back to the sporting forefront.  And yet today, few people don’t know much, if anything, about it, and fewer still are aware of the stories behind one of early racing’s most significant events.

There are so many other incredible tales of the turf, remarkable accounts of often forgotten stars such as the undefeated Colin, an American super horse in that first decade of the twentieth century; the life and death struggle of Kelso’s sire, Your Host; and the great filly Regret, so dominant when showing her heels to the sport’s elite males and the first of her sex to win the Kentucky Derby.

The list of forgotten stars seems endless; former heroes such as Counterpoint, Bald Eagle, Hoist the Flag, Equipoise, Fort Marcy, Hill Prince, Roamer, Salvator, Sysonby, Real Delight, Two Lea, and many, many more, all ghosts from the past whose wonderful stories and incredible feats form the building blocks that have made this sport what it is today.

Though this is a new blog and will begin with minimal content, I intend to introduce new material every month or two and share stories of some of these great racehorses as well as other stars that have galloped down the stretch in pursuit of fame and glory, their magnificent performances, once the talk of the racing world, now virtually forgotten through the passage of time.

Many will agree that nostalgia is a wonderful thing, that ability to bring back and sometimes relive so many great memories.  But nostalgia can also be sad because those memories are of a time that is gone forever.  Hopefully, I can play a small part in reviving some of them because it is so important that they don’t die and fade away, never to return.

I must warn you, however, that many of these accounts won’t be just a page or two long.  Some of them might take an hour or two or three to read.  I sincerely hope that you find these chronicles about racing’s glorious past exciting and informative, and if you enjoy them, you will return for more and encourage your friends to join in as well.