Top Ten Fillies & Mares Twentieth Century
#4
Regret
(1914 - 1917)
Regret and Jockey Joe Notter in the winner’s circle following her fabulous win in the 1915 Kentucky Derby. Regret defeated 15 opponents in the Derby, which was her first start of the year. She was also the first of her sex to win this great race.
Photo: Caulfield & Shook - Hall of Fame Collection
PEDIGREE
Ch Filly
OWNER
Harry Payne Whitney
TRAINER
James Rowe Sr.
BREEDER
Harry Payne Whitney
Some Facts
- Regret was born on April 2, 1912, at Harry Payne Whitney’s Brookdale Farm in Lincroft, New Jersey.
- Her sire was Broomstick (by Ben Brush), whose most important victory was the 1904 Travers Stakes. Broomstick was the leading sire in 1913, 1914, and 1915, with a 25% stakes success rate, and the leading broodmare sire in 1932 and 1933. The stallion was inducted into the National Museum and Racing Hall of Fame in 1956.
- Regret’s dam was Jersey Lightning, an unraced daughter of Hall of Fame stallion Hamburg. Jersey Lightning foaled two other stakes winners, Thunderer, which won the 1915 Belmont Futurity, and Vivids, which won the 1916 Champagne Stakes, both considered very important stake races on the New York circuit.
- Regret was the first filly to win the Kentucky Derby, which she did in 1915, and is generally considered the spark that made the already famous race an iconic one.
- In retrospect, Regret was named the 1914 two-year-old champion filly by the BloodHorse group in 1936. This was based on winning her only three starts that year, all in fifteen days at Saratoga, all stake races, and all against colts. They were the Saratoga Special, Sanford Memorial, and the Hopeful. To this day, she is one of four horses that have won these three races, the others being Campfire (1916), Dehere (1993), and City Zip (2000). She is the only filly to have accomplished this.
- The two-year-old colt Pebbles, which she defeated in the Special and the Hopeful, would win five stakes that year and be named the two-year-old champion colt. It was Pebbles who finished second to Regret in the Kentucky Derby.
- Regret’s first seven lifetime starts were against males, six of which she won. In total, she faced males in nine of her eleven races, her other loss to the opposite sex by a nose in the 1917 Brooklyn Handicap.
- The 1917 Brooklyn Handicap was arguably the greatest race of its time. It included three Kentucky Derby winners and three Horse of the Year winners. Its participants, Borrow, Old Rosebud, Roamer, Boots, Stromboli, and Omar Khayyam, combined with Regret to win 110 stakes in their careers. Approaching the wire, Regret had the race well in hand, but her jockey moved her away from the rail, allowing her stablemate, Borrow, to slip through and win it by a nose. The time of 1:49 2/5 was an American record.
- Regret’s career was handled strangely, especially compared to today’s standards. She made 11 starts over four years: three in 1914, two each in 1915 and 1916, and four in 1917. She won the Kentucky Derby in 1915 off a nearly nine-month layoff, finished unplaced in the 1916 Saratoga Handicap off an eleven-month layoff, and won her first start in 1917 off a nine-month layoff.
- Regret died on April 11, 1934. She was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1957.
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