Y – #1 – Ruffian – horseracing20thcentury99.com

Top Ten Fillies & Mares Twentieth Century

#1

Ruffian

(1974 - 1975)

Ruffian, with Jacinto Vasquez on board, drawing off to win the 1975 Coaching Club of America Oaks by 2 ¾ lengths at Belmont Park. Sent off at 1-20 odds, America’s greatest filly ran the twelve furlongs in 2:27 4/5, which equaled Magazine’s stakes record.

Photo: Pinterest

PEDIGREE

Dk B/Br Filly

OWNER

Mr. & Mrs. Stuart Janney Jr.

TRAINER

Frank Whiteley Jr.

BREEDER

Locust Hill Farm

Some Facts

Ruffian was a dark bay who often looked like she was black, especially when she was on the racetrack. She was also a rather large filly and stood 16.2 hands high at her withers when she was two. Always a voracious eater and full of energy, she continued to grow throughout her young life and was measured at 16.3 hands when she turned three.
Barbara Janney was the daughter of Gladys Phipps, who also owned Bold Ruler. As a birthday present, Mrs. Phipps granted her daughter one free breeding session to Bold Ruler every year, and the original plan was to breed Shenanigans to the sport’s most prolific stallion. However, the plan was put on hold when Bold Ruler was stricken by cancer. Mr. Phipps and Arthur Hancock encouraged Mrs. Janney to breed Shenanigans to Bold Ruler’s son Reviewer, which she did, thus resulting in the mare’s third foal, and as the saying goes – the rest is history.
Ruffian made her first in what would be eleven career starts on May 22, 1974, in a 5.5-F MSW at Belmont Park. In every start after her opener, Ruffian was sent off as the odds-on favorite, with her odds ranging between five cents to forty cents on the dollar. However, in her first race, she was one of three fillies with 9-2 odds.
Ironically, the race in which Ruffian was sent off with, by far her longest odds, would also be the race in which she would enjoy her greatest margin of victory, fifteen lengths.
Unfortunately, Ruffian suffered a hairline fracture of her right hind ankle after winning the Spinaway Stakes and had to be put away for the balance of the year. It was believed that if she had raced into the fall months, she would have challenged the year’s top colts in the one-mile Champagne Stakes at Belmont Park. Foolish Pleasure won the Champagne and was crowned the two-year-old champion colt.
Ruffian became the fourth filly to capture the NYRA Triple Tiara (Acorn, Mother Goose, and the Coaching Club of America Oaks). At the time, she joined Dark Mirage (1968), Shuvee (1969), and Chris Evert (1974). The series has since been won by Davona Dale (1979), Mom’s Command (1985), Open Mind (1989), and Sky Beauty (1993).
Ruffian’s final race was her celebrated Match Race against Foolish Pleasure, the Kentucky Derby winner, on July 6, 1975, at Belmont Park. Sadly, she broke her right front foreleg just past the quarter pole and was pulled up. Later that night, attempts to save her failed when she rebroke the leg after thrashing about when she regained consciousness following a lengthy operation. She was then humanely destroyed.
Ruffian was possibly the most dominating filly or mare to ever set foot on a racetrack in North America. She was always in total control, aided by a much higher-than-normal cruising speed, and was never headed at any call in any of her races. Excluding her ill-fated match race against Foolish Pleasure, her ten victories in ten starts were by an average of 8 1/4 lengths. She lost ground only once in her final call and that was in the mile and one-half Coaching Club of America Oaks when she was being eased at the end.
Ruffian tied a track record twice at the 5 ½-furlong sprint distance at Belmont Park in her first two lifetime starts. She set or tied a record in every one of the eight stakes that she competed in.
Much has been made about Rachel Alexandra’s time of 1:46 1/5 in her Mother Goose compared to Ruffian’s 1:47 4/5, a difference of 1 3/5 seconds. Paul von Hippel, an associate professor of public policy, sociology, statistics, and data science at the University of Texas in Austin, did a time study to find out why fillies have become faster over the years while colts have not. I don’t put much faith in his article, and neither do a lot of other people who commented on it. For one thing, Rachel’s Mother Goose was contested at Belmont Park and was a one-turn race with wide sweeping turns. Rachel stalked a very fast pace and then swooped to victory with a final eighth timed in :12 3/5 seconds. Ruffian’s Mother Goose was run at Aqueduct with its slower, sharper turns and was a two-turn race. Leading from the beginning and cutting out all the fractions, she ran her final eighth in :12 1/5ths seconds without being pushed. To further legitimize this, Riva Ridge is the current record holder for nine furlongs at Aqueduct, his record time of 1:47 flat set in 1973 while carrying 130 pounds. This is a frequently run distance at Aqueduct as there are no races at a mile and one-sixteenth. Many great horses have competed at this distance at Aqueduct, yet the record is 50 years old. Riva Ridge was also much faster than many realize. He still holds the 1-3/16-mile world-record time of 1:52 2/5 set at Belmont Park (he ran the distance in 1:56 1/5 on a sloppy track at Pimlico). Riva Ridge also ran nine furlongs in 1:46 when finishing second to Secretariat in the 1973 Marlboro Invitation.