Z – #5 – Dr. Fager – horseracing20thcentury99.com

Top Ten Horses Overall Twentieth Century

#5

Dr. Fager

(1966 - 1968)

Dr. Fager and Braulio Baeza in the post parade before the 1968 Whitney Handicap at Saratoga which he won by eight lengths over Spoon Bait while carrying 132 pounds.

Photo: NYRA

PEDIGREE

B H (USA) 1964

OWNER

Tartan Farms

TRAINER

John Nerud

BREEDER

Tartan Farms

Some Facts

Fager was born at Tartan Farm in Ocala, Florida, on April 6th, 1964. He was bred by Mr. William L. McKnight, Chairman of the Board for the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (3M) 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 was named after Boston neurosurgeon Dr. Charles Anthony Fager, who performed life-saving surgery on Nerud after he suffered a severe head injury when he fell off a horse. While he was in the hospital recovering, Mr. Nerud was tasked with naming a pair of Rough’n Tumble-sired two-year-old colts that he had bred and were close to their racing debuts. One was out of the Irish mare Cow Girl, who had previously produced multiple stakes winner Western Warrior, who won the 1964 United Nations Handicap. The other was out of Aspidistra, a mare who had raced in claiming races and had produced five foals, including minor stakes winners A Deck and Chinatowner. Mr. Nerud believed that the Cow Girl colt might be the best of the two and decided to name him Minnesota Mac in honor of Mr. McKnight. He named the other colt Dr. Fager.
Fager’s sire, Rough’n Tumble, won the 1951 Santa Anita Derby and eventually became Florida’s leading sire when the state was gaining momentum in the breeding industry.
Fager’s dam, Aspidistra, was the daughter of multiple stakes winner Better Self and was the only foal produced by two-time stakes winner Tilly Rose. Aspidistra was initially purchased for $6,000 by Mr. McKnight’s office staff members and presented to him as a birthday present. She produced thirteen foals, twelve having raced with eleven winning at least once. Her two best foals were Dr. Fager (1964) and the champion filly Ta Wee (1966). Ta Wee was sired by Intentionally and was the dam of Great Above (by Minnesota Mac), who sired Holy Bull. Dr. Fager and Ta Wee were Eclipse Award winners and were inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.
Fager was a big, robust, solidly built horse who was 16.2 hands tall at his withers. He was generally easy to train, though he hated being yelled at or whipped. He was not an entirely healthy horse and had a problematic right front knee, clubbed forefeet, and often suffered from colic.
Fager made twenty-two starts during his career, which spanned three seasons and finished with an 18-2-1 record. He missed the top three only once that being the 1967 Jersey Derby, a race in which he finished first six lengths in front of In Reality but was disqualified and placed last for interference.
Fager set or equaled five track records, one of which was a world record. Blessed with pushbutton acceleration and blazing speed, he could carry his momentum a distance of ground and set a ten-furlong track record of 1:59 4/5 at Rockingham Park in the 1967 New Hampshire Sweepstakes. He also equaled the ten-furlong mark at Aqueduct when he won the 1968 Suburban Handicap in 1:59 3/5 while carrying 132 pounds.
Fager won at all eight distances he tried: 5F; 6F; 7F; 8F; 8.5F; 9F, 9.5F; and 10F. Only three horses, Damascus, Successor, and Buckpasser, ever finished in front of him during his career, and he lost ground from the eighth pole to the wire only four times.
Fager had one of the three most outstanding four-year-old campaigns in North American horseracing during the twentieth century, comparable to those by Tom Fool (1953) and Spectacular Bid (1980), with honorable mention to Coaltown, Swaps, Kelso, and Hillsdale. That year (1968), Dr. Fager raced eight times and carried at least 130 pounds in each start. He won seven of those races: Roseben Handicap (130 pounds), Californian (130), Suburban Handicap (132), Whitney (132), Washington Park Handicap (134), United Nations Handicap on Turf (134), and the Vosburgh Handicap (139). In his lone loss, the Brooklyn Handicap, he finished second to Damascus while carrying 135 pounds compared to his rival’s 130.
During his four-year-old campaign, despite being burdened with heavy weights, Dr. Fager equaled Aqueduct’s ten-furlong track record in the Suburban Handicap (1:59 3/5); set a seven-furlong track record at Aqueduct in the Vosburgh (1:20 1/5); and set a world record for the mile at Washington Park when he won the Washington Park Handicap under 134 pounds in1:32 1/5.
In the Washington Park Handicap, Dr. Fager ran possibly the fastest inner quarter (:20 3/5econds) ever run in the body of any race in the 20^th It has often been stated that he was not pushed during his entire run through the stretch. Many experts believe that he would have finished the race with a time under 1:32 if he had been.
In the 1968 Vosburgh Handicap, which Dr. Fager won when covering the seven furlongs in 1:20 1/5, he completed the first six furlongs in 1:07 4/5, which was faster than the track record of 1:08 3/5.
Many great thoroughbreds often have rivalries, such as Swaps-Nashua, Whirlaway-Alsab, Affirmed-Alydar, Secretariat-Sham, Typecast-Convenience, Citation-Noor, Kelso-Gun Bow, and Kelso-Mongo, etc. Dr. Fager’s chief antagonist was Damascus. In their career, they met four times, with each winning twice: Dr. Fager in the 1967 Gotham Stakes and the 1968 Suburban Handicap, and Damascus in the 1967 Woodward Stakes and the 1968 Brooklyn Handicap.
The 1967 Woodward has often been called the “race of the decade” because it included Buckpasser and the top handicap horse Handsome Boy, who defeated Buckpasser in the 1967 Brooklyn Handicap.
Without taking anything away from Damascus, the colt’s trainer, Frank Whiteley Jr., twice entered former mile world record holder Hedever as a “rabbit” to try and burn Dr. Fager out for his stablemate. This tactic worked in the 1967 Woodward Stakes when a relentless Hedevar pushed Dr. Fager through the first six furlongs in 1:09 1/5 before stopping suddenly and finishing fifth by forty-three lengths, and in the 1968 Brooklyn Handicap, when Hedevar pushed Dr. Fager through the first six furlongs in 1:09 2/5 before stopping once again, this time finishing last by thirty lengths. In the two races that Dr. Fager defeated Damascus, the 1967 Gotham and the 1968 Suburban, Hedevar was not entered.
It must be noted that Damascus was strongly considered to run in the 1968 Washington Park Handicap, the race in which Dr. Fager set a world record, but he was withdrawn when Mr. Whiteley thought that the distance would favor Dr. Fager.
Fager dominated North American horseracing in 1968, earning four year-end awards: Horse of the Year, top sprinter, top handicap horse, and top turf horse (shared with Fort Marcy). He is the only thoroughbred to accomplish this feat in North American racing history. He was also voted best sprinter in 1967 and was admitted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1971.
Leading jockey Willie Shoemaker, who rode Dr. Fager twice early in his career, had difficulty managing the head-strong colt. In their first start, the seven-furlong Cowdin Stakes, Shoemaker managed to hold the eager colt back off a moderate pace (the first six furlongs in 1:11 3/5), and the Doc came on in the end to defeat In Reality and Successor. In Dr. Fager’s next start, the one-mile Champagne Stakes, Shoemaker was “bossed” around by a pumped-up Dr. Fager, who ran the first half in a swift :44 4/5 and reached the six-furlong marker in 1:09 2/5. The Doc was then unable to hold off Successor, who got up to defeat him by a length in 1:35. This defeat cost Dr. Fager the two-year-old colt championship as the honor went to Successor. Shoemaker never rode Dr. Fager again.
Fager was syndicated for $3.2M. He was slow to gain prominence early in his career at stud, siring only a single stakes winner from his first two crops. However, he gained momentum after that and finished with a career record of thirty-five stakes winners from 265 registered foals (13%) and is classified as a Chef de Race. He was the leading sire (posthumously) in North America in 1977. His most notable offspring were Dearly Precious, the 1975 two-year-old filly champion; Dr. Patches, the 1978 sprint champion; and L’Alezane, the 1977 Canadian Horse of the Year.
Fager died at the young age of twelve on August 5th, 1976, from a colon obstruction brought on by a bout of colic. He was buried at Tartan Farm, now known as Winding Oaks Farm.