HorseRacingHeroes

In a geological timescale, horse racing hasn't been around for very long as at all. Just a blip, really. However, since we generally don't think of ourselves or especially our past times on a geologic timescale, it's fair to say that, on the kind of timescale that we think of, thoroughbred horse racing has a rich and storied history, complete with it's own list of heroes and villains. With all the options available to the average fan theses days, what with baseball, football, basketball, hockey and other non-traditional sports, it's easy for us to forget, or not even be aware of, the fact that there was a time in the United States when the two biggest and most popular sports in the United States was baseball and horse racing. Late in the 1910's there appeared one of the sport's most legendary heroes, the great champion Man o' War. He lost only one career race and he almost certainly would have won the Triple Crown had he been permitted to run in the Kentucky Derby, which his owner Sam Riddle didn't allow because he didn't like the idea of a horse being shipped that far west (this was back in the days before common airline travel) and racing a three-year-old horse that early in the spring season. In the second half of the 20th century the undisputed horse racing hero, the one that towered over all the rest, was the 1973 Triple Crown winner Secretariat. His astounding victories in all three races, as well as his almost incomprehensible victory in the title-clinching Belmont Stakes, and all of those things taking place in an age when television was near it's most popular, guaranteed that the concept of the penultimate horse racing hero would exist and would continued to for generations to come.

Foundation Sires - The major foundation sires are the Godolphin Arabian, the Darley Arabian, and the Byerly Turk. Interestingly, these three stallions ended up with only one grandson or great grandson to carry the bloodlines into the next centuries. The Godolphin Arabian’s grandson, Matchem, was the only descendent to maintain a line of males to the present day. The line of the Byerly Turk was continued by his great-great-grandson, Herod. The Darley Arabian’s great-great-grandson was Eclipse, a racehorse famed for winning every race in his career. Every thoroughbred horse can trace his or her ancestry back to one of these three foundation stallions.

History of the Kentucky Derby - The Derby is a stakes race for three-year-old thoroughbred race horses. It is held on the first Saturday in May, and caps off the Kentucky Derby Festival, a two-week-long celebration of the horse. The first Derby race, run in 1875, was 1.5 miles in length. Fifteen horses competed for the honor. The race was won by Aristides. His jockey, Ansel Williamson, also rode him to a second place finish in the Belmont Stakes. Williamson was later honored for his skill with a position in the Hall of Fame. In 1896, the distance was reduced to 1 ¼ miles. Between 1875 and 1902, there were 28 Derby races; African-American jockeys won 15 of them. The youngest winning jockey in Derby history was Alonzo “Lonnie” Clayton, who won the race in 1892. .