Category: Uncategorized

In Greek mythology, Troilus is one of the five sons of Priam, King of Troy; according to prophecy, Troilus’ fate is linked to that of Troy. Mindful of that connection, Achilles ambushes and kills Troilus, another of the many battles that marked the story of the Trojan War. Centuries later, the story of Troilus would become intertwined with his lover Cressida in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, set against the background of the mythological war between the Trojans and the Greeks. Another Troilus, this time of the equine sort, joined the battle for roses in 1959, his journey chronicled by legendary photographer Jim Raftery.

Immense gratitude to Barbara Livingston, legendary photographer for the Daily Racing Form and lover of the history of this sport we love. It was a great privilege to explore the story of one horse and one moment in time, captured by the click of a shutter and now a part of our collective memory. Thank you, Barbara!

Now, on to the story of Troilus!

Humble Beginnings

Like his mythological namesake, the equine Troilus was sired by an equine Priam, Priam II to be precise. Raced primarily in France, Priam II won the Grand Criterium and more to earn two-year-old champion colt of 1943 and then was a stakes winner at age three, four, and five. In 1949, Edward Moore and Henry Knight purchased the stallion and brought him to the United States to stand at Knight’s Almahurst Farm, where both the great Exterminator and Greyhound, the 20th century’s greatest trotter, were foaled. There, in 1955, Priam II covered Drift Song, an unraced daughter of Heliopolis, owned by Mrs. Edward Moore. That same year, Mrs. Moore sold three of her mares, including Drift Song, to livestock dealer Herschel Weil, who was expanding into the horse business. On April 4, 1956, Drift Song foaled a plain bay colt, Troilus.

Weil sold Drift Song’s colt at a Garden State Park yearling sale in 1957, the gavel falling at $9,000 to Bayard Sharp. Sharp, an heir to the du Pont family fortune, had established his own farm near Middleton, Delaware, and had served as Delaware Park’s first director when the track opened in 1937. By 1957, Sharp owned his share of stakes winners, on both the flat and over jumps, many with horses he bred himself, but a win in a classic race like the Kentucky Derby still eluded the breeder-owner. He had tried the Derby once already, with Hannibal finishing eight in the 1952 edition. Still in pursuit of roses, Sharp saw potential in the son of Priam II.

Troilus started seven times at age two, breaking his maiden in a six-furlong sprint at Atlantic City Race Course in September 1958. He would win two more times that year, at seven furlongs and then a mile and a sixteenth stakes race at Laurel. In that stakes race, the Spalding Lowe Jenkins Purse, Troilus was on the lead entering the stretch, but seemed to hang, allowing two others to catch him. But the son of Priam II fought back and managed to get a nose in front at the wire. Already a winner at two turns, Troilus seemed a promising prospect for Sharp’s stable in 1959.

Glorious Victories

Charles Peoples, a former steeplechase rider turned trainer for Sharp, took his horses south for the winter, setting up shop at Hialeah for the winter’s racing. In early 1959, Troilus, now three years old, made his first start of the new year in late January, his six furlongs over the Hialeah oval a total dud. He followed up that dud with three straight victories, first at seven furlongs and then wowed everyone in the Citrus Purse. At a mile and a sixteenth, the Citrus Purse was a preview of the Flamingo Stakes, one of the early preps for the Kentucky Derby. Troilus jumped out to an early lead, repelling the challenges of Greentree Stable’s Eurasia and Harbor View Farm’s Quiz Star to win by four and a half lengths. Even better, Troilus won in track record time, lowering the old record set by Iron Liege by two-fifths of a second. Fresh off his victory on Troilus, jockey Chris Rogers declared, “[Early Derby favorite] First Landing better have his running shoes on Saturday. I hit him a few times but all I was doing was knocking the flies off him.”

Less than a week later, Troilus met First Landing in the nine-furlong Flamingo Stakes. Previously run as the Florida Derby, the Flamingo had become one of those vital stops on the path to Louisville, an early preview of what to expect from that year’s crop of three-year-olds. Bred by Christopher Chenery and owned by his Meadow Stable, First Landing had won ten of his eleven starts at age two, making him one of the horses to watch going into the 1959 Kentucky Derby. Coming into the Flamingo, he had finished second in his first start and then won his second.

At the start, Eurasia sped to the lead as trainer Charles Peoples had predicted. Chris Rogers wrapped up on Troilus, settling him in behind the gray winging away on the lead. Eddie Arcaro was content to let First Landing run in third, waiting for both Troilus and Eurasia to burn themselves out. When Eurasia was finally spent, Troilus took up the lead, and, if Arcaro expected the son of Priam II to tire before the nine furlongs was done, he was dead wrong. Troilus won the Flamingo by four lengths, with Open View in second and First Landing, who never truly challenged, in third.

The coverage of Troilus’ victory in the Flamingo gave readers and racing fans more insight into the personality of this new king of the three-year-olds. Despite a clear lead in the stretch, jockey Chris Rogers had to stay on top of Troilus, tapping him with the whip to keep his mind on his task. Distractions like the photographers near the rail had caused Troilus to duck or shy in previous starts; even with blinkers, Rogers had to keep the colt’s mind busy so that distractions were minimal. In addition to this tendency to shy, Troilus was “a big lug” as Sharp called him, requiring fourteen quarts of oats rather than the typical serving of twelve. It was his size and his confirmation that had caught Peoples’ eye at that New Jersey yearling auction two years before. “He was a fine-looking horse and a great individualist,” Sharp remarked about his Kentucky Derby hopeful.

With the Flamingo under his belt, the Fountain of Youth was next for Troilus, his last race before the Florida Derby. In the Fountain of Youth, Troilus took over the lead after the first quarter of a mile and held on to that lead until the stretch, when Easy Spur blew past him to win by eight lengths. In the three weeks between the Flamingo and the Fountain of Youth, Troilus had gained a hundred pounds and likely needed the race to round him into racing shape for the grueling races ahead. Then, in the Florida Derby just ten days later, the son of Priam II finished last, the lingering effects of a bruised foreleg keeping him from running his best race.

Despite the adversity of two defeats, Troilus joined First Landing, Sword Dancer, Tomy Lee, and others in Louisville for the Kentucky Derby. Peoples put him in the one-mile Derby Trial just three days before the Derby, a tune-up for the big test that first Saturday in May. Again, though, Troilus showed early speed, but faded in the stretch, another poor showing after his sensational performance in the Flamingo. Would the son of Priam II make it to the starting gate on Saturday? If he did, would Troilus be ready for a run at Derby glory?

The Last Act

The 1959 Kentucky Derby featured a field of seventeen, including the imported colt Tomy Lee, Brookmeade’s Sword Dancer, and First Landing of Meadow Stable. Breaking from post thirteen was Troilus, who avoided the inward swerve of Open View to sprint to the lead coming out of the gate at Churchill Downs. Jockey Chris Rogers held the son of Priam II to a short half-length lead over Tomy Lee and maintained that lead for the first half-mile. Six furlongs in, Tomy Lee inched to a short lead over Troilus, poking a head in front as they prepared to enter the turn. One mile in, after setting the pace for the Derby, Troilus was last, unable to maintain that pace past the first six furlongs of the race.

While Troilus was toiling at the back of the pack, Tomy Lee and Sword Dancer were battling on the front, the imported colt nosing out the Brookmeade hopeful at the wire. Rogers and Troilus were last under the wire, but, two days after the Derby, an explanation for the colt’s performance emerged: Troilus had suffered a deep cut on his right hind foot while running the ten furlongs. Peoples sent him back to Sharp’s farm in Delaware to recover. The Derby would be Troilus’ last race.

Back in Delaware, Troilus was turned out to recover from his tough campaign in early 1959. By early May, this son of Priam II had already started eight times, so a little time off surely would help him prepare for the great racing still to come. On May 18^th, though, Bayard Sharp reported that Troilus had been treated for a twisted intestine, and, then despite showing improvement on Sunday, May 17^th, he started showing signs of colic and then died that evening. He was “the best horse I ever had,” Sharp related about his lost son of Priam II.

In his short life, Troilus had amassed six wins, two seconds, and two third in fifteen starts, earning $133,381. Sharp and Peoples would go on to have other good stakes winners, including Mississippi Mud and Dixieland Band, but Troilus would be the last horse he would send to Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby.

Troilus’ competition in the 1959 Kentucky Derby would go on to have impact beyond that first Saturday in May. First Landing would sire Riva Ridge, the 1972 Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes winner; Riva would become the savior of Meadow Stable, though his Triple Crown winning stablemate Secretariat would overshadow him in 1972 and 1973. Sword Dancer would win both the Belmont and the Travers Stakes among his legion of stakes victories in 1959 and then would go on to sire the great Damascus.

For the tragic Troilus, the photographs of Jim Raftery captured a moment of whimsy, a horse with a hat looking over his trainer’s shoulder like he too was going to read the Form. That click of the shutter is just a second, a beat, the barest fraction of a life, but it makes the finite life of a horse infinite, allowing him to capture the hearts of those who smile at his ears poking through a hat. This humorous moment inspires us to seek out the story, a chance to celebrate one horse’s part in the history of our great sport while also lamenting the scant time he was a part of the story.

William Woodward had a plan for 1930: Gallant Fox would go for the Belmont Stakes and then certainly would make an appearance at Saratoga for the prestigious stakes races there. All of the Fox’s other races would be dependent upon his condition, but those stakes races were definitely on the list no matter what. That Gallant Fox won the Preakness Stakes and then the Kentucky Derby before the Belmont Stakes happened only because he was fit and ready. “It is called winning the triple crown,” Woodward remarks in his memoir on Gallant Fox, an understated assessment of what the Fox had done to that point. After six straight stakes wins, including the Dwyer and the Arlington Classic, Gallant Fox had come to Saratoga to tick two more races off his list, including the Travers Stakes.

Continue reading “A Humdinger of a Travers, Belair Style” →

Even Word knows it should be capitalized!

This Saturday, Belmont Park will welcome us back to the venerated mile and a half oval for the 152nd Belmont Stakes. Over these last few weeks, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has changed the complexion of the Triple Crown for 2020, forcing NYRA to run the race on a different date, at a different distance, and without spectators. The 162nd version is historic for more than one reason, but the Belmont is history itself, really, for all of the names and faces that have graced both the race and the place for more than a century. Embedded within this is William Woodward’s Belair Stud, who dominated the Test of the Champion with five winners in a decade.

William Woodward honed his fascination with horse racing during his tenure as secretary to the American ambassador to the United Kingdom, Joseph Choate. Woodward valued horses that could run a distance and bred his own Belair stock with races like the Belmont in mind. In his memoir about Gallant Fox’s career, the race that Woodward initially wanted to point the Fox toward in his three-year-old year was the Belmont Stakes. The Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes were nice bonuses if the horse were ready. His fondness for the Belmont’s twelve furlong distance made it one of his favorite targets each year. Belair’s five Belmont winners in the 1930s were among the decade’s best horses.

• Gallant Fox (1930) — This son of Sir Gallahad III and Marguerite became America’s second Triple Crown winner with his win in the Belmont Stakes, beating Whichone, the two-year-old champion who had been tapped as the Fox’s rival and biggest competition.
• Faireno (1932) — This Belair colt missed the Kentucky Derby and Preakness after losing the Wood Memorial. Woodward sent him in the Belmont, which he won by a length and a half.
• Omaha (1935) — Gallant Fox’s best son, Omaha was not expected to dominate the Triple Crown races the way he did, but he showed the difference that his massive stride could make once he got going, winning the Belmont by a length and a half.
• Granville (1936) — Sired by Gallant Fox, Granville had terrible luck at the start of the Kentucky Derby, after a chain reaction of horses knocking into each other caused the colt to lose his rider. In the Preakness, he would finish second to Kentucky Derby winner Bold Venture, but then nose out Mr. Bones in a thrilling stretch run to win the Belmont.
• Johnstown (1939) — This Belair colt easily won both the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes, but missed the Triple Crown when he lost the Preakness Stakes on an off track.

Belair would add one more Belmont Stakes to its roll of champions in 1955 when Nashua won the Test of the Champion for William Woodward, Jr., who had taken over his father’s stable and silks after the elder’s death in 1953. One more Belmont winner, Damascus in 1967, ran in the classic white with red polka dots, but officially counts as a win for Edith Woodward Bancroft, rather than Belair Stud. Only one other owner, James R. Keene, shares the same distinction of owning six Belmont Stakes winners.

This year’s Belmont Stakes opens the 2020 Triple Crown season rather than concluding it. At a mile and an eighth, it won’t look like the Test of the Champion that Belair dominated in the 1930s, but it does give us a chance to celebrate our favorite sport, even if we have to do it from our living rooms rather than trackside.

Our last Guess Who? was over a month ago. You guys, I apologize for my deliquency! Between the end of the school year and working on other writing projects, I had to put this little trivia game aside for a moment. However, I am ready to stump you guys again!

The answer to the last Guess Who? was the filly Love Sign. If you haven’t heard of this wonderful filly, I recommend learning more about her in my article at The Racing Biz. Her sire was Spanish Riddle, who is unique because he survived a typically fatal injury thanks to a revolutionary prosthetic that allowed him to walk and live several years after his initial injury. In her pedigree, Love Sign has two connections to Belair: Flares, a son of Gallant Fox, is on her sire side while Omayya, sired by Gallant Fox, is on her dam side. She also is contemporary of Genuine Risk, racing against the 1980 Kentucky Derby winner more than once.

This week’s horse comes from a stable of red and blue that dominated a decade much like Belair dominated the 1930s. This horse shares an elite distinction with more than one Belair horse and has a pedigree connection that might take a bit of digging to find. Who is this horse and what is the connection?

Last week’s Guess Who was a doozy, but luckily Brian Zipse of Horse Racing Nation is a fountain of knowledge about our sport and got the right answer: Nijinsky II, the last English Triple Crown winner. Thank you, Brian!

This week’s is also a challenge: This Maryland bred was a contemporary of a classic winner, a historic name that is only one of three to accomplish this. This horse’s sire was also distinctive in a very unique way himself. This horse also has ties to Belair Stud, but the connection may not immediately obvious. Who is this horse, name this horse’s sire, and then name the connection to Belair.

Wow! I thought last week’s was tough, but Mirkwood guessed it within a day: the horse in question was Celt! He was Marguerite’s sire and a stablemate of the great Colin. Celt also had a far more prolific stud career than his fabled cohort. Great job, Mirkwood!

This week, I am going to try to make this one tough. This horse was bred and raced outside of the United States. His sire also was bred and raced outside of the United States and both sire and son are classic winners in multiple countries. However, this horse has a thoroughly American pedigree with connections to at least THREE American Triple Crown winners in his pedigree. Who is he and what is his connection to Belair Stud?

On April 13, 1915, William Saunders was born in Bozeman, Montana. When Willie was eight, his family moved to Calgary, Alberta. There, young Willie got his first taste of the racetrack, working as a hot walker and then an exercise rider until he was sent back to Montana to finish high school. But the lure of the track made finishing school seem mundane: Willie registered his first victory as a jockey on April 14, 1932, the day after his 17th birthday. By 1935, Saunders’ hard work and potential had captured the attention of legendary trainer “Sunny Jim” Fitzsimmons, who put the young man under contract and then tapped him to ride Omaha.

Omaha’s tendency to lash out when in company meant that he needed to run outside of horses; as the big colt’s regular exercise rider, Saunders understood what the son of Gallant Fox needed, learning how to avoid those situations. It was the young man’s fondness for and understanding of Omaha that earned him the ride on the Belair star for the 1935 Triple Crown races. At the tender age of 20, Saunders would guide Omaha through the three classic races, dazzling performances that made the son of Gallant Fox the third horse to win the three. He would remain the youngest jockey to win the Triple Crown until 1978, when an 18-year-old Steve Cauthen would ride Affirmed to his Triple Crown.

Later that same year, Saunders would be involved in the alleged murder of a woman that he and exercise rider Walter Schaeffer met at a Louisville night club, Howard’s. The club required that men have companions while they were in the club so the bouncer asked one of the club’s regulars to accompany the men. That woman, Agnes Mackinson, asked another woman, Evelyn Sliwinski, to join them. The four allegedly partied well into the night at more than one club and then climbed into Saunders’ car very drunk and took off. The story of what happened that evening has two versions, Saunders’ and Schaeffer’s vs. Mackinson’s. At some point, they stopped on the side of the road, let Sliwinski out, and then took off without her. The next morning, the young woman was found dead on the side of the road. How she died became the focus of a trial that put Saunders on the front page of newspapers. The defense pinned the blame for Sliwinski’s death on the person who found her body; without more evidence, prosecuters were unable to win convictions for either Schaeffer or Saunders. With the charges dropped, the jockey went back to his life, marrying in 1936 and continuing to ride stakes winners.

Battles with his weight and then World War II interrupted Saunders’ riding career. By the time he came back from his service in the South Pacific, Saunders was back to his racing weight and picked up where he left off. He found his pre-war success difficult to duplicate and retired from riding in 1950. He became a trainer and then worked as a racing official at a variety of racetracks in Florida, Illinois, and New Jersey. Willie Saunders died a few weeks after being diagnosed with brain and lung cancer in 1986. He was 71.

Learn more about Willie Saunders and his time with Omaha in Foxes of Belair. I can’t wait to share more about the story of this Hall of Fame jockey and his immortal mount!

This week, the subject of Guess Who? is another horse that you may not have heard of, but has a connection to the history of Belair Stud. Your job is to comment with the name of the horse and the connection to Belair.

This horse shared a sire with his dynamic stablemate and raced in his shadow throughout his career. Both were bred and owned by the same man, but this horse found a new home late in his stud career. Both inherited a tendency toward infirmity from their sire, this tendency affecting our horse in question more than his dynamic stablemate during their racing careers. At stud, though, our Guess Who? far outpaced his stablemate, even leading the sire list. He was so highly sought after that his sale made headlines.

Though our Guess Who? never wore the red polka dots, but his name is part of the history of Belair. Can you guess who this horse is?

On this day in April 1876, William Woodward (WW) was born to William Woodward and the former Sarah Rodman in New York City. His grandfather was a partner in a successful cotton house and, eventually, WW’s father would head up that house while WW’s uncle James became president of Hanover Bank. His family’s success allowed WW to grow up going to the races at Jerome Park and riding in his father’s fine carriages. From an early age, WW was surrounded by and enamored of horses.

After his father’s death in 1889, WW attended the Groton School and then went on to Harvard, graduating in 1898 and then completing a law degree in 1901. He spent two years in England as the secretary to the American ambassador to Britain, Joseph Chaote. His time there stoked his love for horses even more; WW had had his heart set on winning the Epsom Derby since his childhood and his two years in England only strengthened his resolve. He would breed and own thoroughbreds to run those classic distances. In time, WW would have stables in both the United States and England.

After returning to the United States, WW became vice president of Hanover National Bank, working with his uncle James. That same year, WW met socialite Elsie Ogden Cryder, one of a famous set of triplets, at Saratoga. They married in 1904. In 1910, James Woodward died, leaving WW his Maryland estate, Belair. WW would also become Hanover’s president and set about building Belair into a dominant thoroughbred breeding and racing operation. In 1923, WW asked “Sunny Jim” Fitzsimmons to become Belair’s trainer. Theirs would be a partnership that would change horse racing.

In addition to his work with Hanover National Bank, WW became a member of the Jockey Club in 1917 and then would be elected its chairman in 1930. That same year, Gallant Fox became the second Triple Crown winner, capitalizing on the interest that Sir Barton’s 1919 trip around the classics had created in winning the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes. WW would win the Triple Crown a second time in 1935 with Omaha, from Gallant Fox’s first crop of foals. WW and Belair would dominate the 1930s, winning three Kentucky Derbies, two Preakness Stakes, and five Belmont Stakes in that decade. And that is a very short list of Belair’s accomplishments.

WW and Elsie would have four daughters before son Billy came along in 1920. When WW died in 1953, Billy inherited Belair Stud, including a colt named Nashua, the last champion that WW bred. Upon Billy’s death only two years later, Nashua would be sold for a then-record $1,251,200. Elise and daughter Edith would go on to race a few horses of their own in the Belair silks.

WW’s death in 1953 ended a life that had been almost entirely devoted to the Thoroughbred. As a breeder, he had overseen the creation of Belair Stud as one of the country’s premiere breeders while also building a championship stable. As chairman of the Jockey Club, he had overseen the expansion of and technological revolution within the sport of kings. During his tenure, starting gates, radio broadcasts, and more became fixtures of American horse racing. One of his final accomplishments as chairman was the repeal of the Jersey Act, which prevented most American-bred Thoroughbreds from being registered as pure-bred in the UK.

In 2016, over 50 years after his death, WW was elected to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame as a Pillar of the Turf. Indeed his many contributions to the sport merit his status as a Pillar, his tireless work on behalf of horse racing contributing to its expansion in the 1930s and 1940s. Additionally, Saratoga holds the Woodward Stakes for three-year-olds and up each August, a 1 1/8-mile race named for WW. The Woodward counts champions like Kelso, Cigar, Easy Goer, and more as winners, a fitting tribute to the man who championed horse racing in so many ways.

Happy Birthday to you, William Woodward, and thank you for all that you gave to our sport in your lifetime!