His battles with rival Affirmed as both a juvenile, and of course, through the 1978 Triple Crown are now the stuff of legend. However, what has clouded all those spectacular past performances came during his stallion career when he tragically died from an injury which was sustained while he was in his Calumet stall on a November night in 1990. Officially chalked up as an accident, his sudden and shocking death has remained shrouded in conjecture ever since.

What happened to Alydar? That is the central question that Fred M. Kray attempts to tackle in his ambitiously titled new book, Broken: The Suspicious Death of Alydar and the End of Horse Racing's Golden Age.

There is nothing quite like a tenacious true crime writer. Plucky isn't a descriptor that goes far enough. It's one's dogged determination, coupled with an ability to stare deep into the abyss that demands sterner stuff. Kray has all of that and more. His passion for this topic is evident, and he possesses the requisite skills to follow a labyrinth of clues and misstatements that go back forty-plus years.

A former animal-rights attorney who was on hand to witness the John M. Veitch trainee when he won the 1978 GI Flamingo S. at Hialeah Park and the GI Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park, Kray began to delve into the case in 2018. He tried to track down those involved, performed seemingly countless interviews and attempted to weave together a story chock full of contradiction.

But has Kray actually uncovered a smoking gun or is this just a series of red herrings? Where exactly is the conspiracy to commit murder?

Broken flows rather like a true crime memoir. It's Kray's defense laid bare on behalf of the Thoroughbred in question. Committing the cardinal sin if we skip to the end of this mystery, the author mythically knots his favorite Windsor tie and strides to the same courtroom in Houston, Texas where the security guard who was on duty that fateful night was tried and sentenced. There, he gives his own account of why he believes Alydar was murdered. It's heartfelt, but somehow it falls just short of compelling drama à la Raymond Burr.

Still, what makes this work a worthy read is the journey. Kray starts with the initial, all-too-brief insurance investigation. He then moves briskly through a composite of Alydar's racing and breeding shed exploits and delves into the questionable economic practices of Calumet's J.T. Lundy & Co. After painstakingly wading through the ensuing trials which fingered less than a handful of Calumet figures, Kray opens the curtain for the final act in which he becomes the lead. Perched on his shoulder like a GoPro Camera, we watch as he sits in front of many a horse farm gate, chides a reluctant private detective who didn't deliver and relates a number of emotional moments with key witnesses.

Alydar visiting Lucille Gene Markey on Blue Grass S. Day in 1978 | Keeneland

The relationship he forms with Tom Dixon, the equine insurance agent who was the first on the scene at Calumet, is particularly poignant. Dixon is a no-nonsense umpire that calls them like he sees them, and Kray has to steadily battle for the former agent's uneasy trust in order to access key photographs and notes. 'Deep Throat', Dixon is not, but the back-and-forth between the pair as they argue points of view on several occasions is quite a chess match.

Speaking of emotional moments, Kray's interview with Alydar's groom, Michael Coulter is both enlightening to his case, but we also find a man who hasn't returned to the scene mentally in quite some time. Though a witness in one of the trials, Coulter's perspective was underutilized and from Kray's questions, we get a window into the relationship the groom built with this superb equine athlete. Coulter explains how tired Alydar was from over-breeding and addresses the horse's psychological state. This is important because there were constant questions throughout the different trials about Alydar's penchant for kicking stall doors.

What Kray finds is a trail of dead ends and memories which are parsed with a few nuggets of remembrance. The author leads us to the assumption that key players that do not want to talk are clinging to something deeper. His mission to ask everyone connected why there were no marks on the paint in Alydar's stall, and why the latch was not disturbed becomes an indelible part of the script. A tense section relates an interview with the well-known Dr. Larry Bramlage. It is particularly excruciating to plow through, but it also shows how resolute Kray is when it comes to defending Alydar. You feel both men's frustration bearing out and it makes for good theater in the Rood & Riddle waiting room where the interview was conducted.

There is something very Citizen Kane about Broken. Like the reporter who is sent to find out what Charles Foster Kane meant when he said 'Rosebud' on his deathbed, we may never know what happened to Alydar that night at Calumet in 1990. Was his leg hit with something? Was more than one person involved? Who knew about the coverup at Calumet? Who knows something right now? Questions will continue to float. While we are on a roll, did Kray prove that this was the end of horse racing's 'Golden Age' as the book's subtitle suggests? That answer seems even more amorphous.

Instead, maybe we can take a sliver of comfort in knowing that there are some things we just can't uncover about a tragedy. If you read Broken as an homage to this Thoroughbred, then we need to thank the author for his contribution and determination. What we can say is that if Fred Kray had defended Alydar, at the very least, he might have had his day in court.

Broken: The Suspicions Death of Alydar and the End of Horse Racing's Golden Age by Live Oak Press, 348 pages, photos, May 2023.

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Gotimer remembers being all in on General Assembly, who he thought could take the same route as his sire Secretariat to stardom. He was surprised when he took a hefty wager from a horseplayer on another 2-year-old — who turned out to be Spectacular Bid.

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The Preakness Stakes is widely known as the second leg of the Triple Crown and few connect the event with the durable star of the late 1800s who was named for a New Jersey township. In 1870, he won a stakes on opening day of Pimlico Race Course's inaugural meeting and was still campaigning when the track's signature event was rebranded three years later. The tradition of honoring the very best continues today, often after a marquee winner retires. Such is the case with Churchill Downs' Wise Dan Stakes, formerly known as the Firecracker for its spot on the calendar around the July 4 holiday.

This month's Lost and Found highlights some “lost” meanings of well-known stakes “found” on the summer schedule. The sampling is arranged in chronological order.

Matchmaker Stakes (July 17 at Monmouth Park) This fixture was conceived with an unusual incentive to attract the best fillies and mares. In addition to the financial reward, the prize for the top three finishers came with breeding options to premiere stallions. The original edition was held in 1967 at the now-idle Atlantic City Race Course. As sponsorships gained traction in the 1990s, Kentucky's leading stud operations began adding their brand to the title in addition to seasons to their stallions. Known as the WinStar Matchmaker since 2014, the 2021 renewal offered matings to Audible, Global Campaign and Tom's d'Etat.

Molly Pitcher Stakes (July 17 at Monmouth Park) Whether Molly Pitcher was a real person is a subject of debate, but the general consensus or legend is that she was a woman who carried water to troops at the Battle of Monmouth during the American Revolutionary War in 1778. The modern-day Molly Pitcher, first held in 1946, is undeniably a race that has attracted countless champion fillies and mares to the Jersey Shore track.

Jim Dandy (July 31 at Saratoga) The naming origin sometimes gets lost in translation for this test that is synonymous as the prep for the Travers Stakes, the Saratoga season's headliner. The race is a nod to the Thoroughbred who won the inaugural Travers in 1930 in a stunning upset over Triple Crown winner Gallant Fox. The surprise was one of the many that resulted in the track being dubbed “the graveyard of favorites” that has morphed into “the graveyard of champions.” Jim Dandy never came close to duplicating his best when it mattered the most. In his 141 starts, he produced just seven victories. By the stallion Jim Gaffney, Jim Dandy's label most likely reflected the definition for something of superior quality, a term that may have been inspired by a minstrel song of the mid 1800s.

Yellow Ribbon Handicap (August 7 at Del Mar) In racetracker slang, “get tied on” for this explanation of a pretty name with a pretty convoluted background. For starters, the summer edition is the rebranded Palomar Handicap while the first incarnation at Santa Anita is now the Rodeo Drive. The original was first held in 1977 during Santa Anita's autumn meeting when the Oak Tree Racing Association traditionally leased the facility. A popular song of the era was “Tie a Yellow Ribbon (Round the Old Oak Tree)” and somehow the wording grew into a good idea for a race. The varied symbolism and history of yellow ribbons includes awareness of the military although the hit song apparently is about a freed prisoner and his girlfriend.

Best Pal Stakes (August 7 at Del Mar) In short, the race for 2-year-olds recognizes the California-bred gelding but the story goes deeper. Best Pal was one of the most popular horses of his time thanks in part to his folksy name, West Coast roots and consistency during 47 races spread over seven seasons. His first of 12 graded wins came at Del Mar at age two in the Balboa Stakes which reflected area locations honoring the Spanish explorer. Best Pal retired in early 1996 and later that year the Balboa became the Best Pal. His 47-18-11-4 and $5,668,245 record includes Grade 1 victories in the Santa Anita, Charles H. Strub and Oaklawn Handicaps, Hollywood Gold Cup, and Hollywood Futurity and a runner-up effort in the 1991 Kentucky Derby.

A homebred of the revered Golden Eagle Farm of John and Betty Mabee, Best Pal returned to his birthplace but was less than thrilled with a life of too much leisure. He became a stable pony to accompany young horses to the track at Golden Eagle's training division. He died of an apparent heart attack at age ten and was buried on the property.

Beverly D. Stakes (August 14 at Arlington Park) The race for fillies and mares was designed in 1987 as the counterpart to the track's marquee Arlington Million that is run on the same day. The event honors the late wife of Richard Duchossois, whose name is forever linked with transforming Arlington Park into a spectacular setting for world-class racing. This year the Million will be contested as the Mister D. with a purse of $600,000. The Secretariat Stakes, the track's signature test for 3-year-olds, has been rechristened the Bruce D. to commemorate the couple's son who died in 2014.

Alabama Stakes (August 21 at Saratoga) Since 1872 some of the nation's finest fillies have been associated with Alabama which can be a head scratcher when glancing at headlines. The stakes refers to the home state of William Cottrell, a prominent owner-breeder of the era, who declined to have a race named for himself.

Singspiel Stakes (August 21 at Woodbine) First held in 2005, this race pays homage to the remarkably consistent international runner whose only two North American starts were at Woodbine. After winning the Canadian International at the Toronto track, the Irish-bred Singspiel was runner-up in the Breeders' Cup Turf to earn the 1996 Eclipse Award as champion grass horse. In his 20-race career, Singspiel was first or second on 17 occasions and banked just shy of $6 million. His triumphs include the 1997 Dubai World Cup. That triumph is commemorated with a race in his name that is contested early each year at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai. After a productive stud career in England, Singspiel was euthanized in 2010 following complications of laminitis. By definition, Singspiel is a German opera with spoken dialogue. He is a son of In the Wings (GB) which is a theatrical term for a player waiting to go on stage.

Riskaverse Stakes (August 26 at Saratoga) This lyrical label sounds racehorsey, but with a hyphen after “risk” the term relates to investors reluctant to take certain gambles. A newbie on the calendar with an inaugural running in 2009, the 3-year-old filly feature is named for the mare who earned more than $2 million before closing her five-season campaign in 2005. Her record includes consecutive victories in the G1 Flower Bowl Invitational Stakes at Belmont Park.

Ballerina Stakes (August 28 at Saratoga) First run in 1979, the label easily conjures up images of athletic and elegant dancers so one might not consider an equine version. However, the name is a nod to the standout filly of the 1950s who won New York's inaugural Maskette Handicap (now the Go for Wand).

Travers Stakes (August 28 at Saratoga) Arguably the most famous race of summer, the “The Midsummer Derby” is revered for highlighting returnees from the Triple Crown trail and the late bloomers getting into stride and for memorable victories and defeats. Dating back to 1864, the showcase honors Saratoga Race Course co-founder William R. Travers, who won the inaugural running with his horse Kentucky.

The post Lost And Found Presented By LuibriSYN HA: The Stories Behind The Top Summer Stakes Races appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Martens is semi-retired and sharing a home with the McNeils near Remington Park where Tony, who closed his own race riding career in 2012, works as a racing official. Martens' 1976 Eclipse Award as outstanding apprentice is on full display at the residence.

“I am pretty proud of my accomplishments,” Martens said. “I had so many great people who were behind me, from Hall of Famers to people who were just trying to make an ordinary living training horses. I remember almost every single one of them.”

While meandering down memory lane, Martens rattles off names of leading jockeys, stakes winners, famous stables, high-profile horsemen, and lesser knowns that impacted his productive but relatively brief career centered primarily in New York and the East Coast. With generations of jockeys in his pedigree, including his father Buddy, he naturally gravitated to the track.

“I was raised right outside the gate in (the town of) Elmont,” Martens said to underscore Belmont Park's influence.

He went to the barns with his father whenever time allowed to learn all he could. Not surprisingly, he was skilled enough to obtain his jockey's license when he turned the minimum age of 16. After those initial two mounts in 1974, Martens established himself within the legendary New York jockey colony that included eventual Hall of Famers Angel Cordero Jr., Jorge Velasquez, and Jacinto Vasquez.

“When I started, I was real shy,” Martens said. “I learned so much competing with them every day. They were all great help to me.”

He rode 70 winners in 1975 and another 105 while still an apprentice in his 1976 Eclipse Award season. He transitioned seamlessly when his weight allowance expired later that year and closed his championship season with a career-high 132 victories including 27 as a newly minted journeyman.

Some years were statistically far better than others and with just one win in 1988, Martens decided he was more comfortable being a morning rider. He lost 30 pounds to make a brief comeback in 1995. His record stands at 888 victories including Grade 1 scores in the aforementioned Belmont, the 1986 Selima Stakes on Collins and 1981 United Nations Handicap on his all-time favorite Key to Content.

Martens' life reached a turning point in 2008 when his father was diagnosed with a terminal illness and he relocated from Florida to the outskirts of Oklahoma City, where his parents had retired to be near the McNeils and their children. He spent about five years as an exercise rider for Steve Asmussen and then became a jockey's valet at Remington Park. The track is 1,500 miles southwest of Belmont Park where 60,000-plus watched Summing capture the third leg of the Triple Crown under a hometown celebrity. Echoes of that afternoon no doubt will be heard again this month when the Martens and McNeil families celebrate the milestone anniversaries.

“There is no better feeling that I can have in my life now than reminiscing about racing during the best times of my life,” Martens said. “I have made so many friends with people in the horse business. If it wasn't for the horses, I wouldn't know all these good people who are involved in racing. That is what I take out of what my accomplishments mean to me.”

The post Lost And Found Presented By LubriSYNHA: Martens Looks Back Fondly On 40th Anniversary Of Belmont Win appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Baffert said the colt by Protonico reminded him of neither champion, but did harken back to some more vintage runners.

The trainer has made no secret of the fact he was surprised by Saturday's result.

“After watching the race, it was pretty impressive because he didn't get an easy lead,” he said. “He carved out some serious fractions; it wasn't a gimme. Turning for home when the swarm came, I was expecting all those horses to go by him and he just dug in and outran them all to the wire. I just kept thinking of Cavonnier — I didn't want to get too excited.”

Cavonnier was Baffert's great hope for the roses in 1996, and is best remembered for a breathless finish fighting off a late charge from D. Wayne Lukas-trained Grindstone after dealing with a smack to the face from Craig Perret, who accidentally struck the gelding with his whip while urging on Halo Sunshine. Though the official margin indicates Grindstone prevailed by a nose, many on site that day swore it was a dead heat. Cavonnier would go on to be fourth in the Preakness and pull up with a badly-bowed tendon in the Belmont. Two and a half years later, Baffert got him back to the races for a win in the 1998 Ack Ack. Cavonnier would leave the track in 2000 a hometown, homebred hero in Sonoma County, Calif., where he was born. A 2016 feature by the Press Democrat indicated that the family who bred Cavonnier retired him to a life of leisure at a ranch in western Sonoma County.

Medina Spirit was 12-1 when the gates opened, and Baffert said he could see why. It was a tough field and although he had solid finishes in his prep races, Medina Spirit hadn't looked dominant. He's also not a hugely physically imposing horse — he's not short at 16.1 hands, but is a light-framed creature.

“I really can't compare him to a horse like American Pharoah or Justify,” said Baffert. “They were superior horses that came in with the Beyers were off the charts, the numbers were faster. He's getting better though. We've learned a lot about that horse.

“He reminds me of Silver Charm. He's gutty. He's going to fight, give you that extra. He's a courageous horse. When he turned for home, he had every reason…I really thought Mandaloun was going to go on by him and he would not let him by. He did that in the Robert Lewis, where Hot Rod Charlie and all these horses came to him, and he went really, really fast early. I noticed that day when he came back, he wasn't tired, he wasn't blowing hard.

“All these good horses, they have a set of lungs on them. And you can't worry about what they cost. Real Quiet was the same way, he only cost $17,000. Actually Silver Charm was a $15,000 yearling, you know. We never take their cost into consideration.”

Neither do they.

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For those who came to racing after Jones' death in 1961, however, his exemplary career as a horseman may be largely lost in the history books. Who was this Derby king whose reign seems to be coming to a close?

Firstly, it's clear that any mention of Ben A. Jones is followed immediately by a reference to his son Horace A. “Jimmy” Jones. For much of Ben's career, Jimmy was his assistant, and it's not always entirely clear where one man's contributions to a horse ended and the other's began. After Ben had died, many writers claimed it was really Jimmy who trained several of Ben's most prominent runners, but it's unclear if this was speculation or the word of Jimmy himself. (Either way, between the Jones barn and the Baffert barn, it does make one wonder if all really excellent assistants must be named Jimmy.) It does seem that at least one of Ben's six Derby winners – Citation in 1948 – was primarily trained by Jimmy, who gave the reins to Ben, who by then had transitioned to general manager at Calumet, in order to allow him the chance at equaling the record of Herbert J. “Derby Dick” Thompson, who had four. Ben would later resume training and win two more.

By all accounts, Ben was one of those people born with an uncanny eye for horses – spotting a good one that could be improved, and figuring out what that horse needed, free of any obligation to conventional ideas. Often called “Plain Ben,” Jones had the look of a cowboy. He went everywhere in a white Stetson and boots, a hulking man who walked with a slight limp due to a football injury he got at Colorado Agriculture College. In the indomitable volume 'Wild Ride,' author Ann Hagedorn Auerbach described him as a man who could clear a bar with his fists but chose instead to live by his wits.

Jones had been born to a banker whose primary agricultural interest was in cattle. He had been expected to take over the bank, but preferred the allure of the racetrack – the thrill of the racing, but also the gambling and ensuing fistfights. The family cattle farm had a rough track on it, which enabled locals to run match races and gave Jones a venue to ease into training. Jones often bet heavily on his own horses, which may have been part of the reason he spent his early years living hand to mouth.

Jones became a tough old horseman, taking the only horses he could get in those days – cheap stock – and making them work for him in dusty bull ring tracks. Writing in his book, 'Masters of the Turf,' Ed Bowen described a legend that seemed to sum up the epitome of a hardboot horseman. A horse trader came through the small Missouri town where Jones lived with a lame horse and told Jones he'd sell the horse for $100 with the condition that whenever he next passed through town, he had the option of buying the horse back for $150. Jones got the mare, who was called Black Beauty, well again and when he heard the trader was headed back for town, he drove a nail slightly into one of her hooves to create a temporary lameness. The trader moved on, and Jones got to keep the horse.

Print accounts mention Jones' propensity for gambling – he had to be called out of a dice game to be informed his wife was in labor to deliver Jimmy – but speculate little on how much of an impact it may have had on his business. By the time the Great Depression hit, hard times got harder for “the Jones boys.” When department store owner Herbert Woolf offered Ben a private training job for his Woolford Farm, the stability was too good to pass up. Ben appointed Jimmy, then 26, to disperse the stable and join him as his assistant.

With his own stock and with his clients' stock, Jones found success dealing in families. He was skilled (or possibly very lucky) at hitching his prospects to a stallion who would go on to produce subsequent generations of successful runners or working his way through a series of siblings and half-siblings. Before Jones became an in-house trainer, that stallion had been Seth, who kept Jones among the nation's top breeders through the 1920s. At Woolford, that horse was Insco, who sired Lawrin, Unerring, and Inscoelda. Lawrin was the first horse to take Jones to the big time, but he was unfazed, keeping the horse taped together through an intense 2-year-old campaign and a sophomore season that saw him beat older rivals before he won the 1938 Kentucky Derby.

Lawrin struggled with his feet, and Jones described a regimen of soaking the foot to draw out an abscess, followed by treatments of iodine and turpentine to harden the hoof again. Jones swapped Lawrin between a bar shoe and running barefoot.

Despite the success he found at Woolford, Jones parted ways with Woolf in 1939. Although Jones would publicly say the split was amiable, a feature in Turf and Sport Digest suggested there was some practical animosity there.

“…Woolf was really not happy with him, probably because it was a combination of two heavy gamblers,” wrote Tom Shehan. “Under the arrangement Ben's money was automatically down whenever he recommended Woolf bet.”

Auerbach would write that the offer from Warren Wright to become the private trainer for Calumet came almost immediately, but Jones took some time to think about it. Woolf may have been a difficult client, but Wright had a reputation for going through trainers and for being something of a backseat driver. Wright doubled his initial offer and agreed to bring Jimmy on as well.

When the Joneses arrived, the remnants of Wright's program were still in full force. He was ordering quantities of vitamins for the horses, which he insisted be given to them. Jones kept throwing them in the muck heap and eventually ran a sales rep for the vitamin company out of his barn. Wright had also required previous trainers not to break horses until they were three, with the belief it would make them stronger runners. Wright, who earlier in his career had specialized in bringing on 2-year-olds, put an end to that.

Jones' instincts would prove right of course, as he brought Calumet into its golden age on the racetrack. Five of his Derby wins – Whirlaway ('41), Pensive ('44), Citation ('48), Ponder ('49), and Hill Gail came for the devil red Calumet silks. There were other legendary names on his resume who too didn't win the Derby, including Twilight Tear. He was leading trainer in North America by earnings in 1941, 1943, 1944, and 1952.

But behind all those successes was the same hard knock horseman's mind – practical and practiced – that had gotten him his start on the bush tracks. At a time when many Thoroughbreds got the winter off, Jones horses raced through the year and took long, slow gallops. They took the long route to the track for work, and exercise riders were instructed to let them graze along the way home, adding flesh to runners that many considered a little rotund for racehorses already.

The best-known Ben Jones story seems to be his work with Whirlaway, who seems to have been deemed semi-psychotic by the people who dealt with him in his early career. “Wacky Whiry” had a habit of bolting to the outside of the racetrack, seemingly at random. He had had a stone kicked into one eye during the Hopeful Stakes when he was a 2-year-old, but Jones mostly dismissed his antics as a lack of intelligence. Jones fashioned a one-eyed blinker for the colt, reasoning that he wouldn't go where he couldn't see. He cut a very small hole in the right eye cover and asked jockey Eddie Arcaro to climb aboard for a test during a morning workout. Jones sat on his palomino pony several feet off the rail in the homestretch, forcing Arcaro to take Whirlaway through a narrow gap at full speed to ensure he really wouldn't react to anything on his outside. The moment the chestnut sailed between Jones and the rail proved the equipment worked, but certainly took a few years off the two men's lives.

In his Turf and Sport profile, Shehan recalled Jones' patience with Coaltown, who he also saddled in the 1948 Kentucky Derby. After the colt collapsed in a workout as a 2-year-old, veterinarians discovered he had some sort of issue caused by swollen glands around his chin which impeded his breathing. Jones fashioned a piece of equipment he called a “Throttle Hood” which wrapped around the glands in question, much like a bandage, to trap in heat and try to reduce swelling. He also showed Coaltown's exercise rider how to change his riding style to lengthen Coaltown's head and neck carriage, reducing pressure on the glands. Shehan also alleged that Coaltown may have been more talented than Citation (a theory with which the Joneses did not agree) and that his loss to Citation in the Derby was not a coincidence, but rather driven by Jones' suspicions that he couldn't stay healthy throughout a Triple Crown campaign like his stablemate or that he may pass on his respiratory issues in the breeding shed.

Ponder was another triumph because the Jones boys had to nurse him back to health after he was stabbed in the chest with a pitchfork as a 2-year-old with the help of well-known veterinarian Dr. Alex Harthill.

Ben Jones died in 1961 due to complications from diabetes. Jimmy departed Calumet in 1964, the same year as the death of Bull Lea, knowing that the sun had mostly set on the farm's golden era. Both men would be inducted into the Hall of Fame in back-to-back years in 1958 and 1959. Jimmy spent time as the director of racing at Monmouth Park for a time, before heading back to the family homeplace in Parnell, Missouri. He died in 2001, the winner of two Derbies himself and champion trainer by earnings for five seasons.

Though their careers were certainly bigger than a handful of May Saturdays, Jimmy said he never forgot how meaningful those days were to him and his father.

“I'll tell you what the Derby meant to us,” Jimmy said to the Louisville Courier-Journal's Jennie Rees in 1995. “When I was a little kid and we raced around the fairs and little meetings, we talked about the Derby all the time … that was the subject of conversation day in and day out. I was just a kid; my father was about 30. We didn't have any money much … But that was our main hope in life. Just automatic. Kentucky Derby. Then to have it come up like it did was unbelievable.”

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The first female trainer to try for the roses came in 1937, well before it was possible for women to be jockeys and before it became routine to see them as exercise riders or grooms. Mary Hirsch was first woman granted a trainer's license in 1935 at the age of 22, after initially being rejected on the basis of her gender.

In just about every contemporary mention of Hirsch in the media, she was immediately introduced with what reporters apparently considered her primary credential to be a trainer – she was the daughter of legendary trainer Max Hirsch. It seems Max Hirsch had hoped his daughter would not fall in love with the family business. Mary Hirsch was sent to prestigious boarding schools and admitted once her father had discouraged her repeatedly from following him into the racetrack life. Despite her characterization by sportswriters though, Mary Hirsch didn't pick up training on the strength of her family's name alone. Her entire life had been a self-guided, rigorous preparation for nothing else. She had spent some of her early years living in a cottage on the grounds of Belmont Park, waking early with her father to help feed his horses and observe workouts. She rode jumpers and learned to gallop as soon as she was big enough, learned to shoe horses and read veterinary texts in her spare time.

When Max Hirsch realized he couldn't dissuade his daughter, he apparently decided to support her in her dream. She apprenticed in his stable for several years, and eventually began training her own string. Bernard Baruch, esteemed New York owner and client of Max, was the first to place horses with her. One account suggested that Baruch, disappointed with the finish of his promising sprinter Captain Argo under Max's conditioning, turned to Mary at the end of one race and asked if she could do better. She said she could, and would make Captain Argo a successful stakes runner. Baruch was one of her chief supporters, but Mary also bought her own runners.

Still, for several years, she had to run those horses in the name of her father or her brother, W.J. “Buddy” Hirsch. She was permitted to do all the preparation – managing horses' health and training schedules, riding them, instructing jockeys — all the regular duties of a trainer until the final minutes before a race when she was not permitted to handle her own horses or receive credit in the program. Her paper training was evidently no secret, as it was reported openly in newspapers.

At last, Mary grew embarrassed at having to give away the credit for her hard work. In 1934 Hirsch requested a license by The Jockey Club, which at the time was the regulatory body for racing in New York. Her application was tabled, (which in this case was formal speak for rejected without having to go through the unpleasantness of rejecting someone), so she sought licensure in Michigan and Illinois. For reasons that were never publicly detailed, she was successful there. She became the first woman to bring a string of horses to run at Hialeah, where she was also successful in being licensed. With a win there by Captain Argo, Hirsch returned to the board in New York, waving her license and asked them for a second time what they thought about a woman training racehorses. This time, the body agreed, which Hirsch said essentially afforded her an automatic in to wherever else she wanted to run.

At the start of 1937, she had built a reputation as an up and comer with a small operation. In 1935, Mary Hirsch had saddled winners of ten races for earnings of $10,365 (more than $200,000 today) and in 1936, she had 17 wins and $18,575 in earnings.

Her Derby hopeful was No Sir, a son of Sortie out of Westy Hogan mare Fib, both of whom were trained by Max Hirsch. Mary purchased the horse from Andy Joiner in the spring of his 2-year-old season and immediately sent him to victory in the East View Stakes. He became the first female-trained entry of the Flamingo Stakes, where he finished second, and was also the first female-trained winner at Saratoga in the Diana Handicap. Ahead of the 1937 Derby, Mary was confident, despite facing a monster in War Admiral.

“With ordinary luck and a good ride my horse can win it,” she told media in late April 1937. “No Sir has worked well since he came to the Downs, and has shown he can go the Derby distance. he has a world of early foot and I think can hold his own in the early stages against War Admiral and Pompoon when the three of them probably will be out there fighting for the lead.

“Yes, sir. No Sir has plenty of heart.”

Max Hirsch evidently did not attend the Derby, wanting Mary to “go it alone.” Mary noted in earlier interviews that while her father asked her for training advice and had at times put his stable in her hands while he traveled, her training decisions with her own horses were independent of his. It was perhaps important to her that she be seen as an independent thinker. The Akron Beacon Journal noted that Max's absence would also let her bask in glory in the winner's circle outside his long shadow.

As racing fans well know however, there was no toppling War Admiral in his 3-year-old prime, and No Sir finished a disappointing 13^th.

Mary Hirsch continued on. She took over the training of Thanksgiving, a promising 3-year-old owned by Anne Corning, after a freakish lightning storm injured several horses in Max Hirsch's barn at Saratoga. In 1938, Mary took the horse to win the Travers in the fastest time since Man o' War. According to racing historian and turfwriter Brien Bouyea however, Mary Hirsch received little to no credit for her record-setting win there, and many papers erroneously reported Max as the trainer.

Hirsch's acceptance by the New York Jockey Club opened doors for others. A 1938 Daily Racing Form note mentioned seven women who had subsequently been granted licensure from New York to Nebraska.

Despite phenomenal success, Hirsch's training career was relatively brief. In 1940, she married Charles McLennan, racing secretary at Hialeah Park, Havre de Grace, Keeneland, Suffolk Downs, Pimlico, and Washington Park. After the wedding, Hirsch turned her horses over to her father and brother and retired. The couple had two children and Hirsch, now McLennan, turned her energies to homemaking. The call of the track proved irresistible however, and in 1949, she returned to the track as an owner when her youngest child entered school. Her father gave her Chinella, a King Ranch yearling whose management Hirsch took on enthusiastically.

There was relatively little coverage of Hirsch's life after that. At the time of her death in 1976, an obituary revealed that she and her husband had bred horses at their Cowpen Farm near their Towson, Md., base until just before his death in 1971.

“Her dad was a tough act to follow,” her son, Charles McLennan Jr., told the Lexington Herald-Leader's Maryjean Wall in 2000. “And she had several brothers prominent in the horse business. It was a man's world at the time.”

After No Sir's run in the Derby, it would be another 12 years before a woman would saddle a Derby horse (Mrs. Albert Roth, as she was billed in official records, whose Senecas Coin did not finish). Dianne Carpenter remains the only woman to have sent runners to the race twice – in 1984 with Biloxi Indian and 1988 with Kingpost.

Shelley Riley remains the best finisher among female trainers after Casual Lies finished second in 1992. Kristin Mulhall sent Imperialism to a third-place finish in 2004 and Kathy Ritvo sent Mucho Macho Man to third in 2011.

It's only a matter of time before a female trainer claims the roses. Whoever manages the task, she will no doubt feel the same way Mary Hirsch did about the profession of training. When asked in an [otherwise uncomfortably misogynistic] interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal in 1937 “What this trainer's life is like for a girl, anyhow,” Hirsch replied with the only true hint the public ever got of her feelings on the 'female trainer' angle.

“For a man or woman … I love it!” she said.

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Bishop was one of 17 children born to a West Virginia family whose ancestors were enslaved. Sent to live with a nearby childless couple as a toddler, she was indulged with fancy dresses and one mesmerizing pony ride that changed her life. Her love of horses took her to the Charles Town racetrack at age fourteen to work as a groom, hot walker and then trainer, all the time fighting sexism and racial bigotry against a backdrop of the swirling Civil Rights movement.

She prevailed to break barriers, shatter stereotypes and celebrate countless transforming victories in the winner's circle with many wealthy clients. As a single mother after two failed marriages, financial reality forced her to take on extra work in the shipping department at a nearby Doubleday publishing factory. Never wavering in her passion, she returned to the track to train horses at age eighty. And finally, with little fanfare, she was honored for her pioneering accomplishments as the first black woman licensed to train racehorses in the United States.

This never-before-told story brings to life Sylvia's love of horses and demonstrates her resolve and grit in confronting a litany of obstacles. This included the limited opportunity for an education and the precarious odds of getting her fractious Thoroughbred racehorses to the starting gate when factoring in their health and soundness.

Sylvia' s clients included the late Tyson Gilpin, a Virginia native and former president of the Fasig-Tipton sales company. Their biggest victory came in The Iron Horse Mile at Shenandoah Downs on Sept. 4, 1962. Eddie Arcaro presented the trophy as Gilpin and his children gathered in the winner's circle.

Sylvia Rideoutt Bishop made her mark in the alluring sport of kings long before the tennis-playing Williams sisters or Olympic track star Jackie Joyner ever made the evening news. She traveled the half-mile track racing and fairground circuit in Cumberland, Timonium and Hagerstown Maryland, not far from Washington, D.C.

Sylvia Rideoutt Bishop Had A Way With Horses is available on Amazon and autographed hardback books with free postage are available on vickymoon.com.

Moon is a writer, editor and photographer.  She has chronicled the lives of the famous and the not-so-famous, covered major crimes and prominent lives for People Magazine and The Washington Post. She writes a monthly life-in-the-Virginia-countryside column “Over the Moon” for Washington Life magazine. She has reported on hunt balls, steeplechase races, and parties from Palm Beach to Saratoga Springs for Town and Country and Millionaire magazines.

Moon has written about homes and gardens for Veranda and Southern Accents and served as a contributing editor for House and Garden. She appeared on the A&E network's “City Confidential” and served as a producer for Dominick Dunne's “Power, Privilege and Justice.” This is her tenth book, with many of her others involving horses and racing.

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It is tradition for schools across Kentucky and Southern Indiana to visit the Kentucky Derby Museum for an annual field trip to explore the grounds of world-famous Churchill Downs, interact with two floors of Museum exhibits, and participate in educational programming. Now, the Museum is expanding its passion of teaching students about the history of the world's greatest horse race to classrooms across the country!

Forty teachers will receive a free virtual field trip which includes:
-Kentucky Derby related education program of his or her choice
-Churchill Downs All-Access Student Tour
-Kentucky Derby Museum Exhibits Tour
-Question and Answer Session

To enter, teachers need to fill out this form online. Kentucky Derby Museum will choose at random, 20 local teachers from the Kentucky and Southern Indiana area, and 20 teachers from across the country.

As a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization feeling the economic effects of the pandemic, this giveaway has been made possible through generous donors of the city-wide Give for Good Louisville campaign this past fall, benefitting a number of local non-profit organizations.

Why study the Kentucky Derby?
The Kentucky Derby is important to study as the oldest continuously held sporting event in the United States. It is a cultural event, drawing over 160,000 people around the world with tens of millions of people watching on television. It is Kentucky's signature event, replete with traditions, legends and icons. It is a major economic event, with a $217 million impact on the region. The Museum's Education Team also helps students understand the roles of everyone involved in the sport of Thoroughbred horse racing, including the horse, jockey, trainer, veterinarians, and grooms. The Education Team also teaches about the diversity involved in the Kentucky Derby's history, from female owners, trainers and jockeys to the African American jockeys who dominated the early days of the sport, and the Hispanic, Asian and Middle Eastern populations who also contribute greatly to the Derby story. The Education Team's work is made possible by generous donors and with support from University of Louisville, Equine Industry Program and Godolphin KIDS. All Museum educational programs are tailored to meet Core Academic Standards.

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A few retired horses will remain on the property as a tribute to its long history as a cradle of top Thoroughbreds.

Sagamore Farm was once the main base for racing and breeding operations of Alfred Vanderbilt, Jr., and home to Discovery, Native Dancer, and Bed o' Roses — all of whom are buried there. Read more about the history of Sagamore Farm from this 2018 Paulick Report feature.

Plank, former CEO of the fitness apparel company Under Armour, purchased the property in 2007, at which point it had fallen into disrepair. Vanderbilt had sold the property to developer James Ward in the late 1980s and Ward quickly became overwhelmed by the costs of a commercial breeding operation and shuttered it. Plank spent considerable funds restoring the barns and fence lines to their former glory.

Under Plank's watch, Sagamore won the 2010 Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf with Shared Account and is breeder of last year's Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf winner Sharing.

Plank told the Sun his departure from the sport was nothing to do with racing, but due more to a lack of time to put into the operation. Under Armour's stock has taken a hit in recent years following an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department into some of its accounting practices.

Sagamore co-owns Global Campaign with WinStar Farm. Plank told media he plans to be at the races this weekend to watch the Classic.

Read more at The Baltimore Sun

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