A general question and a specific question:
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Can anyone recomenda good web site for looking up the track records of famous race horses?
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Can anyone cite a race that was won by both Secretariat AND his sire, Bold Ruler?
The Preakness.
You can try http://www.brisnet.com
Their records are good, but they charge for almost everything.
I still contend that Big Red’s performance in the Belmonst Stakes is the single greatest athletic achievement ever. Damn what a performance.
The Del Mar race track (www.dmtc.com) maintains extensive pedigree records and includes a summary of achievements (not a comprehensive race record). Not sure if its what you’re looking for.
You have to go to “racing information” and then look for the link that says “pedigree.” The search link is at the top.
Slight hijack.
My dad told me the other week that races with jumps in them are only held in the UK and Ireland and in the rest of the world the horses just race and don’t go over jumps.
Is this true?
No. They have steeplechases at Saratoga, for instance. There’s a listing of major steeplechase stakes races at http://www.steeplestakes.com/
They’re rare because bettors don’t like the idea that their horse might miss a jump.
There’s also dressage competition, which involves jumps but no races.
What?!?
Dressage, to me, is the flat terrain demonstration of how well you can control your animal. It involves having the horse do such things as flying changes and piaffe and whatnot. Definitely no jumping.
Show jumping is all about jumping, and although it’s not a race per se, there is a time limit. Generally more than enough to ensure that you get through the course, but the faster horses with no fautls (knock-downs) win. There are rule variations for the different types of horse jumping, but thats the general idea.
Was that just a misworded sentence, RealityChuck, or do you live someplace where that is the definition of dressage?
I misspoke. I meant show jumping.
I misspoke. I meant show jumping.
Well, this site, http://horseracing.about.com/cs/history1/ has everything horse racing. This link is for the history section, but if you go there, you will see that it is amazingly complete with links to just about every horse racing site possible.
plnnr, I think we can all agree that Secretariat’s Belmont was one of, if not THE best race of all times. He won by 31 lengths easily in a Belmont record.
You may have heard the story told by Heywood Hale Broun about Jack Nicklaus. Jack Nicklaus apparently rushed up to Broun and said “Did you see that race? I was watching it on tv, and I cried when Secretariat won”. Broun’s comment was “Of course you cried, Jack. All your life you have been striving for perfection. In this race, you finally saw it.”
In addition to the US jump races indicated by RealityChuck, you can add France and Czechoslovakia to those countries which feature the sport. There are probably other European venues where it takes place, possibly in Scandinavia and elsewhere.
31 lengths and still pulling away when he crossed the finish line. The camera operators couldn’t keep Big Red and the other horses in the same shot. Had the race been a few more furlongs I’m convinced he would have started to lap other horses.
Echoing others, I think the 1973 Belmont was the greatest performance by a horse in my life, and one of the greatest of all time. But for the greatest race, I’d fast-forward to the 1978 Belmont, which featured Affirmed and Alydar nose-to-nose for the last 6 furlongs and Affirmed winning at the wire.
The shot of Ron Turcotte turning around and probably saying “Where the hell is everybody?” is a classic.
And, Steverino, you are right. Greatest performance, not greatest race. That probably is Affirmed/Alydar (the greatest race for me is a $5000 Starter race where the winner paid $96.80. Had him for $20 Win and Place. I was the only person at the track yelling and screaming and it was a big day - Illinois Derby Day - lots of people at the track.)
Secretariat’s Belmont is by far the most dominant performance. But the best race – well, that leads to all sorts of differences of opinions (and it’s differences of opinion that makes . . . never mind 
)
For me, it was Forego winning the Marlboro Cup, when he was last at the top of the stretch and still managed to win it by a nose.
The three Affirmed/Alydar triple crown races were all classics. Alydar was the only horse to finish second in all three, I believe, and by a total of less than a length, IIRC.
And there’s aways Jaipur vs. Ridan. Or – alas – the Great Match Race between Honest Pleasure and Ruffian.