The “Sport Of Kings” History Project

Man O' War winning the 1920 Dwyer Stakes at Aqueduct Racetrack over John P. Grier. Many witnesses said this was the toughest race of the Big horses career. Though, to be fair, he was ceding 18 pounds to his opponent...

Dr Fager.
A holder of many records, The Doctor was notoriously fast and difficult to rate during races. He held four titles in 1968, during a season that many consider to be the best single season by a thoroughbred in racing history🐎

Legends Spotlight: Man o’ War — How Great Was He Really?
By WinningStride
Every Stride Tells a Story

Over 100 years later, horse racing fans are still debating how great Man o’ War really was.

Not because everyone agrees he was the greatest.

Because nobody can agree on how to compare him to the champions that came after him.

That is the challenge with a horse from 1919 and 1920. Racing was not the same sport we know today. The world was coming out of World War I. The racing calendar was smaller, travel was harder, national competition was not as organized, and there were no modern tools like Beyer Speed Figures, modern sports medicine, or the Breeders Cup to help compare champions across eras.

Even the physical conditions were different. Track maintenance was less advanced. Horses raced in heavier, simpler shoes compared to today’s lighter race plates. Equipment, veterinary care, transportation, and training practices were far removed from the modern version of the sport.

So how do we judge him fairly?

Some critics point to the short fields, and that is fair. His 1920 Belmont Stakes had only two starters, Man o’ War and Donnacona. The Lawrence Realization also came against a very small field. As his reputation grew, many owners simply chose not to run against him.

But that criticism also says something.

If the fields were short because rivals avoided him, then the short fields were partly a result of his dominance.

Man o’ War won 20 of 21 starts. His only defeat came as a 2-year-old in the 1919 Sanford Memorial, when Upset beat him after a difficult start and race circumstances that have been debated ever since.

After that, he became overwhelming.

He won the Belmont Stakes by 20 lengths and set a world record for the 1 3/8-mile distance. In the Lawrence Realization at 1 5/8 miles, he won by a margin often recorded as 100 lengths and set a Belmont Park track record that stood for 98 years, until 2018.

He carried weight assignments that would be almost impossible to imagine for most modern stars, including 130 pounds multiple times at 2 and as much as 138 pounds at 3.

And when racing finally gave him a true measuring stick, he answered.

In the 1920 Kenilworth Park Gold Cup, Man o’ War faced Sir Barton, the first Triple Crown winner. Sir Barton was accomplished, proven, and older.

Man o’ War beat him by seven lengths.

That race matters because it gives his greatness context. He did not just beat overmatched horses. When asked to face an established champion, he handled him too.

That does not mean we can prove he would beat Secretariat, Flightline, Dr. Fager, or any modern great.

We cannot.

Different eras make perfect comparisons impossible.

But greatness is not only about raw time.

It is about separation.

How far above your own generation were you?

And by that measure, Man o’ War still has one of the strongest cases in racing history.

He was not great because every field was deep.

He was great because his presence changed the fields, his dominance discouraged challengers, and when he faced a Triple Crown winner, he won decisively.

Over 100 years later, that is why the debate has never gone away.

How do you judge greatness across generations: competition, dominance, achievements, or legacy?

This is an original plaque that I own of Olhaverry’s victory in the 19947 Santa Anita Handicap.

A number of these plaques honoring winners of the Santa Anita Handicap were hung in the clubhouse at Cal Expo Racetrack, which sadly has now shut down for horse racing.

Olhaverry was bred in Chile by C. Silva and was owned by Pan de Azucar Stable.

He was by Salerno out of Me Consta by Constant.

Olhaverry made 85 starts with 20 wins 2 seconds 5 thirds Earning $254,880.

At seven in 1946, he won the Del Mar Handicap over Adrogue, the winner of the 1946 Bay Meadows Handicap, and Cantina, the winner of the 1946 Santa Margarita Handicap.

Olhaverry was second in the American Handicap to Quick Reward and ahead of Autocrat, the winner of the 1948 San Carlos Handicap.

He finished third: in the Labor Day Handicap behind Bric A Bac and Nanby Pass, the winner of the 1946 Santa Catalina Handicap; and in the Bay Meadows Handicap behind Adrogue and Autocrat.

At eight in 1947, he won: the Santa Anita Handicap over Stitch Again, the winner of the 1946 San Carlos Handicap, and Pete Time; and the Argonaut Handicap.

Olhaverry was second in the San Pasqual Handicap to Let’s Dance and ahead of Texas Sandman, the winner of the 1948 Del Mar Handicap.

At nine in 1948, he won the San Pasqual Handicap over Autocrat and V-Boy.

Olhaverry finished third in the Hollywood Gold Cup Handicap behind Shannon II and On Trust, the winner of the 1947 Santa Anita Derby.

At stud he sired only four registered foals before he was accidentally kicked in the head by a mare and died shortly thereafter in 1950.

BOLD RULER
AND: THE FIRST LADY
Bold Ruler was the Heart of Hearts and the bond he held for his father, Nasrallah touches ones Soul.
This is an interesting story in which two worlds touch. Mrs. Phipps, the owner of Bold Ruler, (Secretariat’s sire), had owned and sold Seabiscuit at one point back in the early 1930’s to Charles Howard.
I love the fact that horses were Mrs. Phipps passion and her means of staying grounded. Seabiscuit was born in Lexington where Secretariat ended his days. I always wondered why Seabiscuit had a strong pull on my spirit, come to find out, he lived in Willits, just a short drive from where I was born and raised in Saratoga, Northern California.
I love the way this clip ends. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

*****

Jockey Eddie Arcaro was riding Bold Ruler toward the winner’s circle late that afternoon of 1956, moments after the c**t had raced to a two-length victory in the Futurity at Belmont Park, when Mrs. Henry Carnegie Phipps stepped forward to meet them. Bold Ruler had just beaten the fastest two-year-old c**ts in America, running in near-record time, and he was dancing home, his nostrils flaring hotly, his neck bowed and lathered with sweat, moving powerfully toward his seventy-three-year-old owner. Turfwriter Charles Hatton watched her meet him.
“Mrs. Phipps was out at the gap to get him and lead him down that silly victory lane they had there. And she must have weighed all of ninety pounds, and here is this big young stud horse—and she walked right up to him and held out her hand, and he just settled right down and dropped his head so she could get ahold of the chin strap, and Bold Ruler just walked like an old cow along that lane and she wasn’t putting any pressure on him to quiet him down or make him be still. It was one of the most amazing sights I’ve ever seen. It was incredible to me because anyone else reaching for that horse
—and he was hot!—you’d have had to sn**ch him or he’d throw you off your feet or step all over you. But not with her. For her he was just a real chivalrous prince of a c**t. He came back to her and stopped all the monkeyshines, ducked down his head and held out his chin, and here was this little old lady with a big young stud horse on the other end and he was just as gentle as he could be.”
Even growing old, as her walnut face withdrew inside a frame of white hair, she had a mind as quick as a crack of lightning and always drove to the racetrack in the morning by herself, without a chauffeur, steering her Bentley south from Spring Hill, the marble palace on Long Island.
Mrs. Phipps must have seemed the picture of some innocent eccentric—the way she tipped back her head to see the road above the dash, the way she gripped the wheel with both hands, the way she climbed from the car with the poodles beside her and walked into the barn at Belmont Park. Her horses turned to watch her coming. She carried sugar, and she wore a plain dress, sometimes a stocking with a run in it and sometimes moccasins or gym shoes. The men at work in the stables stepped gingerly around her when she walked up the shed, some nodding deferentially and saying hello, and she returned the salutations but did not speak at length to them, only to Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons, her crippled trainer.
On summer mornings they would sit as if enthroned like ancients from another time. He was the sage, a former trolley car motorman from Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn who became one of the finest horsemen of all time, the only man to train two winners of the Triple Crown, Gallant Fox and Omaha, and almost three and four in Johnstown and Nashua. She was the patron, fulfilling the aristocratic role, racing horses for the sport of it and never complaining, win or lose. She was the stable bookkeeper and knew how much each horse had won. She would ask how they were doing, how they were eating, and when and how they were working, and when and where they would race again. She was an independent little statue of a woman who went her own way, and she would walk up to the shed and stop to pet and feed her horses, complimenting those who had won, scolding softly those who had just lost: “You dope,” she would say, holding a cube of sugar. “I don’t know if I should give you one.” But she always did.

by William Nack
Secretariat