Just some things...?

Question

What about Man O' War? How good of a racer was he? I'm reading a book at school about him I like just started it though and it just talks about how they think he's the one... like a true champion. I don't get it how good of a racer was he, because he didn't win the Triple Crown and I know he was the sire of Seabiscuit and he won the Triple Crown.

Also...

What about Secretariat? I KNOW that he was a very good racer and won the Triple Crown and the Belmont by 25. But just kind-a tell me about his life I would like to know more.

Also...

What about Ruffian? I never really knew this horse or even heard of her. So just tell me everything about her if ya could because I don't know a single thing about her.
But some people say she was kind-a like Barbaro... is that true?

If ya could just kind-a tell me about these horses because I really want to know about racing history! Thank you soo much!!!!! LUV YA ALL!

☺☻♥♦♣♠•◘○

Answer 1

First of all, about the Triple Crown... His owner (1) didn't think that 3 year olds should race at a mile and a quarter that early and (2) didn't like the westerners, so Man O War didn't run the Kentucky Derby. He did, however, win both the 1920 Preakness and Belmont. The first time the Triple Crown had been won was the year before (1919) by Sir Barton, who Man O War later raced and defeated. You can watch a part of that race here: http://man-o-war.info/images/MOW-match-race.avi and here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=kLvnA1oSe1A&mode=related&search=

Man O War won all but one race and in that race he came in second place... he wasn't first because they didn't have starting gates at the time, so all of the horses walked up to the line and when the bell rang, they would start to run... but it was hard to get all of the horses at the line at the same time. After a couple false starts, the race began, but Man O War was facing the wrong way when the bell rang! So he had to turn around, and then start running... but even facing the wrong way, Man O War still came in second. He was simply amazing in all other races... his stride was 28 feet long... that's 5 and a half of me laid end to end! He won a race by an estimated 100 lengths (there was only one other horse in the race). His racing records stood for something like 60 years. It's said that he was never fully extended (he was never running as fast as he could) because the competition wasn't enough to force him to run faster (he was already winning... he didn't need to go faster!).
Man O War was Seabiscuit's grand-sire. MoW sired Hard Tack who sired Seabiscuit. Man O War sired War Admiral who won the 1937 Triple Crown (it was 17 years after Man O War would have run the race and by that time Riddle had changed his mind about the race... probably since Omaha and Gallant Fox had won the Triple Crown and he realized that he had to run the Derby to get that honor). Seabiscuit then beat War Admiral in the famous 1938 match race, which incidentally, was run on the 1 year anniversary of Man O War's death. you can watch the race here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ohdYl98RInY

I know remarkably little about Secretariat's life... I've watched his Triple Crown races and I know he's amazing too... he's the one who broke Man O War's records. One piece of trivia that I really enjoy... You know how we say that the champions have the most heart? well Secretariat really did have the most heart... When he died they took out his organs (something about the insurance... I don't remember why) but the doctor who took out his heart said it was the biggest horse heart he had ever seen! It was like 10 pounds when the others average 4 or something like that. I just think that's neat! I'll leave the story of Secretariat's life up to one of his bigger fans...

Ahh, Ruffian. She's my favorite filly and probably my favorite horse of all time. Like Man O War, she never lost. She set new records EVERY time she ran! And she was always in the lead. No horse was ever in front of her until her final race against Foolish Pleasure where they traded off on whose head was in front all the way down the backstretch.
Ruffian was born in 1972 and ran her 3 year old season in 1975. She won the filly triple crown... there's a series of 3 races for the girls just like there is for the colts. The girls didn't race the boys then. Watching her win the last leg of that series of races, Secretariat's trainer said she might have even been better than Secretariat.
There's not much else to say about her life... she was born, trained, ran as a 2 and 3 year old, breaking every record she could, never being beaten or even headed. She died as a 3 year old in the medical center across from Belmont Park. Because she was such a great filly, they decided to have a match race between her and the greatest colt of the year: Foolish Pleasure, who won the Derby and Preakness that year. The race was called the battle of the sexes. The anticipation for that race was greater than any other race in history... it was a lot like the anticipation for the Seabiscuit/War Admiral match race. The same jockey was the regular jockey for both Ruffian and Foolish Pleasure, but given the choice between the 2, he chose Ruffian. She was the favorite in the race. The 2 horses broke out of the starting gate and ran side by side all the way down the backstretch. They alternated the lead by a head until Ruffian pulled into the lead just before the turn. Then the tragedy happened. She took a bad step and broke both sesamoid bones in her right leg... the jockeys said it sounded like a board breaking. Jacinto tried to pull her up, but she ran another 50 feet or so. He finally stopped her and jumped off. She was taken across the street where they did surgery immediately. It was a pretty serious injury so it took a long time. From the afternoon race, they weren't finished with the surgery until the early morning hours of the next day. Ruffian stopped breathing twice in the surgery and they had to bring her back to life. When they were finally finished, they woke her up, but she was scared and confused and started thrashing about. She broke the cast they had put on her right leg and broke her left leg too. After the surgery was so grueling, they couldn't perform another one... her heart stopped twice in the first one, so she probably wouldn't have survived a second. So they euthanized her immediately. They took her back across the street to Belmont and buried her at sunset that day... she lies near the flagpole with her nose pointing toward the finish line, as it always had before. She died on the lead.
here's a great video with a collage of her racing videos and the story of her life: http://youtube.com/watch?v=vGFswkcfqaA
here's another excellent video with a lot of the same video clips, but music accompaniment, no story: http://youtube.com/watch?v=gZ5m4o21qz0&mode=related&search= -- her trot at the beginning is my favorite part... she's just so pretty!

Ruffian's compared to Barbaro because of their broken legs... although Barbaro did finish the Derby faster than any one in history except Secretariat. Ruffian is the reason that they do surgeries the way they do now... the horse's adreniline from the race is given the chance to subside and they perform surgery in the days after the race, never right away. And horses wake up in a pool now, like Barbaro did. They didn't know enough about surgeries and the pool thing was a very new concept then. Had the same thing happened to Ruffian today, she'd be put in a cast in a stall for at least a day, then she'd awake in a pool, and she'd probably survive. Unfortunately they didn't know that in 1975, so we lost the greatest filly to ever live :o(

I'm glad you want to learn about racing. I didn't start riding until a few years ago and that's when I started watching horse racing, so I too, am just learning. You're welcome, and we love you too :o)



I'm sorry, I knew something bad happened in Ruffians surgery twice and it was actually that she stopped breathing, not that her heart stopped. (see the second to last paragraph: http://www.equinenet.org/heroes/ruffian.html )

Answer 2

A couple of quick clarifications: Man 'o War was Seabiscuit's paternal garndsire- his father, Hardtack, was Man'O War's son. Secretariat has been called the greatest of the Triple Crown winners by some- and it's probably true-though his stride was not quite as long as Man'o War's. His was 17, Man'O War's was 28. Ruffian was euthanized following surgery to try to repair her shattered leg. I have read a very good biography of her life and career, and there is no mention of her heart stopping twice during that surgery. She DID react very violently coming out of the anesthesia- so much so, in fact, that she smashed the cast and reopened the wounds. ( If you read the filly's history, you will realize, as I did, that they never should have tried to save her- she should have been euthanized on the track. The technology that helped Barbaro survive as long as he did didn't exist then- and in trying to help the filly, the men working with her only ended up prolonging her agony. Ruffian was an extremely poor candidate for either surgery or confinement- her trainer and the others working with her actually had their warning about what would happen if she ever broke down a year or so before the match race. The filly suffered a hairline fracture in one of the bones in her hind leg, and initially, they put a plaster cast on it. Ruffian responded to this by kicking the cast apart in her stall. What she was telling her trainer then, though of course he and the others couldn't understand or recognize it was" don't ever do this to me again- if you ever try to make me stand in a cast again, I will destroy it- and myself as well". So, really, it isn't all that surprising that she eventually destroyed herself. Some of her human companions never got over the loss, and there were some tragedies that followed it in the ensuing years.) Ruffian was like Barbaro in a sense. You should read some of the history of the sport of racing if you really want to learn about it and about the horses who race.

Answer 3

Man O' War didn't sire Seabiscuit, he sired War Admiral, and War Admiral won the Triple Crown. Man O War was undefeated in all but one race, which came in his two year old season to a horse ironically named Upset. Man O' War didn't win the Triple Crown because he never raced in the Derby. His owner considered Kentucky too much like the "West" for his Eastern turfman senses.

Secretariat is another great horse. He won sixteen of twenty-one lifetime starts (compare that to Man O' War's twenty of twenty-one). He smashed records by margins no one expected. His defining moment came in the Belmont when he won by thirty-one lengths and shattered the current track and race records, which had been in place since '57 and '64 respectively. If you want to know more about him, there are several great books about him, including Secretariat: The Making of a Champion by William Nack.

Ruffian was a filly. She was absolutely phenomenal. She raced eleven times. In her first ten races she always won and she either equaled or broke the current record for the race and sometimes the track. She was truly something special. Her eleventh race came in her three year old season and was a match race between her and that year's Derby winner, Foolish Pleasure. She injured herself in the race and fought with her jockey to keep on running. He finally managed to pull her up, but the damage done to her leg was irreparable. The vets tried to save her, but in the end they put her down later that night. It was most definitely one of racing's most heartbreaking tragedies.

If you want to know more about top racehorses in general, there's a great book called Thoroughbred Champions: The Top 100 Racehorses of the 20th Century.

Answer 4

here's what is in Wikipedia on Ruffian. Unfortunately she broke down as a 3 year old, so we'll never know what could have been...
Ruffian (horse)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ruffian

Sire:Reviewer
Dam:Shenanigans
Damsire:Native Dancer
Sex:Filly
Foaled:1972
Country:USA (Kentucky)
Colour:Dark Bay
Breeder:Stuart & Barbara Janney
Owner:Stuart & Barbara Janney
Trainer:Frank Whiteley, Jr.
Record:11:10-0-0
Earnings:$313,428
Major Racing Wins & Honours & Awards
Major Racing Wins
Acorn Stakes (1975)
Mother Goose Stakes (1975)
Coaching Club American Oaks (1975)
Racing Awards
U.S. Champion 2-Yr-Old- Filly (1974)
4th U.S. Filly Triple Crown Champion (1975)
U.S. Champion 3-Yr-Old- Filly (1975)
Honours
U.S. Racing Hall of Fame (1976)
#35 - Top 100 U.S. Racehorses of the 20th Century
Infobox last updated on: November 25, 2006.

Ruffian (April 17, 1972 - July 7, 1975) was an American champion thoroughbred racehorse, considered by many horseracing enthusiasts to be the greatest female racehorse of all time.
A dark bay or brown filly, Ruffian was foaled at Claiborne Farm, near Paris, Kentucky. She was bred by Stuart Janney Jr. and Barbara Phipps Janney. Ruffian was sired by the Phipps family's Bold Ruler stallion Reviewer and out of the Native Dancer mare Shenanigans. She was trained by Frank Whiteley, Jr..
She earned the nickname "Queen of the Fillies" after being voted the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Two-Year-Old Filly in 1974 and winning the Filly Triple Crown in 1975. She was undefeated in her first ten races, covering distances from 5 1/2 furlongs to 1 1/2 miles (1106 to 2414 m) with an average winning margin of 8 1/3 lengths. Her eleventh and final race, run at Belmont Park on July 6, 1975, was a match race between Ruffian and that year's Kentucky Derby winner, Foolish Pleasure. The "equine battle of the sexes" was heavily anticipated and attended by more than 50,000 spectators, with an estimated 18 million watching on television.
The first quarter-mile (402 m) was run in a blazingly fast 22 1/5 seconds, Ruffian ahead by a nose. Little more than a furlong (201 m) later, Ruffian was in front by half a length when both sesamoid bones in her right foreleg snapped. Her jockey, Jacinto Vasquez, tried to pull her up, but she ran on for another 50 yards (46 m), apparently unwilling to give up the race.
She was immediately attended to by a team of four veterinarians and an orthopedic surgeon, and underwent an emergency operation lasting 12 hours. Tragically, when the anesthesia wore off after the surgery, she thrashed about wildly on the floor of a padded recovery stall despite the efforts of numerous attendants, breaking the cast and causing even more catastrophic damage to her injured leg. The medical team, realizing that further surgery was useless, euthanized her shortly afterwards. Her performance in the 1975 season earned her the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Three-Year-Old Filly. In 1976, she was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.
Her breakdown and tragic death led to a public outcry for more humane treatment of racehorses. One result was that medications, such as Lasix for bleeding and corticosteroids for inflammation and pain management, came into common use in racehorses. While helping the horses in the short term, the increased use of medications at the track had a downside, as many horses were raced while injured. It can be argued that thoroughbreds are becoming more delicate as a result; racehorses today run only half as many starts before retirement as did their counterparts 50 years ago. Some of this effect is likely also due to breeding practices that select for horses likely to have short, brilliant careers—like Ruffian's—instead of the traditional racing career which might have lasted several years. Indeed, Ruffian's bloodline may be considered at least partly to blame for her broken leg; her sire, Reviewer, suffered three breakdowns.
Regardless, Ruffian herself may be regarded as one of racing's best and brightest. The Blood-Horse ranked Ruffian 35th in its list of the top 100 U.S. thoroughbred champions of the 20th Century. Sports Illustrated included her as the only non-human on their list of the top 100 female athletes of the century, ranking her 53rd.
Fifteen years later, a filly named Go for Wand, among the best female racehorses since Ruffian's demise, also suffered a fatal breakdown at Belmont Park. It happened on Breeders' Cup Day as Go for Wand battled the older champion Bayakoa through the stretch in the Breeders' Cup Distaff. The two tragic events are often discussed together.
Ruffian is buried near the finish line in the infield at Belmont Park, her nose pointed towards the finish pole. It is often said, "she died on the lead."
(Buried nearby is another horse who died on this track in 1982, Timely Writer, running in the Jockey Club Gold Cup.)

ManO'War was way before my time, but I did get to compare his stride to that of Secretariat's at the Kentucky Horse Park. I honestly went into it thinking he couldn't have had anything like Secretariat's. Man was I wrong! His stride measured out to about 1 & 1/2 of Secretariat's; I'm not certain as it's been several years since I've seen it but I think Man O'Wars was about 25 feet and Secretariat's was 17.

Answer 5

hun!!!