The month since the release of Sir Barton and the Making of the Triple Crown has been a bit of a whirlwind, which puts me woefully behind on updating here on the Sir Barton Project. In 2016, on the occasion of Sir Barton’s 100th birthday, Lori Hoyt of the Boondocks Flower Shop and Gifts in Douglas, Wyoming was kind enough to create a bouquet of flowers for Sir Barton’s grave. This year, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Sir Barton’s Triple Crown triumph, I decided to place flowers on Sir Barton’s grave again, but, because of this milestone, I thought we needed to go bigger!
Category: Birthdays
Happy, Happy Birthday!
One hundred and two years ago, Lady Sterling dropped to the straw of the foaling stall she had been laboring in and, about two in the morning, delivered a beautiful chestnut colt, one of about a hundred born at Hamburg Place that year. The colt had a wide blaze that started high on his forehead, just under his ears, and cascaded down his lovely face, veering off over his left nostril. Half-brother to Sir Martin, the best two-year-old of 1908, the colt that would become Sir Barton was the son of Star Shoot, a descendant of an English Triple Crown winner, and Lady Sterling, a daughter of Hanover, 1887 Belmont Stakes winner. He was royally bred and, as he grew, his potential glowed.
Hamburg Place’s yearling breaker, Frank Brosche, singled him out from the beginning. When showing a visitor the yearlings at the farm in 1917, Brosche saved Sir Barton for last, calling him “the king of them all.” His breeder, John E. Madden, kept the colt in his racing stable, and, in 1918, he ran Sir Barton in a number of prestigious two-year-old races until Commander J.K.L. Ross bought the colt in August 1918. As part of Ross’s stable, Sir Barton would go on to a historic career, winning what became known as the first Triple Crown in 1919, and, in 1920, becoming the older horse tapped as rival to Man o’ War.
The story of Sir Barton and what we now know as the Triple Crown began in the wee hours of April 26, 1916, as he found his feet and stood on trembling legs, ready to make his mark as “king of them all.”
Happy Birthday, Sir Barton!
Happy Birthday, Man o’ War!
One hundred and one years ago today, Man o’ War was born at Nursery Stud near Lexington, Kentucky. His dam Mahubah was a daughter of Rock Sand, who won the English Triple Crown in 1903. His sire Fair Play was a great racehorse in his own right, never finishing out of the money in his career. His breeder August Belmont, Jr. had planned to race the colt himself, but World War I prevented him from being as involved as he would have liked. In 1918, he sold his yearlings, which included the Fair Play-Mahubah colt that his wife had named Man o’ War. At Saratoga in August 1918, Samuel Riddle bought the colt for $5,000. The colt would make nearly fifty times that in his career.
As I finish up my book on Sir Barton, I wanted to take a moment to recognize this birthday since both Sir Barton and Man o’ War touched each other’s lives in more than one way. As we remember the 20th century’s greatest horse on this 101st anniversary of his birth, I would like to recommend Dorothy Ours’s book Man o’ War: A Legend Like Lightning for those who want to learn more about the career of this larger-than-life icon of racing. I flew through Dorothy’s book like Man o’ War flew down the stretch in his duel with John P. Grier in the 1920 Dwyer Stakes.
Happy Birthday, Big Red!
Happy Birthday, Sir Barton!
“At the lonely hour of two on Thursday morning, April 26th, 1916, a beautiful chestnut colt was born to Lady Sterling…”
So begins writer Margaret Phipps Leonard’s obituary for America’s first Triple Crown winner in a 1938 issue of The Horse, a lovely tribute to the horse that brings us all here today.
He was foal #187-16, 187 his dam Lady Sterling’s number at John E. Madden’s Hamburg Place and 16 for the year of his birth. His coat was a shiny chestnut, like his sire and dam, and his face had a wide blaze of white that went to the right over his nose as it cascaded down his beautiful head. He almost had another name, but, like his half-brother Sir Martin, ended up with a moniker a bit more apropos for a horse with the great English sire Sterling and the English Triple Crown winner Isinglass in his pedigree.
He stood out from day one, labeled “the king of them all” by colt breaker Frank Brosche, who saw all of the young horses that came through Hamburg Place. At 15.2 1/2 hands, he might not have overwhelmed his competition with his size, but, when he got going, he could run the best of them into the ground — with one notable exception.
His record of 13-6-5 in 31 starts includes a number of stellar performances, like his wire-to-wire win in the 1919 Kentucky Derby and his stakes and track record time in winning the 1920 Saratoga Handicap. In winning the Triple Crown before it was the Triple Crown, he set the stage for what has evolved into the pinnacle of achievement in American thoroughbred racing. In the nearly one hundred years since he crossed the finish line at Belmont, only eleven others have done it, demonstrating how big of a challenge navigating those three races can be. So great and so influential was Sir Barton that he was one of the first horses inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1957.
Aside from his stats and accomplishments, Sir Barton was also a horse, flesh and blood with a personality, same as the horses that we see on our television and computer screens. John Veitch said of Alydar that his charge was “all horse,” one that didn’t tolerate hugs and possessed that something special, the drive that it took to stand up in the face of a challenge. Sir Barton possessed the same, a smart horse who was less pet and more competitor. As Phipps’s article relates, he “was not vicious, but played roughly.” Trainer H.G. Bedwell’s habit of playfully slapping him on the muzzle whenever Sir Barton had his head out of his stall led to a habit of grabbing someone whenever he or she came near; no wonder JKM Ross described the colt as he did in Boots and Saddles. I imagine that a teenager might see that sort of behavior from a horse as irascible and ‘downright evil.’ Being cooped up in a stall for the better part of the day seemed to inspire an abundance of attitude from Sir Barton.
He was also a smart horse. B.B. Jones of Audley Farm told the story of Sir Barton kicking one of his grooms and then immediately jumping over and looking at the man in apparent apology. He didn’t give his groom any more trouble after that. He also caught Jones’s little finger in his teeth more than once, but turned it loose when Jones told him to do so. Sir Barton was ‘all horse’: smart and fast with the look of eagles and a desire to run — on his terms.
Happy 101st Birthday, Sir Barton!
Happy Birthday, Man o’ War!
Last year, I wrote a blog post (or two) in celebration of the 100th birthday of Sir Barton, the namesake of this particular website and the project I’ve spent most of the last four years writing. I live daily with Sir Barton and his connections; I’ve likely done more research on that horse, his owners, his trainer, his breeder, and others than anyone else ever has. Wherever Sir Barton went in his life, I follow in whatever way I can given the time elapsed between us. Inevitably, though, our journey intertwines with another chestnut colt, so ubiquitous in reputation that even people who may not know a thing about thoroughbred racing have heard of this horse.
Man o’ War.
The Sir Barton Project 