Category: Sir Barton

Sir Barton & the Travers Trophy

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This past weekend, Arrogate dazzled Saratoga and inserted himself into the three-year-old championship conversation by winning the 1 1/4 Travers Stakes in 1.59.36, the fastest time ever in the race’s 147 years. In the winner’s circle, Arrogate’s connections accepted the Travers trophy, pictured above. Even though Sir Barton didn’t run in the Travers in 1919 (Hannibal won), he has a connection to the ‘Midsummer Derby’ every time the winning owner accepts that gold trophy.

On October 12, 1920, Man O’War and Sir Barton met on the dirt track at Kenilworth in Ontario. The purse was $75,000 with a $5,000 Tiffany gold cup promised to the winner by promoter Abe Orpen. Man O’War dominated the match race, coming home seven lengths in front of Sir Barton. Samuel Riddle accepted the gold cup from Orpen and then poured champagne into it, allowing Big Red to drink some as shown here in this post-race photograph.

 

Mrs. Elizabeth Riddle, wife of Man O’War’s owner Samuel Riddle, presented the trophy to Saratoga in 1936, asking only that a member of the Riddle family present the trophy to the winner of the Travers Stakes each year. A smaller version of the trophy is presented to the winning owner each year. That means that each year the racing world is reminded of the match race and each year we remember Sir Barton and Man O’War and ‘the Race of the Century’ and what it means to thoroughbred racing.

Congratulations to Arrogate on his sizzling performance and to his connections, Juddmonte Farms, Bob Baffert, and Mike Smith, on their victory in the Travers!

I found this fun little video of Arrogate as a yearling in the sales ring at Keeneland in 2014. Enjoy!

 

 

Sir Barton Wins the Dominion Handicap

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On August 11, 1920, Sir Barton went to the post at Fort Erie Race Track in Ontario for the Dominion Handicap. He faced a field of three other horses in this mile-and-a-quarter handicap with a purse of just over $11,000. Carrying 134 pounds, the Triple Crown winner gave each horse in the field anywhere from 10 to 38 pounds — and still beat them all.

He jumped out to the lead at the start and never let another horse out in front over that mile and a quarter. At the finish, he was a length and a half in front under a hand ride from Earl Sande, the great jockey who would go on to ride Gallant Fox to his Triple Crown in 1930. Commander J.K.L. Ross, Sir Barton’s owner, was especially happy about this victory, as his champion had won in his home country. The time was 2.06, though clockers claimed it should have been faster given that the track was running at least three seconds slow on that particular day.

Sir Barton immediately shipped back to Saratoga, where the rest of the Ross horses were, where speculation abounded that the Triple Crown winner would meet super horse Man O’War in the Saratoga Cup. That particular meeting wasn’t meant to be, but the drumbeat for a match grew louder as the month of August came to a close.

Without This, The Triple Crown Isn’t

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It’s not hard to think of the run for the classics as this statement about the noble pursuit of one’s best potential, a celebration of the right horse with the right jockey and trainer and owner and breeder. The intrinsic value of the attempt and the catharsis of losing or the exuberance of winning seem to be the very thing that brings us back to the Triple Crown races year after year. As the lovers of the thoroughbred, we seek the high regardless of the lows.

The Triple Crown as we know had its origins not necessarily in the noble, but in something far more practical and cynical: money. That’s right: War Cloud opened the door and Sir Barton kicked it open not for the mere doing of the thing, but because of the paychecks that came with it.

From the first Triple Crown winner Sir Barton in 1919 to the second Triple Crown winner Gallant Fox in 1930, the number of horses going for the triple increased as did the purses that they came with:

1918 Kentucky Derby – $18775
1919 Kentucky Derby – $24600
1920 Kentucky Derby – $36650
1921 Kentucky Derby – $55450
1922 Kentucky Derby – $63775
1923 Kentucky Derby – $63600 + $5000 Gold Cup
1924 Kentucky Derby – $62775 + gold cup
1925 Kentucky Derby – $62950 + gold cup
1926 Kentucky Derby – $60075 + gold cup
1927 Kentucky Derby – $61000 + gold cup
1928 Kentucky Derby – $65375 + gold cup
1929 Kentucky Derby – $63950 + gold cup
1930 Kentucky Derby – $60725 + gold cup
1918 Preakness – $17250* ($16250)
1919 Preakness – $30500
1920 Preakness – $29000
1921 Preakness – $53000
1922 Preakness – $61000
1923 Preakness – $62000
1924 Preakness – $64000
1925 Preakness – $62700
1926 Preakness – $63625
1927 Preakness – $63100
1928 Preakness – $70000
1929 Preakness – $62325
1930 Preakness – $61925
1918 Belmont – $10200
1919 Belmont – $14200
1920 Belmont – $9200
1921 Belmont – $10650
1922 Belmont – $46700
1923 Belmont – $46000
1924 Belmont – $50880
1925 Belmont – $46500
1926 Belmont – $56550
1927 Belmont – $72410
1928 Belmont – $74930
1929 Belmont – $71150
1930 Belmont – $77540

By the time Gallant Fox won the Triple Crown in 1930, each race’s purse was the equivalent of $1 million in 2016 dollars, tripling and even quadrupling the purses War Cloud (1918) ran for in some cases. So, while I do enjoy the romantic notion of the pursuit of the Triple Crown as this thing that is the ultimate accomplishment in the Sport of Kings, I know that at the heart of the whole thing, at least to start, was, quite simply, money.

(By the way, the 2016 Kentucky Derby purse will be a minimum of $2 million, the Preakness a minimum of $1.5 million, and the Belmont a minimum of $1.5 million.)

*The Preakness Stakes was run in two divisions in 1918; War Cloud won one division and Jack Hare, Jr. the other.

Welcome to the Sir Barton Project!

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When I was ten years old, my fifth grade teacher, Ms. Scott, read The Black Stallion to my class and, thus, a love affair began. I remember my mom taking me to the bookstore and I bought the Black Stallion series one at a time. Then I discovered that a movie version had been made in 1978 and I rented the videocassette of that film weekly for months. Not too long after, I caught the Breeder’s Cup on television and fell head over heels for thoroughbred racing. But, as a racing fan living in Alabama, I am at a significant disadvantage. The closest racetrack currently running thoroughbreds is either in New Orleans, Hot Springs, or Lexington, five or six hours away. Needless to say, even though my love for thoroughbreds is unusual in this area, I pursue and cultivate it and now it’s brought me – and you – here.

In July 2013, I contemplated starting a project that I had thought about off and on over the years, but had not done any research on until that moment. I searched Amazon, Google, and more and discovered that the first Triple Crown winner, Sir Barton (pictured above), did not have his own book. The horse that started it all and put us on the path that we’re on now still had not had his whole story told in the nearly 100 years that have elapsed since he crossed the finish line on June 11, 1919, the first Triple Crown winner. Sure, each book that profiles the Triple Crown winners has a chapter on the champion and, of course, his story is inexorably linked with that of Man O’War, the Triple Crown winner that surely would have been had Samuel Riddle sent him to Louisville.

Since Sir Barton crossed that finish line, the Triple Crown has become the ultimate goal, the impossible made possible only twelve times in the history of American thoroughbred racing. However, in order to understand how we got here, we need to see where we’ve been. To fully comprehend the impact of American Pharoah in 2015, we need to understand what happened in 1919. We need to see how the right horse was in the right place at the right time to create history.

And that’s what this biography of Sir Barton, tentatively titled First, will do. It will show how America’s Triple Crown evolved from a series of disparate races to the ultimate pursuit in thoroughbred racing. We’ll meet War Cloud and Billy Kelly. We’ll see how a Canadian businessman rose to the zenith of thoroughbred racing thanks to a legendary trainer and a string of champion horses, including the chestnut son of Star Shoot and Lady Sterling. We’ll see how the first Triple Crown winner rose so high only to be eclipsed by Big Red and then knocked down into near obscurity.

This blog will accompany the journey of this book from research to realization. The goal is that, at journey’s end, you’ll be holding a copy of First starting May 10, 2019 (or June 11, 2019), the 100th anniversary of the first Triple Crown.

Thanks for being here. I hope you enjoy the ride!