Jockey Club Gold Cup History Has Few Rivals

When it comes to history and tradition, few races compare to the Jockey Club Gold Cup. Before the inaugural Breeders' Cup in 1984, The Gold Cup was as close to a year's end championship as thoroughbred racing had. And for many years, it served that role well. The Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes stand alone certainly in making up our marquee Triple Crown; and the Breeders' Cup is one of the single greatest innovations in our sport. The Santa Anita Handicap has a colorful and rich history to be sure, as does the Woodward Stakes at Saratoga - although it's a spry 55 years old. But few races have given us as many great horses as Jockey Club Gold Cup which will be run for the 91st time this week as part of Belmont Park's Super Saturday.

To illustrate my point, I ask you to join me in trying to name the best Jockey Club Gold Cup winner of each of the 11 decades the race has been run.

There are easy ten-year spans like the 1960s when Kelso (photo) won the first five Gold Cups of the decade. And there are no arguments about Purchase in the 1910s either. He won the first Jockey Club Gold Cup (then know as the Jockey Club Stakes) in 1919 with jockey Clarence Kummer for Glen Riddle Farm.

Determining the best winner of the 1920s is fairly easy as well. Kummer and Glen Riddle Farm returned the next year with Man o' War. Thanks go to owner Harry Payne Whitney that year however, for entering his Damask and preventing a walkover for Man o' War, who still won by 15 lengths. Glen Riddle would later win the 1925 and '26 Gold Cups with Altawood and Crusader respectively and again in 1938 with War Admiral, who had won the Triple Crown the previous year.

Well that makes finding the best Jockey Club Gold Cup winner of the 1930s easy you say? Not so fast. In 1930, trainer Sonny Jim Fitzsimmons won his second Gold Cup with Gallant Fox, the second Triple Crown winner after Sir Barton in 1919. In fact, it was sportswriter Charles Hutton who coined the pharse "Triple Crown" that year in writing about Gallant Fox sweeping the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes. The Bel Air Stud-owned 3-year-old won nine of his 10 starts that year, losing only in the Travers to Jim Dandy. Gallant Fox also went on to become the only horse ever to sire a Triple Crown winner when his son Omaha won the title in 1935.

War Admiral (photo) was undefeated in 1937 and was named Horse of the Year that year - the second year the award was given. In 1938, he lost only two of his 11 starts including a fourth in the Massachusetts Handicap in June. He then won five consecutive stakes races, all wire-to-wire, concluding with the two mile Jockey Club Gold Cup Oct. 1.

His next start would be a losing one in the famous match race against Seabiscuit in the Pimlico Special.

Finding the best Jockey Club Gold Cup winner of the 1940s is also intriguing with two Triple Crown winners in Whirlaway and Citation.

Whirlaway won 32 of 60 career races including my favorite, an allowance between the 1941 Preakness and Belmont Stakes. As a 3 year old, he was second to Market Wise by a nose in the 1941 Gold Cup before winning the next year with the legendary George Wolf aboard. He was Horse of the Year in both 1941 and '42.

Citation won 32 of 45 career starts, but bested Whirlaways Triple Crown trivia note by throwing in a stakes victory at Garden State Park between the May 15 Preakness and June 12 Belmont of 1948. He was the Champion 3-Year Old Male, Champion Handicap Horse and Horse of the Year in 1948 and the last Triple Crown winner before Secretariat.

Nashua is perhaps the best horse to win the Gold Cup in the 1950s, having won it in 1955 and again in 1956 in the final race of his career. Only a runner-up finish in the Kentucky Derby away from being a Triple Crown winner, Nashua has a couple of interesting Gold Cup distinctions in that jockey Eddie Arcaro and trainer Jim Fitzsimmons are both JCGP record holders for most wins. Arcaro won the race ten times between 1935 and 1961. Fitzsimmons took home seven Gold Cups between 1929 and 1956.

Although Kelso was easily the best of the Gold Cup winners in the 1960s, four others were named Horse of The Year including Roman Ruler in 1965, Buckpasser ('66), Damascus ('67) and Arts and Letters in '69. And although it is easy to determine who was the best Gold Cup winner of the 1960s, to find the best of the 1970s is quite the challenge.

Forego, winner of the 1974 Gold Cup, won the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Older Male Horse four times between 1974-'77 and was Horse of the Year for three years straight: 1974, 1975 and 1976. Yet another Triple Crown winner in Affirmed ended his 29-race career with a thrilling 1978 Gold Cup victory over Spectacular Bid and Coastal and perhaps the best Jockey Club Gold Cup of all time saw Exceller become the only horse to defeat two Triple Crown winners in the same race when he took the 1978 Gold Cup over Seattle Slew and Affirmed.

John Henry, Slew o'Gold and Easy Goer are among the Gold Cup victors in the 1980s and Cigar probably gets the nod for the best of the 1990s. Curlin won consecutive Jockey Club Gold Cups in 2007 and 2008 to be considered the best of this decade so far, but only time will actually give us that answer.

Travers History As Colorful As The Canoe

Sixty years after Kentucky and jockey Gilbert W. Patrick won the first running of the Travers Stakes at Saratoga, the track decided to start a tradition to recognize the owner of the Spa's mid-summer Derby. That year Frank Coltiletti rode Mars to victory and the colors of Walter M. Jeffords were painted on the new canoe that floated in the serene lake in the track's infield.

That was 1926. Eighty-three years later there is still a canoe in the infield lake, now painted in the white and green colors of WinStar Farms, the owners of 2008 Travers winner Colonel John. But the history of the race is perhaps even more colorful and storied.

The Travers Stakes, first run in 1864, is the oldest stakes still run annually in the United States. Although the Kentucky Derby gets the oldest "continously run" distinction because of six missed runnings of the Travers. The latest coming in 1911-12 during World War I. It is named in honor of the first president of Saratoga Race Course, William R. Travers, who was also the owner of Kentucky, the first winner of the race.

The Travers list of winners includes legends like Man o' War in 1920, Triple Crown winner Whirlaway in 1941, Native Dancer ('53), Buckpasser and Damascus in 1966-'67 respectively and Alydar in 1978.

Two of the top young sires today, Medaglia d'Oro and Birdstone, are both Travers winners as is Bernardini.

Pat Day, Eddie Arcaro and Jim McLaughlin lead all jockeys with four Travers victories each but Hall of Famers such as Eric Guerin, Bill Shoemaker, Chris McCarron and Jerry Bailey have their share of wins as well.

In 1962, the Travers produced a race for the ages as Jaipur edged out Ridan at the wire after the duo raced in tandem throughout most of the mile and one-quarer distance. Recognized as one of Horse Racing's Top 100 Moments by Blood-Horse magazine, the 1962 Travers determined the champion 3-year-old colt that year.

A Preview of The Graveyard of Champions

The opening of Saratoga is indeed a hallowed day for racing enthusiasts for two most contrasting reasons. We anticipate the 36 days of great races run by some of the best horses in some of the most prestigious races. We also somehow can not surpress our facination that the Spa is also known as the Graveyard of Champions or the Graveyard of Favorites.

For it is Saratoga that gave us one of the great sports terms of all-time as Upset became the only horse to ever defeat Man O' War in the 1919 Sanford Stakes at Saratoga. Man O' War owner Samuel D. Riddle did not collect the winner's share of the $4,900 purse for the only time in the big red colt's 21 career starts.

Another big red colt suffered one of his only defeats at Saratoga when Onion defeated Secretariat in the 1973 Whitney Handicap at .10-1 odds at Saratoga and Triple Crown winner Gallant Fox lost to Jim Dandy in the 1930 Travers Stakes at odds of .50-1.

Jim Dandy is the namesake of Saturday's grade 2 stake that will act as a local prep race for the $1 million Travers Stakes on Aug. 27. The $500,000, 1-1/8 race will feature the top three finishers from the Dwyer Stakes in Kensei, Convocation, and Warrior's Reward, pllus Peter Pan winner Charitable Man and perhaps the return of Saratoga Sinner, who is making his first start since winning the grade 3 Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream Park in January.

Although the Jim Dandy comes up light against the $1.25 Haskell at Monmouth Park this weekend with Preakness winner Rachel Alexandra and Belmont winner Summer Bird, it will in all likely hood provide a possible "upset" in the Travers should all three Triple Crown race winners meet in the Travers as expected. Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird is also running this weekend in the $750,000 West Virginia Derby in preperation for the Travers.

Should all three run, it will be the first time since 1982 that the three winners of the American Classics have run in the Travers. That year longshot Runaway Groom defeated Preakness winner Aloma's Ruler and Belmont winner Conquistador Cielo who were second and third. Derby winner Gato Del Sol was fifth.