Whirlaway
Whirlaway | |
---|---|
Sire | Blenheim |
Grandsire | Blandford |
Dam | Dustwhirl |
Damsire | Sweep |
Sex | Stallion |
Foaled | 1938 |
Died | April 6, 1953(1953-04-06) (aged 15) |
Country | United States |
Color | Chestnut |
Breeder | Calumet Farm |
Owner | Calumet Farm |
Trainer | Ben A. Jones |
Record | 60: 32-15-9 |
Earnings | $561,161 |
Major wins | |
Breeders' Futurity Stakes (1940) Hopeful Stakes (1940) Saratoga Special Stakes (1940) Walden Stakes (1940) A. J. Joyner Handicap (1941) Travers Stakes (1941) Lawrence Realization Stakes (1941) Saranac Handicap (1941) Dwyer Stakes (1941) American Derby (1941) Massachusetts Handicap (1942) Narragansett Special (1942) Clark Handicap (1942) Jockey Club Gold Cup (1942) Louisiana Handicap (1942) Washington Handicap (1942) Trenton Handicap (1942) American Classic Race wins: Kentucky Derby (1941) Preakness Stakes (1941) Belmont Stakes (1941) | |
Awards | |
5th U.S. Triple Crown Champion (1941) TSD American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt (1940) U.S. Champion 3-Yr-Old Colt (1941) United States Horse of the Year (1941 & 1942) U.S. Champion Older Male Horse (1942) | |
Honors | |
United States Racing Hall of Fame (1959) Fair Grounds Racing Hall of Fame (1991) #26 – Top 100 U.S. Racehorses of the 20th Century Whirlaway Stakes at Aqueduct Racetrack (1980–2011) Whirlaway Handicap at Fair Grounds Race Course (1973–2004) | |
Last updated on 11 February 2021 |
Whirlaway (April 2, 1938 – April 6, 1953) was a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who is the fifth winner of the American Triple Crown. He also won the Travers Stakes after his Triple Crown sweep to become the first and only horse to win all four races.
Whirlaway was sired by English Derby winner Blenheim, out of the broodmare Dustwhirl. Whirlaway was bred at Calumet Farm in Lexington, Kentucky. Trained by Ben A. Jones and ridden by Eddie Arcaro, Whirlaway swept the Triple Crown in 1941. He holds the record for the longest winning margin in the Kentucky Derby with fellow Triple Crown winner Assault, as they both won the Derby by 8 lengths. Whirlaway was widely known as "Mr. Longtail" because his tail was especially long and thick and it would blow far out behind him during races, flowing dramatically in the wind.[1]
He was voted the American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt in 1940 by Turf & Sports Digest magazine. The rival Daily Racing Form award was won by Our Boots. Whirlaway was named American Horse of the Year by the Daily Racing Form and Turf & Sport Digest in both 1941, the year he won the Triple Crown, and 1942, the year Shut Out won the Kentucky Derby and Belmont.
Background
Jimmy Jones, son of the colt's trainer, recalled that "Whirlaway was a creature of habit. You had to create habits for him. So we created the habits we wanted him to do." Whirlaway was regarded as having a "quirky" personality.[2] The champion colt had a habit of "bearing out," drifting toward the middle of the racetrack, during the latter part of his races and losing as a result. In preparations for the Kentucky Derby, this had been such a problem that trainer Ben A. Jones fitted the colt with a full-cup blinker over his right eye. In Whirlaway's final workout before the Derby, Jones cut a small hole in the blinker so that the horse had a tiny field of vision. Jones positioned himself ten feet off the inner rail and told jockey Eddie Arcaro to ride the horse through that space. Whirlaway was able to see his trainer, Arcaro was able to keep him on a straight path, and Whirlaway won the Kentucky Derby by tying the current (as of 2018) record margin of 8 lengths.[3]
Racing record
Trained by Ben A. Jones and ridden by Arcaro, Whirlaway won the U.S. Triple Crown in 1941. He also won the Lawrence Realization Stakes and the Travers Stakes that year; Whirlaway is the only horse ever to win both the Triple Crown and the Travers, sometimes referred to as a "superfecta".[4] He was voted the Horse of the Year in 1941, beating Alsab by 96 votes to 91 in a poll conducted by the Turf and Sport Digest magazine.[5] A year later, Whirlaway repeated his win in the poll, beating Alsab with 76 votes to his rival's 45.[6]
Arcaro was the sole rider for Whirlaway in all of his 3-year-old victories, but dismounted for most of the 1942 season, when he served a long suspension for racing infractions. Jockey George Woolf took the reins for the majority of the 1942 season. In a major upset on July 4, 1942, at Empire City Race Track, Whirlaway ran second to Tola Rose who easily won by four lengths in track record time.[7] On July 15, Whirlaway broke the Suffolk Downs track record for a mile and one-eighth with a time of 1:48 1/5 in winning the Massachusetts Handicap.[8] Whirlaway and Alsab continued their 1941 rivalry through 1942. On September 19, 1942, Alsab defeated the Triple Crown champion in a match race at Narragansett Park in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.[9] Although Whirlaway closed strongly through the stretch, Alsab lasted by a nose as both horses flew home through the stretch run. Whirlaway was named Horse of the Year for 1942 after defeating Alsab in a subsequent race and having 12 wins for the year to Alsab's 9.
Woolf, who had previously won the Pimlico Special in 1938 on Seabiscuit and in 1940 on Challedon, rode the 1941 Triple Crown winner at a leisurely pace during the 1942 Pimlico Special in a walkover victory. No opponent had been found to challenge Whirlaway for the race. On December 12, more than twenty thousand people turned out to watch Whirlaway win the inaugural Louisiana Handicap at the Fair Grounds Race Course. The newly formed Thoroughbred Racing Association staged this event as a war-relief effort.
Whirlaway entered stud at Calumet Farm in the spring of 1944 at age six. Among his best offspring were Scattered (winner of the Coaching Club American Oaks); Whirl Some (Selima Stakes), Dart By (All American Handicap) and Whirling Bat[10] (winner of the 1951 Louisiana Derby). In August 1950, Calumet Farm leased Whirlaway to French breeder Marcel Boussac, who stood the horse at his breeding farm, Haras de Fresnay-le-Buffard. Boussac purchased Whirlaway from Calumet in September 1952.[11] The stallion died at Boussac's French stud in 1953.[12]
Whirlaway was elected to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1959. In The Blood-Horse magazine's ranking of the top 100 U.S. thoroughbred champions of the 20th century, he was No. 26. Whirlaway has a race named in his honor at Saratoga Race Course.
Breeding
Sire Blenheim brown 1927 | Blandford brown 1919 | Swynford | John o'Gaunt |
---|---|---|---|
Canterbury Pilgrim | |||
Blanche | White Eagle | ||
Black Cherry | |||
Malva brown 1919 | Charles O'Malley | Desmond | |
Goody Two-Shoes | |||
Wild Arum | Robert Le Diable | ||
Marliacea | |||
Dam Dustwhirl Chestnut 1926 | Sweep brown 1907 | Ben Brush | Bramble |
Roseville | |||
Pink Domino | Domino | ||
Belle Rose | |||
Ormonda ch. 1916 | Superman | Commando | |
Anomaly | |||
Princess Ormonde | Ormondale | ||
Ophirdale |
See also
References
- ^ "History of Belmont Stakes Racing Festival | Belmont Stakes | Belmont Stakes".
- ^ http://www.horsecollaborative.com/see-tail-know-whirlaway/ [dead link]
- ^ "Margins" (PDF). Churchill Downs Incorporated. 2013. Retrieved 2015-11-15.
- ^ "2016 Travers Stakes at Saratoga: August 27". www.saratogaracetrack.com. Retrieved 14 June 2019.
- ^ "Whirlaway cops honor for year". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 1941-12-09. Retrieved 2012-02-27.
- ^ "Whirlaway is again winner of Horse of Year Crown". Calgary Herald. 1942-12-16. Retrieved 2012-02-27.
- ^ New York Times July 5, 1942 article titled "34,728 See Upset" Retrieved July 18, 2018
- ^ "Champion Smashes Track Mark To Win". New York Times, Section Sorts, page 24. 1942-07-16. Retrieved 2020-07-16.
- ^ Lawrence Journal-World – September 21, 1942
- ^ "Whirling Bat Horse Pedigree".
- ^ Thoroughbred Record 27 September 1952
- ^ Thoroughbred Record, 11 April 1953
- Whirlway's pedigree
- Whirlaway's Kentucky Derby
- Every horse that has ever participated in a classic: Kentucky Derby, Preakness, or Belmont
- Whirlway's Triple Crown History
- v
- t
- e
- 1875 Aristides
- 1876 Vagrant
- 1877 Baden-Baden
- 1878 Day Star
- 1879 Lord Murphy
- 1880 Fonso
- 1881 Hindoo
- 1882 Apollo
- 1883 Leonatus
- 1884 Buchanan
- 1885 Joe Cotton
- 1886 Ben Ali
- 1887 Montrose
- 1888 Macbeth II
- 1889 Spokane
- 1890 Riley
- 1891 Kingman
- 1892 Azra
- 1893 Lookout
- 1894 Chant
- 1895 Halma
- 1896 Ben Brush
- 1897 Typhoon II
- 1898 Plaudit
- 1899 Manuel
- 1900 Lieut. Gibson
- 1901 His Eminence
- 1902 Alan-a-Dale
- 1903 Judge Himes
- 1904 Elwood
- 1905 Agile
- 1906 Sir Huon
- 1907 Pink Star
- 1908 Stone Street
- 1909 Wintergreen
- 1910 Donau
- 1911 Meridian
- 1912 Worth
- 1913 Donerail
- 1914 Old Rosebud
- 1915 Regret ♥
- 1916 George Smith
- 1917 Omar Khayyam
- 1918 Exterminator
- 1919 Sir Barton ₩
- 1920 Paul Jones
- 1921 Behave Yourself
- 1922 Morvich
- 1923 Zev
- 1924 Black Gold
- 1925 Flying Ebony
- 1926 Bubbling Over
- 1927 Whiskery
- 1928 Reigh Count
- 1929 Clyde Van Dusen
- 1930 Gallant Fox ₩
- 1931 Twenty Grand
- 1932 Burgoo King
- 1933 Brokers Tip
- 1934 Cavalcade
- 1935 Omaha ₩
- 1936 Bold Venture
- 1937 War Admiral ₩
- 1938 Lawrin
- 1939 Johnstown
- 1940 Gallahadion
- 1941 Whirlaway ₩
- 1942 Shut Out
- 1943 Count Fleet ₩
- 1944 Pensive
- 1945 Hoop Jr.
- 1946 Assault ₩
- 1947 Jet Pilot
- 1948 Citation ₩
- 1949 Ponder
- 1950 Middleground
- 1951 Count Turf
- 1952 Hill Gail
- 1953 Dark Star
- 1954 Determine
- 1955 Swaps
- 1956 Needles
- 1957 Iron Liege
- 1958 Tim Tam
- 1959 Tomy Lee
- 1960 Venetian Way
- 1961 Carry Back
- 1962 Decidedly
- 1963 Chateaugay
- 1964 Northern Dancer
- 1965 Lucky Debonair
- 1966 Kauai King
- 1967 Proud Clarion
- 1968 Forward Pass (Dancer's Image disqualified)
- 1969 Majestic Prince
- 1970 Dust Commander
- 1971 Canonero II
- 1972 Riva Ridge
- 1973 Secretariat ₩
- 1974 Cannonade
- 1975 Foolish Pleasure
- 1976 Bold Forbes
- 1977 Seattle Slew ₩
- 1978 Affirmed ₩
- 1979 Spectacular Bid
- 1980 Genuine Risk ♥
- 1981 Pleasant Colony
- 1982 Gato Del Sol
- 1983 Sunny's Halo
- 1984 Swale
- 1985 Spend a Buck
- 1986 Ferdinand
- 1987 Alysheba
- 1988 Winning Colors ♥
- 1989 Sunday Silence
- 1990 Unbridled
- 1991 Strike the Gold
- 1992 Lil E. Tee
- 1993 Sea Hero
- 1994 Go for Gin
- 1995 Thunder Gulch
- 1996 Grindstone
- 1997 Silver Charm
- 1998 Real Quiet
- 1999 Charismatic
- 2000 Fusaichi Pegasus
- 2001 Monarchos
- 2002 War Emblem
- 2003 Funny Cide
- 2004 Smarty Jones
- 2005 Giacomo
- 2006 Barbaro
- 2007 Street Sense
- 2008 Big Brown
- 2009 Mine That Bird
- 2010 Super Saver
- 2011 Animal Kingdom
- 2012 I'll Have Another
- 2013 Orb
- 2014 California Chrome
- 2015 American Pharoah ₩
- 2016 Nyquist
- 2017 Always Dreaming
- 2018 Justify ₩
- 2019 Country House (Maximum Security disqualified)
- 2020 Authentic
- 2021 Mandaloun (Medina Spirit disqualified)
- 2022 Rich Strike
- 2023 Mage
- 2024 Mystik Dan
Legend – ₩ = Triple Crown winners, ♥ = Filly