November 1, 1938: War Admiral vs. Seabiscuit

War Admiral (left, wearing Number 1) and Seabiscuit (right, Number 2)

November 1, 1938: In a rare "match race" between champion horses, Seabiscuit, the leading handicap-winner of the last 2 years, defeats the heavily-favored War Admiral, the 1937 Triple Crown winner, at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, home of the Preakness Stakes. It is probably the most famous match race in North American history.

Seabiscuit was older, 5 years old to War Admiral's 4. Most thoroughbreds are retired before they're 5. But War Admiral was Seabiscuit's uncle: War Admiral was a son of Man o' War, the great racehorse of the early 1920s, and Seabiscuit was a grandson of Man o' War.

When Man o' War was 3 years old in 1920, the Triple Crown -- winning the Kentucky Derby in Louisvlle, the Preakness in Baltimore, and the Belmont Stakes just outside New York City, all in the same year -- wasn't yet a big deal. Sir Barton, the year before, had become the 1st horse to do it. Man o' War was eligible to run in all 3, but only ran in the Preakness and the Belmont, winning both. In 1937, at age 3, War Admiral won all 3, ridden by Charles Kurtsinger.

In 1936, at age 3, Seabiscuit hadn't been entered in any of them. It took him until 1937 to start winning stakes races, all of them on the West Coast. In those days, the East and the West really were 2 different racing "circuits," and a horse that ran at one rarely ran at another. Air travel was risky even for humans, and for a strong yet delicate, and easily scared, animal like a horse, it was frowned up. Even train travel wasn't considered good for horses.

But Seabiscuit had been transported across the country, and had won a race at Yonkers, just north of New York City. (It's been mainly a harness racing track since, and the Yonkers Trot is part of the Triple Crown for "trotters," as opposed to "pacers." Don't ask about the difference: It speaks to those who claim that horse racing is cruelty to animals.) So taking him back east to challenge War Admiral, who was again the leading racehorse of 1938, was not a crazy idea.

John "Red" Pollard was Seabiscuit's rider, until an injury on another horse knocked him out for the season. Pollard recommended his friend and fellow Canadian, George Woolf, as a replacement. It was a good choice, as he was used to riding and winning, especially at Santa Anita, Seabiscuit's "home field."

Two attempts to get War Admiral and Seabiscuit to race, both at Belmont Park, ended when Seabiscuit was scratched, as his handlers didn't like tracks that were heavy due to recent rain. Finally, it was set up for November 1, 1938, at Pimlico. The distance was set at the same distance as the Course's best-known race, the Preakness: 1 mile and 3/16ths.

It was dubbed "The Match of the Century," and a full house of 40,000 was on hand. An estimated 40 million listened on radio. (No television yet.) War Admiral was set as a 1-4 favorite -- making Seabiscuit a 4-1 underdog. Pretty much the only racing writers predicting a Seabiscuit victory came from his home base in California.

There was no paddock to be loaded into: The horses were stood together, side by side, and a bell was rung to start them off. Head-to-head races tend to favor fast starters, and War Admiral was considered the fastest starter the "Sport of Kings" had ever known, faster even than his daddy (his opponent's grandpa). And yet, Seabiscuit broke faster, leading by a length after only 20 seconds.

Halfway down the backstretch, War Admiral closed and pulled ahead. Pollard had advised Woolf that, if War Admiral had the lead, he should ease up on Seabiscuit, and let him see his opponent, and then ask for more effort.

It worked: Seabiscuit retook the lead with 200 yards to go. War Admiral ran his best race ever for that distance, but it didn't matter: Seabiscuit won by 4 lengths.

Seabiscuit got hurt in his next race, and, as they recovered together in 1939, Pollard joked that they had four good legs between them (out of six). By the time the 1940 racing season began, Seabiscuit was 7 years old, and, as I said, most thoroughbreds are retired no later than 4. By the standards of most stallions, Seabiscuit was still rather young; but, by the standards of his sport, he was ancient.

And yet, after losing 2 races, Pollard guided him to victory in his 3rd that season, the San Antonio Handicap in Texas. A week later, he won the one West Coast race that had previously eluded him, the Santa Anita Handicap. He was then retired.

Woolf was a diabetic, and lost consciousness and fell during a race at Santa Anita on January 3, 1946. He died the next day, only 42 years old. Later in 1946, Kurtsinger fell victim to pnuemonia and died, only 39. Seabiscuit died in 1947, just short of his 14th birthday. Man o' War also died in 1947, at 31, which is old for any kind of horse. War Admiral lived on until 1959, age 25. Pollard suffered 2 more nasty injuries in races in 1938, and ended up marrying his nurse. He lived on until 1981. 

In 1999, Laura Hillenbrand published Seabiscuit: An American Legend, postulating that the reason the American people took to Seabiscuit is that he was an underdog who beat the big boys. Parallels could be drawn to similar sports underdogs who became champions during the Great Depression, including the St. Louis Cardinals' "Gashouse Gang" that won the 1934 World Series, and Jim Braddock, the "Cinderella Man" who won the Heavyweight Championship of the World in 1935.

Her book was made into the 2003 film Seabiscuit. Tobey Maguire played Pollard. Gary Stevens, winner of each of the Triple Crown races 3 times, played Woolf. Chris McCarron, who won each of those races twice, and once held the record of 546 thoroughbred races won in a single year, played Kurtsinger.

*

November 1, 1938 was a Tuesday. The baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season wouldn't start for another 2 days. So there were no scores on this historic day.

October 20, 1923: Zev vs. Papyrus

October 20, 1923: One of the biggest match races in American history is held at Belmont Park.

It's easy to ask, "If Man o' War was the most famous thoroughbred race horse of the era, how come he didn't win the Triple Crown?" Well, at the time, the Triple Crown had been won only once, by Sir Barton in 1919, and it was not the big deal that it would later become. Man o' War won the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes in 1920, but did not even enter the Kentucky Derby.

Zev had been the leading 2-year-old horse in America in 1922. In 1923, the Preakness was run before the Kentucky Derby, and Zev, ridden by Earl Sande, ran a bad race. But he came back to win the Derby and the Belmont Stakes.

In England, which still thought of itself as the worldwide capital of horse racing -- "The Sport of Kings," partly because the British royal family had owned champion horses, and still does -- Papyrus had been doing much the same thing as Zev. Ridden by Steve Donoghue, he was his country's leading 2-year-old racehorse, and, the next year, won the country's leading race, The Derby (and, unlike in America, that's pronounced "DAR-bee," not "DER-bee") at Epsom Race Course in Surrey.

On August 19, 1923, a deal was struck to have Papyrus race against Zev, to determine the best racehorse in the world. The winning horse would win $100,000 (about $1.7 million in 2022 money), with the losing horse getting just $2,000. But Papyrus would be running at something of a disadvantage: In 2 warmup races, he was bumped by another horse, the one in the 2nd race actually drawing blood.

But he was determined to be fit enough to sail to America and race against Zev. Accompanying him on the voyage were Donoghue, trainer Basil Jarvis, 2 stable boys, his stablemate Bargold, a cat with whom Papyrus had bonded, and a special feed mix. But the British media, normally so jingoistic, was actually pessimistic, thinking the effects of the voyage and the change in environment -- normally racing on grass, this would be his 1st time running on a dirt track -- would work against Papyrus.

A crowd of 70,000 people filed into Belmont Park, just outside New York City in Elmont, Nassau County, New York. The track was muddy, and while Papyrus held his own for the first half of the race, Zev pulled away, and won by 5 lengths. Although noting the conditions, Jarvis acknowledged that he had been fairly beaten by a better horse.

Papyrus was never the same horse. He ran 4 races as a 4-year-old, didn't win any of them, and was retired to stud. He lived until 1941. In contrast, Zev won races as a 4-year-old, and broke Man o' War's record as horse racing's all-time leading money-winner. He was less successful at stud than Papyrus, and lived until 1943.

*

October 20, 1923 was a Saturday. Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, now named Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, opened on this day in Norman, Oklahoma. The University of Oklahoma beat Washington University of St. Louis, 62-7. I have a separate entry for this event. These other notable college football games were played that day:

* In an unusual North vs. South matchup, Army beat Auburn, 28-6 on The Plain at West Point, New York.

* Navy lost to Penn State, 21-3 at Beaver Field (not to be confused with the later Beaver Stadium) in State College, Pennsylvania.

* Fordham lost to Lehigh, 7-0 at Taylor Stadium in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

* Columbia lost to the University of Pennsylvania, 19-7 at Franklin Field in Philadelphia. This was only the 4th game at the new Franklin Field, which had replaced the one that had stood there since 1895.

* Rutgers beat New York University (NYU), 7-3 at Neilson Field in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

* Princeton lost to Notre Dame, 25-2 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton.

* Syracuse beat the University of Pittsburgh, 3-0 at Yankee Stadium. It was the 1st college football game played there.

* Harvard beat Holy Cross, 6-0 at Harvard Stadium in Boston.

* In what would later become an arch-rivalry, Michigan beat Ohio State, 23-0 at Ferry Field in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

* The University of Chicago beat nearby Northwester University, 13-0 at Stagg Field in Chicago.

* The University of Missouri and Saint Louis University played to a 0-0 tie at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

Also on this day, "Beat Generation" writer Philip Whalen was born. 

August 31, 1955: Nashua vs. Swaps

August 31, 1955: A rare match race between horse racing champions is held at Washington Park in Chicago.

Swaps, a horse known as the California Comet, won the 1955 Kentucky Derby in 2 minutes, 1 and 4/5ths seconds, just 2/5ths shy of the race record, since broken by Secretariat in 1973. He was ridden by Willie Shoemaker, who retired as the jockey with the most races won in a career. But an injured hoof prevented Swaps from running in the last 2 legs of the Triple Crown, the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes.

Nashua was bred and trained in Maryland, and ridden by the other great jockey of the 1950s, Eddie Arcaro. The leading 2-year-old racer the year before, Nashua was the favorite to win the Kentucky Derby, but finished 2nd to Swaps. Nashua won the Preakness Stakes, by only 1 length, but in a track record, also broken by Secretariat 18 years later. Nashua won the Belmont Stakes by 9 lengths, and certainly looked like the best thoroughbred horse in the country.

But some racing observers still thought Swaps was the better horse. He recovered from his injury to set several track records on the West Coast. So a deal was reached for a match race. The prize money: $110,000, winner-take-all. (About $1.21 million in 2022 money.)

The day before the race, Swaps was in a practice run on the track, which was wet, and he re-injured his foot. As a result, Nashua, having broken fast from the gate, led wire to wire. Having won the match race, Nashua was awarded the Eclipse Award for horse of the year.

Swaps was rested for the remainder of the year -- which is probably what should have happened before the match race. It should have been called off as soon as his handlers knew he was hurt. But the money was too good. I guess we'll never know for sure.

The rest he did get did him a lot of good. He won several races in 1956, and was named Horse of the Year. But an even worse injury near the end of the racing season nearly led to his death, and forced his retirement. He sired Chateaugay, who won the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes in 1963. He died in 1972.

Nashua also retired after the 1956 racing season, having become only the 2nd horse ever to earn $1 million. (The 1st was 1948 Triple Crown winner Citation.) At stud, his daughters were more successful than his sons. His descendants include 1997 Kentucky Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus. He died in 1982.

Both horses were named to the United States Racing Hall of Fame. In 1999, The Blood-Horse magazine named its Top 100 Racehorses of the 20th Century, and ranked Swaps 20th and Nashua 24th -- in spite of Nashua's win in their match race.

*

August 31, 1955 was a Wednesday. Olympic Gold Medalist hurdler Edwin Moses was born on this day.

These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Kansas City Athletics, 11-6 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Mickey Mantle, Gil McDougald and Irv Noren hit home runs in support of Tommy Byrne.

* The New York Giants beat the Cincinnati Redlegs, 5-0 at the Polo Grounds. (The Reds were known as the Redlegs from 1954 to 1958, because of stupid McCarthyism.) Ruben Gomez pitched a 7-hit shutout. Willie Mays went 1-for-4.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Milwaukee Braves, 13-8 at Ebbets Field. The Braves knocked Carl Erskine out of the box in the 5th inning, including a single by Hank Aaron and a home run by George Crowe. A 19-year-old rookie from Brooklyn named Sandy Koufax pitched the 6th inning, and allowed 4 runs.

Jackie Robinson did not appear in this game. Don Newcombe did, but as a pinch-hitter, not a pitcher. He ended that season with 20 wins against 5 losses, 7 home runs, and a World Series ring. (Take note, Shohei Ohtani.) But, on this occasion, he struck out. Sandy Amoros hit a home run, and Pee Wee Reese and Duke Snider each had 3 hits, but Dem Bums still lost.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 13-2 at Connie Mack Stadium, in Philadelphia. The Phils got home runs from Stan Lopata and Jim Greengrass; and 3 RBIs each from Greengrass, Granny Hamner and Willie "Puddin' Head" Jones, in support of Murry Dickson. Richie Ashburn went 2-for-3 with 2 walks. Ernie Banks went 0-for-4.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-3 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Stan Musial was in the starting lineup, batting 5th and playing right field, but did not get into the game: Pete Whisenant was sent to pinch-hit for him in the 1st inning, and played right field the rest of the way. I can find no explanation, as Baseball-Reference.com shows that Musial played in every single game that season. (I guess being listed in the starting lineup counts with them, even if the player was replaced before coming to bat or taking the field.)

Pirate rookie Roberto Clemente did not enter this game, either. Johnny O'Brien, along with his brother Eddie 1 of 10 sets of twins to have played in the major leagues, did play, and he singled home the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning.

(In 2022, there is 1 set of twins in the major leagues, identical, and both pitchers: Taylor Rogers of the Milwaukee Brewers, and Tyler Rogers of the San Francisco Giants. Oddly, Taylor throws lefthanded, and Tyler is righthanded.)

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Baltimore Orioles, 5-1 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Herb Score, soon to be named the American League Rookie of the Year, went the distance, striking out 13 -- but also walking 7, and allowing 3 hits. Brooks Robinson would make his major league debut for the Orioles on September 17.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Washington Senators, 7-4 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. (It was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.) Al Kaline, on his way to becoming the youngest batting champion in AL history (breaking the record of an earlier Tiger, Ty Cobb), went 0-for-3, but had an RBI on a sacrifice fly.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Boston Red Sox, 4-2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Ted Williams went 0-for-4.

July 6, 1975: The Tragedy of Ruffian

Ruffian, before an earlier race at Belmont Park

July 6, 1975: Another sport has set up an equivalent to the "Battle of the Sexes" that tennis had 2 years earlier. Only this time, it didn't seem so ridiculous, mainly because the male competitor wasn't running his mouth.

He couldn't: Like his female opponent, he was a horse.

Of course, when Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs, there was a chance that Riggs, then 55 years old, could have had a heart attack and dropped dead. But he didn't.

This time, the competition did end in tragedy.

*

Every now and then, there is a racehorse about whom the sport's observers say loves to run, was born for it. Ruffian was the 1st filly about whom it was said. Foaled on April 17, 1972 at Claiborne Farm in Paris, Kentucky, she was a granddaughter of 1957 Preakness Stakes winner Bold Ruler, making her a niece to 1973 Triple Crown winner Secretariat. Her other grandfather was 1953 Preakness and Belmont Stakes winner Native Dancer. (This was not surprising: Both grandfathers can count dozens of winning horses among their descendants.) She was large for a filly, and ran 5 races as a 2-year-old, winning them all.

As a 3-year-old, she ran 5 races, and won them all. This included the Triple Tiara, the fillies' version of colts' Triple Crown: The Acorn Stakes, at Belmont Park, just outside New York City in Elmont, Long Island, New York; the Mother Goose Stakes, also at Belmont; and the Coaching Club American Oaks, at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, in the Adirondack Mountains of northern New York State.

An "oaks" is the female version of a "derby." The Mother Goose Stakes has since been dropped from the Triple Tiara. Now, it's the Acorn Stakes, the Coaching Club, and the Alabama Stakes, which is run at Saratoga. The Kentucky Oaks, run annually the day before the Kentucky Derby, is a prestigious race for fillies, but is not part of the Triple Tiara, which is probably why Ruffian was not entered into it. And while fillies are eligible for the Triple Crown races, very few run in them: The Kentucky Derby has had just 3 female winners in 148 races, the Preakness Stakes 6 out of 147, and the Belmont Stakes 3 out of 154.

Ruffian had been working her way up in length, as young racehorses tend to have done for them. Until her 8th race, the Acorn Stakes on May 10, 1975, she had never run as long as a full mile. But in winning the Coaching Club and taking the Triple Tiara on June 22, she had run a mile and a half -- the same length as the Belmont Stakes, whose length has given it the name "the true test of champions."

It wasn't just that she was undefeated: She won big. Her 10 races were won by an average distance of 8.3 lengths. She won the Mother Goose by 13 1/2. And in every stakes race she ran, she set a new record for that race. This was the closest thing that fillies had ever had to Secretariat, who had blown away the competing colts to win the Triple Crown 2 years earlier.

The question was asked: Could the best filly in the country defeat the best colt in a match race?

Match races are rare. There had been 4 big ones in the 20th Century:

* 1920: Belmont Stakes winner Man o' War over the previous year's Triple Crown winner Sir Barton, at Kenilworth Park in Windsor, Ontario, across the river from Detroit.

* 1923: Preakness and Belmont winner Zev over Epsom Derby winner Papyrus, at Belmont Park.

* 1938: West Coast champion Seabiscuit over the previous year's Triple Crown winner War Admiral (a son of Man o' War), at Pimlico in Baltimore.

* 1955: Preakness and Belmont winner Nashua over Kentucky Derby winner Swaps, at Washington Park in Chicago in 1955.

So a match race between Ruffian and a leading colt would be the first major match race will full television coverage.

Her trainer, Frank Whiteley, had preferred to take her up to Saratoga, and run her against colts in the Travers Stakes, America's leading Summer thoroughbred race. "Prove the point one time, and that'll be it," he said. But her owners, Stuart and Barbara Janney, overruled him, because the money from a match race against the top colt in the country was too good to pass up. Stuart did insist that it take place on her usual home track, Belmont.

So it was set up for Sunday, July 6: Ruffian, wearing Number 2, would take on Foolish Pleasure, wearing Number 1. Foolish Pleasure, bred, foaled and trained in Florida, was a first cousin of Ruffian: Each was a grandchild of Bold Ruler.

Foolish Pleasure won the Kentucky Derby by making a late charge to beat Avatar, finished 2nd to the not-quite-aptly-named Master Derby in the Preakness, and finished 2nd to Avatar in the Belmont. Given this record, he was probably the best 3-year-old thoroughbred colt in the country, but it was hardly definitive.

Foolish Pleasure

There was another issue: Both horses had the same jockey, Jacinto Vásquez, a 31-year-old native of Panama. He had to make a choice, and he chose Ruffian, which spoke volumes. After all, he probably knew each horse as well as its owners and trainers, and he was certainly the only person who knew the tendencies, and the emotional makeups, of both horses.

So Braulio Baeza, 35 and also from Panama, was hired to ride Foolish Pleasure. He had won the 1961 Belmont Stakes aboard Sherluck, both the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont in 1963 aboard Chateaugay, and the 1969 Belmont aboard Arts and Letters. So he was certainly familiar with Belmont, its track and its atmosphere. His win aboard Chateaugay made him the 1st Hispanic jockey to win the Kentucky Derby. If he wasn't the best possible choice, he was certainly a very good one.

Belmont Park, which originally opened in 1905, had been rebuilt, and reopened in 1968 with a 33,000-seat grandstand, and, with infield seating, necessary for the Belmont Stakes, could seat over 100,000 people. The infield seating was needed again, as over 50,000 people came to see "The Great Match." Another 20 million watched on ABC, obliterating the record for TV viewership of a horse race set at the 1973 Belmont Stakes won by Secretariat.

The odds on Ruffian were 20-1. Horse racing oddsmakers are usually older men, and they seemed sure that there was no way any filly could beat a champion colt. But Vásquez knew better than anyone, because he had ridden both horses, and he chose Ruffian because he genuinely believed she was the better horse. The winner-take-all prize: $350,000. (About $1.93 million in 2022 money.)

The horses broke from the starting gate. But Ruffian did not do so straight, bumping her shoulder on the gate before straightening out. If that had been the worst of it, it would have been a footnote: Even if she had run the race to its conclusion and lost, that probably wouldn't have been considered the reason.

The 1st quarter-mile was run in 22 1/5th seconds, and Ruffian was ahead by a nose. A furlong later, she had a lead of half a length. It was too soon to tell if she would hold the lead the whole way.

Just then, both jockeys heard a sound that they described as a crack. A bird had flown across the infield, distracting Ruffian, and she took a bad step. She had broken both of the sesamoid bones in her right foreleg.

Vásquez, not possessed of X-ray vision, didn't know exactly what was wrong, but he knew horses well enough to know that this was a devastating injury. He tried to pull her up, to get her to stop. But this horse that loved to run, apparently not yet feeling the pain, kept going. This further damaged the leg's bones, and tore its ligaments. Vásquez finally got her to stop, and Baeza guided Foolish Pleasure to a win in what amounted to a walkover.

Ruffian was loaded onto an ambulance, and taken to Belmont Park's veterinary clinic. Surgery on her leg took 12 hours, and she had to be revived twice. The next day's first edition of the New York Daily News, sent to press while Ruffian was still alive, printed a hopeful, if tasteless, secondary headline.

But in her padded recovery stall, she kept flailing her legs, knocking the plaster cast against the wall, until it came loose. Her continued flailing undid all the surgery. The doctors concluded that she could not survive another operation. She was euthanized in the middle of the night. Later editions of newspapers had to print the awful truth. 

This was something relatively new in American sports. There had been deaths on the field of play before, but most of them happened before television came along (as with baseball player Ray Chapman in 1920), or had only happened on local TV, with the footage not preserved due to the high cost of videotape (such as happened to hockey player Bill Masterton in 1968, and a few football players in the 1960s and early '70s). Ruffian didn't die during the race, but she died as a result of it, and the announcers let the audience know that it could happen.

Some of the 20 million people watching on TV were women who had never watched a horse race before, not even with Secretariat, but were watching because Ruffian was a girl going up against the best of the boys. Many of the viewers, men and women alike, swore they would never watch another horse race.

Sure enough, in spite of 2 more Triple Crown winners in the decade -- Seattle Slew in 1977 and Affirmed in 1978, and the dramatic story of the 1980 Kentucky Derby (more about that in a moment), TV viewership of horse racing severely declined. So did live attendance, as the growth of cable TV led to more sports viewing opportunities without having to leave your house.

Up until the dawn of the TV era, horse racing was the 3rd-most popular sport in America, behind baseball and boxing. Even in 1975, with football having surpassed everything, horse racing was still more popular than basketball and hockey. Now, despite 2 Triple Crown winners in the 2010s, it might not even be one of the top 10 sports.

Ruffian was buried in the infield at Belmont, with her nose pointing toward the finish line. She is the only horse laid to rest there. The following year, the Ruffian Handicap was founded, and was run annually at Belmont until 2009. In 2010, it was moved to Saratoga. In 2014, it was moved back to Belmont. The veterinary clinic at Belmont, where Ruffian died, is now named Cornell Ruffian Equine Specialists, run by Weill Cornell Medicine, of Cornell University.

Foolish Pleasure, forever to be remembered for a race that, officially, never took place, raced as a 4-year-old, and was retired to stud. He died of a stomach ailment at a ranch in Wyoming in 1994.

In 1980, Jacinto Vásquez accomplished something that he hadn't done even with Ruffian: He won the Kentucky Derby aboard a filly, Genuine Risk. The 2 Kentucky Derbies he won would be the only Triple Crown races he won.

In 1976, Baeza rode Honest Pleasure, another first cousin of Foolish Pleasure, to a 2nd-place finish in the Kentucky Derby. After finishing 5th in the Preakness with Honest Pleasure, he finished the season, and retired with 3,140 wins.

That year, he was elected to the National Racing Hall of Fame. So was Ruffian. Vásquez kept racing until 1996 -- racing into one's 50s is not unusual for a jockey -- and retired with 5,231 wins. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1998. As of July 6, 2022, Baeza is 82, and Vásquez is 78.

The racing magazine The Blood-Horse ranked Ruffian as the top female thoroughbred racehorse of the 20th Century -- but only 35th overall on their list of the top 100 thoroughbreds. Foolish Pleasure was ranked 97th.

A film titled Ruffian was made in 2007. Sam Shepard played Whiteley, Nicholas Pryor played Stuart Janney, Christine Belford played Barbara Janney, Vladimir Diaz played Vásquez, Francisco Torres played Baeza, Frank Whaley played Sports Illustrated racing writer William Nack, and original track announcer Dave Johnson, needing only to provide a repeat of his announcing, not needing to show his older face, played himself.

There would not be another match race in America until July 23, 1988, at Ak-Sar-Ben Racetrack in Omaha, Nebraska. (Ak-Sar-Ben, also the name of an adjacent sports arena, is "Nebraska" spelled backwards. Both the arena and the track have since been demolished.) Again, it was a "Battle of the Sexes," but neither horse had won any Triple Crown races. The colt Who Doctor Who beat the filly Explosive Girl by 3 1/2 lengths.

*

July 6, 1975 was a Sunday. Elsewhere in Queens that day, Curtis Jackson was born. He went on to become the rapper 50 Cent.

These Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles, 6-1 at Shea Stadium, where they played "home games" while the original Yankee Stadium was being renovated. Brooks Robinson went 0-for-3. Ken Singleton, later a Yankee broadcaster, provided the Orioles' only run with a solo home run. No Yankee homered, but Graig Nettles went 3-for-4 with an RBI. Pat Dobson outpitched Mike Cuellar. Both men went the distance.

In 1971, while with the Orioles, Dobson was part of a unique achievement: He, Cuellar, Jim Palmer and Dave McNally all won 20 games that season, the only time a single team has had 4 20-game winners in the same year. The Orioles won the American League Pennant, but lost the World Series.

* The New York Mets lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 8-6 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Rusty Staub and Mike Phillips hit home runs for the Metropolitans, and Dick Allen hit one for the Phils.

* A doubleheader was split at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The Boston Red Sox won the opener, 5-3, despite Carl Yastrzemski going 0-for-5. The Cleveland Indians won the nightcap, 11-10. Yaz was held out of it. Indians manager Frank Robinson, not yet retired as a player, did not enter either game.

* The Houston Astros beat the Atlanta Braves, 6-2 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

* The Detroit Tigers swept a doubleheader from the Milwaukee Brewers at Tiger Stadium in Detroit, 7-5 and 11-2. Over the 2 games, Hank Aaron went 3-for-9 with an RBI, but no home runs.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Chicago Cubs, 18-12 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. The wind must have been blowing out that day. The Pirates got homers from Willie Stargell, Dave Parker, Rennie Stennett and Bob Robertson. The Cubs got them from Jerry Morales and Rick Monday.

* The Texas Rangers swept a doubleheader from the Minnesota Twins at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota, 4-2 and 7-0. Gaylord Perry pitched a 7-hit shutout in the nightcap. (Cough-spitball-cough.) Rod Carew went 3-for-8 with an RBI in the twinbill, and Toby Harrah homered in each game for the Rangers.

* The Montreal Expos beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-3 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Lou Brock went 2-for-3 with a walk.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Kansas City Royals, 9-3 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. George Brett went 0-for-3, but did draw a walk.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the San Diego Padres, 13-2 at San Diego Stadium (later Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium). The Big Red Machine, on their way to winning the World Series, hit no home runs on this day, but got 3 hits each from Pete Rose and Joe Morgan, and 2 each from Ken Griffey Sr., George Foster and Bill Plummer, who was substituting at catcher for Johnny Bench.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat their arch-rivals, the San Francisco Giants, 5-1 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

* And the California Angels beat the Oakland Athletics, 2-0 at the Oakland Coliseum. Dick Lange and Don Kirkwood combined on a 6-hit shutout, beating Vida Blue. Reggie Jackson went 1-for-4.