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Ruffian
Whether Ruffian was the best American race mare of all time can be debated. Her competition was often suspect and her career was all too brief. But there is no question that she caught the public’s imagination as no mare ever has before or since. She was the Man o’ War of her sex: big, flashy, charismatic, and straining against all human restraint to run for the sheer love of running – a love that, in the end, killed her. Foaled at Claiborne Farm on April 17, 1972, Ruffian was marked as being a filly with great potential almost from the first. Her sire, Reviewer, was one of the better sire sons of the great Bold Ruler. A high-class racehorse in his own right, Reviewer flashed great speed in a career marred by long absences from the track due to injuries. He won nine of his thirteen starts, placing in the other four, before embarking on a stud career which, like his racing career, was successful but shortened by his fragility: in 1977, at the age of eleven, he fractured a hind leg and had to be euthanized. Shenanigans, the dam of Ruffian, had already produced the good colt Icecapade by the time Ruffian came along. A daughter of Native Dancer, she was stakes-placed on the racetrack but was much better as a producer, her other foals including the grade II winner Buckfinder and the excellent broodmare Laughter. She was named Kentucky Broodmare of the Year in 1975, based in no small part on Ruffian’s accomplishments. In a tragic irony, her life also ended in 1977 when she fell while recovering from anesthesia administered for abdominal surgery and fractured two legs. Ruffian looked outstanding right from the start. She was big and strapping but not coarse, and her near-black coloration gave her an extra touch of drama. (A few brown hairs on her muzzle kept her from being officially registered as a black.) Although just as spirited as any other young Thoroughbred, Ruffian proved a trainer’s dream to break and start on her initial education as a racehorse. She was highly competitive but was smart and respectful of human guidance, and her trainer, Frank Whiteley, Jr., knew he had a filly with a lot of ability on his hands. Much was expected of the big filly when she made her racing debut on May 22, 1974, and she certainly delivered. Taking the track for a five and one-half furlong maiden special weight at Belmont, Ruffian simply ran off and hid from her nine rivals, scorching the distance in 1:03 flat and tying the track record while being ridden out. Her nearest pursuer, Suzest, was fifteen lengths back. Ruffian’s next start was the Fashion Stakes, in which she faced a better field that included Copernica, herself a smashing winner of her first two starts. Copernica turned out to be a decent filly in the long haul, placing in seven stakes events during her career, but she was nowhere close to being a match for Ruffian, who galloped in by six and three-quarters lengths while again turning in five and one-half furlongs in 1:03. (Copernica was also remarkably consistent; she had won both her previous starts in 1:04-1/5 and turned in an estimated final time for the Fashion of about 1:04-2/5.) Sent to Aqueduct for the Astoria Stakes (gr, III) at the same distance as the Fashion, Ruffian handled the change in track, a change in jockey, and better competition like a veteran. With Vince Bracciale, Jr., subbing for the suspended Jacinto Vasquez, Ruffian fried off her opposition with an opening quarter in :21-4/5 and sailed home by nine lengths in 1:02-4/5, just one-fifth of a second off the track record. Nor was she simply defeating modest opposition; second-place Laughing Bridge won two grade II races at Saratoga later in the year, and third-place Our Dancing Girl also became a grade II winner at Saratoga. The next target was the Sorority Stakes (gr. I) at Monmouth Park, where the distance would stretch out to six furlongs. Ruffian faced only three challengers, but one of them was Dan Lasater’s filly Hot n Nasty, herself undefeated in three starts and coming into the race off a win in the Hollywood Lassie Stakes (gr. II). Despite stumbling badly at the start, Hot n Nasty recovered quickly and stayed right up with Ruffian into the turn, never more than half a length behind. Turning into the stretch, Hot n Nasty actually pulled even with Ruffian for a brief moment, poking her nose in front for a stride or two between calls. It was the stiffest challenge Ruffian had ever faced, and for once she could not simply dispose of her opponent at will. But a half-dozen taps from Vasquez’s whip settled the issue; Ruffian drew off under a drive to defeat a dead-game Hot n Nasty by two and a quarter lengths. The time was a sharp 1:09, one second off the track record but a new stakes record for the Sorority. Lasater, a most gracious loser, sent a case of champagne which he had been chilling for a post-race celebration to Whiteley and his stable staff after the race. Ruffian did not start again for a month, which allowed her time to heal from a small splint injury that had been discovered a couple of days after the Sorority. Her next stop was at Saratoga for the historic Spinaway Stakes (gr. I), which prior to the Breeders’ Cup frequently played no small role in helping to determine the juvenile filly championship. For this race, she once again faced Laughing Bridge, who was coming into the race off victories in a division of the Schuylerville Stakes (gr. II) and the Adirondack Stakes (gr. II), both by large margins. Vasquez was once again serving a suspension for rough riding, so Bracciale picked up the mount on Ruffian for the Spinaway. She could probably have been carrying Whiteley and it would have made no difference, for she dusted Laughing Bridge easily by twelve and a quarter lengths in 1:08-3/5, fast time indeed for the old Spa and a new stakes record. It was the fastest six furlongs for a juvenile of either sex at Saratoga that season. Ruffian’s owners, Mr. and Mrs. Stuart Janney, had several options for Ruffian’s next race. Ruffian was nominated to the rich Matron Stakes (gr. I) at Belmont Park’s fall meeting. The Frizette Stakes (gr. I) later in the Belmont meet was also a possibility, as was the Selima Stakes (gr. I) at Laurel Race Course in Maryland. But Whiteley and the Janneys were beginning to seriously consider the Champagne Stakes (gr. I), in which Ruffian would tackle the season’s best juvenile males, as a possibility. After all, Ruffian really had nothing further to prove in the juvenile filly division; an Eclipse Award as best two-year-old filly was a certainty regardless of what happened the rest of the season. (As it turned out, she was an unanimous choice for the honor.) A brilliant win against colts in the Champagne might actually put Ruffian in contention for Horse of the Year honors. Eventually, the Frizette was settled on as Ruffian’s next start, with the Champagne as a possible season finale if she came out of the Frizette well. All plans were scrapped, however, when the filly failed to clean up her feed tub on the morning of the Frizette. Examination revealed a slight fever, and Ruffian was scratched from the Frizette. Then she took an odd step during her next two days’ workouts. Although she warmed out of the problem quickly, Whiteley had her X-rayed. A hairline fracture of a bone in Ruffian’s right hind ankle was discovered, ending the filly’s season. The injury was a routine enough one and was treated with a jelly cast and stall rest. It healed without incident, but in view of the fragility that had plagued Reviewer, it was an ominous sign. Still, all seemed well when Ruffian came out for her first start at three, a six-furlong allowance race at Belmont on April 14, 1975. Under 122 pounds and conceding up to nine pounds to her four opponents, Ruffian won easily by four and three-quarters lengths in 1:09-2/5. The Comely Stakes (gr. III) on April 30 was Ruffian’s next start. At seven furlongs, it was the longest race she had yet tackled, but she won handily over Aunt Jin by seven and three-quarters lengths in stakes record time of 1:21-1/5. Aunt Jin looked ordinary against Ruffian, but she looked pretty good elsewhere: as a juvenile she had captured the Selima Stakes, and later in her three-year-old season she would win the Monmouth Oaks (gr. I). Next came the Triple Tiara series for fillies: the one-mile Acorn Stakes (gr. I) at Aqueduct, the nine-furlong Mother Goose Stakes (gr. I) at Belmont, and the one and one-half mile Coaching Club American Oaks (gr. I), also at Belmont. Each race would represent a longer race than the Janney filly had ever tackled before, and the only real hope that Ruffian’s rivals had was that she would prove a non-stayer as the distances stretched out. Ruffian faced six rivals in the Acorn, more than had opposed her in any one race since her maiden victory. They were all running for second money as Ruffian effortlessly sailed away to an eight an one-quarter length victory over Somethingregal in 1:34-2/5 for the mile, the fastest time in the Acorn’s 45-year history. Dan’s Commander provided the drama in the Mother Goose, but not because she was any real challenge to Ruffian; the heart-in-mouth moment was when she stumbled heavily coming out of the number seven post (Ruffian was in the six hole) and tossed rider Rudy Turcotte. Fortunately, Ruffian suffered no interference from the incident and finished the race thirteen and a half lengths ahead of Sweet Old Girl, who had two lengths to the good over Kentucky Oaks (gr. II) winner Sun and Snow. The time of 1:47-4/5 was yet another stakes record for Ruffian and was only 4/5 of a second off Riva Ridge’s track record for the distance. Between the Mother Goose on May 31 and for the Coaching Club American Oaks on June 21, discussions were flying for a race between Ruffian and any of the winners of the colts’ Triple Crown events – Foolish Pleasure (Kentucky Derby), Master Derby (Preakness), and Avatar (Belmont). Avatar quickly dropped out of the talk as he went back to California to prepare for the Swaps Stakes (gr. I) immediately after the Belmont; as it happened, he would not win another stakes race all year. Jack Dreyfus, chairman of the New York Racing Association, and Kenny Noe, Jr., racing secretary for the NYRA, then offered a $400,000 three-way match between Ruffian, Foolish Pleasure, and Master Derby to be run on July 6 at Belmont. The connections for Ruffian and Master Derby quickly accepted, but LeRoy Jolley, trainer of Foolish Pleasure, balked. He felt that the race was too likely to devolve into a speed duel between Ruffian and Foolish Pleasure, with Master Derby simply picking up the pieces after his rivals had spent each other. Dreyfus realized that with Master Derby in the race, Foolish Pleasure was out, and the Janneys were more interested in matching Ruffian with Foolish Pleasure, who had the stronger overall record as well as the cachet of a Derby victory, than with Master Derby. The NYRA solved the problem by offering $50,000 – the third-place money for the proposed $400,000 race – to Master Derby’s owner Verna Lehmann to keep the colt out of the race. She accepted, albeit reluctantly, and the match race between Foolish Pleasure and Ruffian was set for July 6. The distance would be one and one-quarter miles, and the weights would be 126 pounds on the colt, 121 pounds on the filly, giving Ruffian the same five-pound sex allowance that she would have received had she run in any of the Triple Crown events. The sex allowance was somewhat ironic, given that Ruffian was nearly three inches taller than Foolish Pleasure (16.2 hands against his 15.3-1/4 hands) and outweighed him by 1125 pounds to 1061. First things first, however: Ruffian needed to take care of business in the Coaching Club American Oaks. She did, winning by two and three-quarters lengths in 2:27-4/5. Her time equaled the stakes record and was actually two-fifths of a second faster than Avatar’s time in the Belmont Stakes a week earlier, with Foolish Pleasure second by a closing neck in that race. Considering that Ruffian had been under no real pressure in winning over Equal Change, most observers felt that the big filly could have gone much faster if necessary. The match race shaped up amidst a storm of publicity that had less to do with the horses themselves than with the politics of the times. The Feminist Revolution was in full swing, and the eternal battle of the sexes had taken on a sharper edge than had been the case in previous years. Just two years earlier, the brilliant female tennis star Billie Jean King had taken on top male player Bobby Riggs and thrashed him soundly after Riggs had made a series of boorish comments regarding female athletes and their ability. The fact that Riggs was aging and well past his best while King was in her prime as the world’s best female tennis player was lost in the media circus; as far as the Women’s Lib movement was concerned, King had struck a devastating blow for female equality with men in every area. Now Ruffian would be the next champion in the feminist cause to put males in their place – never mind that the filly knew nothing of human politics and if possible cared even less than she knew. The male-female polarization made things ugly in some quarters, and comments flew back and forth between the two camps. For the most part, there was a respectful humor in the verbal sparring between the real horsemen involved, but among the general public the atmosphere around the match race approached hysteria. The tension must have been particularly high for Jacinto Vasquez, who as the regular pilot for both Ruffian and Foolish Pleasure had to choose between the two. He opted to ride Ruffian, and Braulio Baeza, who had ridden Foolish Pleasure during one of Vasquez’s suspensions in 1974, was brought in to ride the colt. 50,764 people crowded Belmont Park on the day of the match race, while an estimated eighteen million more watched CBS’ live coverage of the event. The two horses moved into the starting gate without incident, Ruffian to the inside of the colt, and a roar went up from the crowd as veteran starter George Cassidy sent the pair away. Foolish Pleasure started cleanly; Ruffian lurched violently to the left, then veered back to the right. But she recovered so quickly that most people not close to the start did not even realize that her break had been troubled. She was in front by a head after a first quarter run in :22-1/5, a sizzling opening for a ten-furlong race. Foolish Pleasure continued to press the filly hard; both Vasquez and Baeza knew that if the filly got an unpressured lead, the race was as good as over. Nonetheless, Ruffian was beginning to edge away during the second quarter while bearing out slightly. Her margin grew to a neck, to a half length.... The unthinkable happened as the pair approached the three-quarters pole. Both jockeys heard a loud, sickening crack as Ruffian’s right front ankle shattered. Immediately the filly veered right, into Foolish Pleasure; the colt gave ground to the outside but kept his feet. For seven or eight strides, the filly kept pace despite Vasquez’s desperate pull on her mouth and what must have been sheer agony each time her right foreleg made contact with the ground; it was another eighth of a mile before Vasquez could get her pulled over to the outside rail and stopped. By then, her right foreleg was a grotesque mess of raw flesh, blood, exposed bone, and the sand and grit she had pounded into the injury during her futile attempt to keep running, to win. Foolish Pleasure raced on alone through the stunned silence, almost ignored as he crossed the finish line. The entire crowd’s attention was focused on Ruffian, whose jockey was doing his best to keep her from going down. Manny Gilman, the NYRA’s veterinarian, was the first medical professional on the scene and was able to get an inflatable cast on the filly’s foreleg to keep it from being damaged further. The filly was taken by horse ambulance back to her stall, where X-rays were taken and a hasty medical conference ensued. All the veterinarians who examined the filly knew that her chances were slight; the fracture had compounded horribly during Ruffian’s desperate attempt to keep racing and infection was almost certain to follow even if surgery was successful. Nonetheless, the Janneys wanted to try to save their beloved filly’s life, and Ruffian was transported to Dr. William Reed’s equine hospital, literally just across the street from the track. Surgery took place under less than ideal conditions: Ruffian was in shock and dehydrated, and her vital signs were not stable. But there was no choice. With the assistance of well-known veterinarian Alex Harthill, Reed flushed the contamination away with sterile saline solution, then surgically removed the loose bone chips and repaired the break as best he could. A special cast was applied; designed by human orthopedic surgeon Edward Keefer, the cast incorporated a brace designed to transfer stress to the knee joint and allow the filly to bear weight on her right foreleg without putting any stress on the injured ankle. The entire procedure took about six hours, and the cast was finished off with a special orthopedic horseshoe which would help hold it in place. Ruffian was transferred to a padded stall and closely monitored as she came out of anesthesia. Her attendants rubbed her down repeatedly, trying to keep her calm, but the filly became highly agitated as the anesthetic wore off and began thrashing. Within minutes, the special shoe worked loose; then the cast followed, splintering as the filly fought the heavy burden on her leg, her pain, and her would-be helpers. Sedatives were administered to chemically restrain the filly before she could injure herself further, but the damage had been done; a case that had never had much hope was now utterly hopeless. Stuart Janney was notified of the situation and made the only humane decision that he could. A massive dose of phenobarbital was administered at 2:20 A.M., ending Ruffian’s suffering. It was less than nine hours since she had broken from the starting gate beside Foolish Pleasure. Although the newly established Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington offered Ruffian a place of honor, the Janneys decided to bury Ruffian in the Belmont infield, near the site of her greatest triumphs and of her last, fatal race. The NYRA flag flew at half-staff throughout the day’s racing on July 7; below the flagpole, following the day’s racing, a huge grave was dug. Ordinarily, only the head and hooves, and sometimes the heart, of a racehorse are buried because of the animal’s size, but in Ruffian’s case, she was to be buried in her entirety. Shortly after 9:00 P.M., the Belmont horse ambulance, now functioning as a hearse, brought Ruffian’s white-wrapped body to its final resting place. After the corpse was slid down the loading ramp into the grave, Whiteley’s assistant, Mike Bell, climbed down a ladder into the hole and gently covered the filly’s body with two red-and-white cooling blankets before climbing out again. Behind him, the Belmont Park grounds crew began the sad task of completing the filly’s burial. It was 9:20 P.M. and, as sportswriter Bill Nack said, only the legend lived. Text © 2006 by Avalyn Hunter Artwork © 2005 by Pat DeLong. Used by permission and may not be copied or distributed without the express consent of Pat DeLong. For information regarding purchases, reproductions, or licensing, please contact Pat DeLong at patdelongart@aol.com.
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