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Sarazen
“When a man can breed a Quarter Horse to a plow mare and get a horse that can beat everything in America, it’s time for me to sell out,” said the great breeder John E. Madden. The reference to Sarazen’s parentage was exaggerated, but Madden was certainly accurate in indicating that the future champion began life with less than great expectations. Actually, although Dr. Marius Johnson is Sarazen’s breeder of record, it was Elizabeth Daingerfield (later the stud manager for Man o’ War during the most productive part of Big Red’s breeding career) who planned the matings that produced both Sarazen and his sire, High Time. The latter horse was one of the most intensely inbred animals ever seen in Thoroughbred annals. Sired by Ultimus (whose sire and dam were both by Domino) out of Domino’s daughter Noonday, High Time had blazing speed but was cursed with both the tied-in tendons of his sire Ultimus and a tendency to experience bleeding in his lungs when under physical stress -- such as the effort of racing. High Time won the 1918 Hudson Stakes, setting a new Aqueduct track record for five furlongs, but it was his only victory in seven starts. Unfortunately for his chances as a sire, he developed quite a reputation for stopping badly in his races: according to Colonel Phil T. Chinn, who trained High Time as a three-year-old, the Ultimus colt was the only horse he had ever seen who could come into the stretch leading by fifteen lengths and lose the race by eighty. High Time was sent to stud but got little patronage, and although he would later lead the American general sire list in 1928 and the juvenile sire list three times, this was all in the future when Sarazen was conceived. As for Rush Box, the dam of Sarazen, she had even less to recommend her. Whether or not she had actually been used for plowing on owner George Carley’s farm is debatable, but she had never raced and was by the good sprinter but poor sire Box. Purchased cheaply by Dr. Johnson, she was sent to High Time in a package deal with another mare, *Photo (by Llangwm). Whatever Miss Daingerfield saw in High Time and his mates when she recommended the matings, she proved a keen judge indeed, for while Rush Box produced Sarazen, *Photo produced stakes winner Time Exposure. The two were the only stakes winners from High Time’s first small crop of eight foals. Johnson, however, did not enjoy the fruits of either youngster’s racing career, selling both to Colonel Phil T. Chinn as yearlings for a total price of $2,500. The price was respectable enough given the indifferent pedigrees of both youngsters, and doubly so given that Sarazen (whom Chinn named for champion golfer Gene Sarazen) was a midget by Thoroughbred standards, standing only a little over fifteen hands tall and weighing less than 700 pounds at maturity. Owing to both a willful disposition and his small size, Sarazen was gelded before he ever raced. Both Sarazen and Time Exposure broke their maidens for Chinn, and he made a nice profit on both horses: Time Exposure went to Frank Farrell for $15,000, while Sarazen, after going unbeaten in his first three starts, was sold to Mrs. Graham Fair Vanderbilt III for $35,000. Chinn later lamented that he had cheated himself, since he judged the horse to be worth $100,000 -- but, as was usual with Colonel Chinn, he needed the money to cover some of his other wheeling and dealing. He was, as raconteur John “Trader” Clark put it, “forever borrowing from Ike to pay Mike,” and Sarazen was not the only good horse he ended up selling before seeing the animal’s full potential realized. Chinn was known as one of the keenest judges of horseflesh around, but as it turned out, he may have undervalued Sarazen. For Mrs. Vanderbilt, the smooth-striding little gelding won seven more races as a juvenile, finishing his first season of competition at ten-for-ten. Although he did not face the Futurity winner St. James (generally considered the champion juvenile of the year) or the season’s other top juvenile, Wise Counsellor, Sarazen not only won four stakes events from his peers, but under weight-for-age conditions defeated the good older horses General Thatcher and Blazes as he pleased in Pimlico’s Fall Serial #2 at the distance of one mile. His earnings for the season amounted to $37,880, more than earning back his purchase price. Sarazen did not remain undefeated at three, but he was hardly less brilliant than he had been at two. After running second to the future Withers Stakes winner Bracadale in his first start of the season while conceding eight pounds, Sarazen returned to the winner’s circle by defeating older males in the Carter Handicap. He was unplaced in the one-mile Mount Vernon Handicap, but then proceeded to defeat just about every other top three-year-old in training as well as some of the best older runners over his next six races. He whipped Wise Counsellor and eventual Travers Stakes winner Sun Flag in the Saranac Handicap despite getting off to a bad start, took the measure of the good older horse Cherry Pie and the Belmont Stakes winner Mad Play in the Manhattan Handicap, outran Lawrence Realization winner Aga Khan in the Huron Handicap while conceding him fourteen pounds, and defeated the previous season’s champion three-year-old, Zev, in the Arverne Handicap. His one defeat during this period was in the Fall Highweight Handicap, in which he finished third behind Worthmore while carrying 135 pounds, nine more than the winner. The little chestnut saved his finest effort of the season for the International Special #3 at Latonia, one of a series of races which had been conceived to pit the best American runners against their European counterparts. *Epinard, generally considered the best European three-year-old of 1923, had answered the challenge, participating in the first two races of the series. Although he did not win either, the French colt had earned great respect from American horsemen with game seconds to Wise Counsellor in the first Special at six furlongs at Belmont Park and to Ladkin in the second of the series at a flat mile at Aqueduct. For the third Special, the distance was set at a mile and a quarter, and the field was a stellar one: besides *Epinard, it included Mad Play, My Play (a full brother to Man o’ War and winner of the 1924 Jockey Club Gold Cup), the Kentucky Derby runner-up Chilhowee (who had later defeated Derby winner Black Gold in the Latonia Derby), and the brilliant filly Princess Doreen, winner of the 1924 Kentucky Oaks and Coaching Club American Oaks. Many people thought that Sarazen would not stay the distance. Sarazen thought otherwise. Taking the lead from Chilhowee after six furlongs, Sarazen sprinted clear easily to win by a length and a half, smashing the previous track record by nearly two seconds into the bargain. Behind him, the gallant *Epinard once again settled for second, winning a three-horse battle for the place. Following this spectacular effort, Sarazen managed to win the one and one-quarter mile Maryland Handicap by a head over the lightly weighted Rustic, Aga Khan third, but he was clearly a tired horse when he made his final start of the season in the Washington Handicap, running out of the money though beaten only one and one-half lengths by winner Big Blaze. Nonetheless, Sarazen was unmistakably the best racehorse of any age in 1924. He finished the season having won eight of twelve starts and $95,640. Sarazen repeated as the nation’s consensus Horse of the Year in 1925, winning five of his ten starts. Although his small size and slight frame put him at a considerable disadvantage in the handicap ranks, he won the Dixie, Arverne, and Fleetwing handicaps under 130 pounds and the Gadsden D. Bryan Memorial Handicap under 126, setting a new mile track record for Bowie in the latter race. However, he refused to extend himself in the Carter Handicap and finished last, a disturbing precedent that foreshadowed his later career. Continuing to race as a five-year-old in 1926, Sarazen could not match the feats of the brilliant three-year-old Crusader, commonly reckoned that year’s Horse of the Year, but he was still considered the leader in his own division although he won but four of fourteen starts. His biggest victories were a repeat score in the Dixie under 128 pounds and the Metropolitan Handicap under 129 pounds. He also won the Mount Vernon Handicap, but although he remained physically sound, he was giving increasing signs that he was no longer happy in the racing game. He never won again after July of his five-year-old-season, although he did place in the 1926 Laurel and Continental handicaps before ending his campaign. At six and seven Sarazen went completely sour, becoming a terror to starting crews and putting out so little effort once started that he gained the unflattering nickname “Sulky Sarah.” Although trainer Max Hirsch tried any number of angles to persuade Sarazen to exert himself, nothing worked. Sarazen started nine times at six and seven, but as far as the horse was concerned, his racing career was over. Alex Gordon took over the Fair Stable horses in 1928, but though he kept Sarazen with the racing stable for a couple more years, all efforts at persuasion proved utterly useless. With Mrs. Vanderbilt’s approval, Gordon finally sent Sarazen to Tom Piatt’s Brookdale Farm as a pensioner. Sarazen did make one more public appearance in 1937, when he participated in a parade at Keeneland with six other notable geldings including 1929 Kentucky Derby winner Clyde Van Dusen and champion handicap male Mike Hall, but otherwise lived a quiet life until he was humanely destroyed due to the infirmities of old age on December 12, 1940. One of the little giants of the Turf, Sarazen ended his career with twenty-seven wins and eight placings from fifty-five starts, but a fairer assessment of his merit would be to look at his career from ages two to five, when he won twenty-seven of forty-six starts and was a champion for three straight seasons. It was based on the sustained brilliance of those four years that Sarazen was inducted into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame in 1957. Many horses have measured larger, but few have ever run bigger. © 2005 by Avalyn Hunter |
