- This topic has 42 replies, 18 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 3 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Seasider, apologies in advance for the slight topic drift. After you mentioned him, I was reading up on Ravensbury, and saw it mentioned he is one of only two horses to have been runner-up in all three British Triple Crown races.
Do you, or indeed anyone else, happen to know who the other was?
Mill House was on the easy list for a while with back problems and missed the 1966 renewal. He fell in the 1967 race.
It’s mildly infuriating when a source reports something like that but fails to mention the other horse. It sometimes happens on TV coverage (“…only the second horse ever to achieve such and such…”) and I am silently yelling at them to tell me what the first one was.
The information is obviously out there but I don’t think I have a relevant book.
Thanks Seasider. As you say, the information must be out there. It would be easy to work out if there were tables of the placed horses in all the Classics available online.
As I’m unaware of such a resource, I will have to hope to stumble across the information some other way.
How about grand old Get Me Out Of Here?
2nd in the Supreme beaten a head
2nd in the County beaten a nose
2nd in the Coral Cup beaten 3 lengths by one of the biggest plot jobs of all time
2nd in the Coral Cup again beaten a short headWonderful horse who just never had any bloody luck!
Honourable mention to pacemakers, even though it’s slightly different from just being second best – Bullet Train (Frankel) and Sholokhov (Hawk Wing) were two notables.
What a fascinating thread! My first thought was Sham up against Secretariat. On googling it I’ve just read that his times in finishing second were still record breaking. I need to look it up but I’m thinking that either Sunday Silence or Easy Gier would have been triple crown winners if one of them hadn’t been around. It was only recently that I forgave Arkle for beating Mill House.
Louise12, pacemakers are definitely an interesting topic. I understand why they exist, but don’t like seeing horses not run on their own merits. I enjoy it when they surprise people and beat the supposedly better horse they are pacing. Maroof in the QEII Stakes is my favourite example of this.
I remember feeling quite sorry for Sholokhov as, campaigned differently, I suspect his racing CV would have looked rather more impressive. In many stables he’d have been regarded as a star, but he clearly wasn’t a priority for Coolmore.
Nice to see the wonderful Get Me Out Of Here and Melon both getting a mention. I can’t imagine there are many others horses to have been runner-up at the Festival four times without ever getting a win.
My Tent or Yours was- in a Supreme and 3 champion hurdles. And also an International at the December meeting. He finally got his head in front at Prestbury Park in the International when he was ten, turning the tables on his previous conqueror in that race, The New One. The horse who came third was…poor old Melon.
Thanks greenasgrass, how could I forget MTOY?! Interesting that all three of the horses in this group are hurdlers.
The probable answer to the question of the other horse to be second in all three Triple Crown races, comes in 1932.
A colt called Dastur, owned by the Aga Khan, was second to Orwell (Evens fav) in the 2000 Guineas, second to April The Fifth (100/6) in the Derby and second to his owners second string, Firdaussi (20/1) in the St Leger.
The margins of defeat were 2L, 3/4L and finally a neck. The SPs for Dastur were 10/1, 18/1 and 6/1, so he wasn’t even favourite for the Leger despite his previous near misses.
Both Dastur and Firdaussi were trained by Frank Butters, who gained compensation when training the Triple Crown winner Bahram for the Aga Khan.
Brilliant – thanks for that apracing.
Do you know of an online resource for placed horses in classics as mentioned upthread by Marlingford, or were you around in 1932.
Agree on Sholokhov, Marlingford. Adding to the Youmzain story, his close relative Pilsudski was also second in the Arc twice. Family trait.
I’ve got quite a lot of historic racing books and I remembered reading in a piece about Bahram that the owner had a triple crown of seconds before that horse came along. From there it was just a case of looking in an early Sporting Life Diary which printed the 1-2-3 for all five classics dating back to 1900.
From moehat:
“My first thought was Sham up against Secretariat. On googling it I’ve just read that his times in finishing second were still record breaking.”
This might have been posted in another thread a while back.
Secretariat and Sham possessed hearts that were way above average in weight. Sham’s was measured at 19lb and that of Secretariat was estimated at 22lb. Both necropsies were performed by the same vet. The hearts of Eclipse and Phar Lap came in at 14lb while the average is 8lb-10lb.
It’s surely significant that the two heaviest hearts on record have the two quickest times ever achieved for the Kentucky Derby. The clocking for the Preakness has been disputed but officially Secretariat still has the fastest time for that race while Sham, 2½ lengths adrift, also broke the old record.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.