Colins Ghost

Needless to say, Rachel Alexandra’s victory in the Preakness on Saturday was breathtaking. I watched the race at Delaware Park where a large contingent of attendees were enthusiastically rooting for the big filly. When they showed her in the post parade on the screen in the infield, the crowd cheered.

Image: Rachel Alexandra returns to the stakes barn after winning the Preakness. (hburrussiii)

When she broke to the front going into the first turn, the cheers grew louder. I don’t remember much after that as I found myself rooting as hard as anyone there as she raced down the backstretch. I didn’t realize how much I wanted her to win until she turned for home.

What a day for racing…

If she is physically ready, I would love to see her in the Belmont. On many levels, it would be more exciting then a Triple Crown try. It is a unique historic moment to have a filly with more than a puncher’s chance to take two legs of the Crown. Hard to believe that she could be poised for a sweep if her former owner didn’t have his odd aversion for running a superior filly against the colts. (I am not the only one happy that a gelding and filly have dominated the so-called “stallion” races. What a silly concept.)

Image: A view of the Preakness from Delaware Park

I am taking a week off from doing any research but wanted to share a few comments from last week’s Nellie Morse post.

This one – from an anonymous poster – shows how racing can resonate when all the stars align as they did in Baltimore this past weekend:

“Thank you for this great filly article. I really knew nothing about horseracing, but after seeing the Preakness on Saturday, I wanted to know what the fillys’ name was that won in 1924 and I got a whole lot more to ponder. My Grandmothers name was ‘Nellie’ and that is what interested me to check it out.”

The race on Saturday also had a deep personal (and historical) connection for another reader, who wrote:

“Your Washington Post article about the 1924 Preakness winner was the best one I have read. The photo was even more exciting to me, because the jockey on board Nellie Morse that day would one day be my father. His riding name was John Merimee. Susan”

I must admit that last one sent a chill down my back. Here is another image of Nellie Morse with Susan’s daddy aboard:

Nellie Morse with John Merimee up
(from Trader Clark: Six Decades of Racing Lore published by Thoroughbred Pub., 1991)

THANKS FOR READING AND GOOD LUCK!

Much has been (and will be) written about fillies competing in the Preakness as Rachel Alexandra looks poised to capture the middle leg of the Triple Crown in Baltimore this weekend. The name Nellie Morse – the last filly to win the Preakness in 1924 – will be bandied about during Saturday’s broadcast on NBC but it won’t go beyond a name and a date.

Here at Colin’s Ghost, we like to go beyond names, dates, facts, and figures. In fact, you’re likely to get more than you need to know (or care to know). If you like historical minutiae – you are in the right place.

Nellie Morse was purchased by Bud Fisher for $2000 from legendary breeder Jack Keene. Fisher was the creator of Mutt and Jeff – one of the first successful comic strips to appear in a daily newspaper. Starting in 1907, before Mutt and Jeff, Fisher published a comic called A. Mutt for the San Francisco Chronicle, which focused on the adventures of a racetrack regular (pictured). By the time he purchased Nellie Morse in 1923, much of his attention was directed toward buying and selling racehorses using royalties he collected from his famous comic strip.

Nellie Morse raced 22 times as a 2-year old, winning four times including the Fashion Stakes at Belmont Park. At three she ran second in the Kentucky Oaks (moved up from 3rd on a DQ). After the Oaks, she shipped to Pimlico and won an allowance race and the Pimlico Oaks (now the Black Eyed Susan). Four days after her winning the Oaks, she took on the boys in the Preakness.

[Correction, 5/31/09 - The Oaks took place after the Preakness on May 31, 1924 - the closing day of the Churchill meet]

Nellie Morse at Pimlico, 1924

An unnamed writer for the Washington Post, in a column called “In the Press Box,” provided this recap of Nellie Morse’s unlikely win in the 1924 Preakness:

“Ladies first is a rule that seldom is observed at this stage of the thoroughbred year – certainly not among 3-year-olds – but Nellie Morse, running back to the day 84 years ago, when Mollie Jackson first won the Woodlawn vase, brought that historic piece of turf plate into the keeping of ‘Bud’ Fisher yesterday afternoon.”

“It was the second time that a filly had won the Preakness. Since the stake has only been contested for sixteen times this is a rather remarkable record.”

NOTE: The author here considers 1909 the first Preakness. The Preakness was run in Baltimore from 1873 to 1889, moved to Morris Park in New York in 1890, disappeared for three years, and then returned in 1894 to Gravesend where it was run until 1908.

The Post writer continued:

“Forty-nine runnings of the Kentucky Derby have passed into history and only once – the year that Regret triumphed – has anything but a colt or a gelding been the winner. Almost exactly six months and a half ago Nellie Morse ran over the same track, with many of the same horses that faced the barrier with her yesterday and finished behind all but one of those that took mud from her heels today. That was in the running of the Pimlico Futurity and Nellie Morse was twelfth in a field of sixteen. The same jockey was up. The only difference then was that Nellie Morse was a 2-year-old and the track was fast, instead of a sea of mud, as was the case yesterday.

“As a result of her showing yesterday Nellie Morse should make the trip to Kentucky for the running of the derby golden jubilee on Saturday. In a field that has been narrowed down considerably, she might have been fortunate enough to achieve turf immortality by winning both events despite the handicap that sex is supposed to impose.

“Unfortunately Bud Fisher failed to enter his filly in the Kentucky classic. Certainly the commonly accepted theory that a filly can not round into shape for the spring fixture failed to give evidence of its presence in the case of Nellie Morse.

“She picked up 121 pounds, more weight than any winner save Sir Barton and Man o’ War ever carried in the Pimlico fixture and there was never a time when she did not have the race at her command….The stretch drive was the real test of the Fisher filly as a stake horse. Transmute and Mad Play were pounding at her heels. Had Nellie Morse been short of being a thorough thoroughbred by the veriest fraction of an inch that was when she would have dropped her tail and died.

“In the eyes of the turf world the tow colts behind her were better horses. Horses recognize even better than humans the superiority of blood lines. There is an axiom of the turf that is seldom far wrong that a ‘dog’ will quit when a real race horse looks him in the eye. Nellie Morse accepted the challenge today and refused to yield an inch of her advantage…

“…A year must pass before the colts can seek to regain the Woodlawn vase. The name of Nellie Morse had been added to that of Mollie Jackson, Idlewild, and Miss Woodford, the only mares who won it previously. If for no other reason than the race she ran yesterday, her name is a worthy addition.”

The Kentucky Derby was run a week after the Preakness in 1924. Bud Fisher, however, did not nominate his filly. During that era, if a colt or filly was not nominated in March, it could not run in the Derby. Here is how the Post writer opined this missed opportunity:

“‘Bud’ Fisher probably will be unable to get material for a humorous cartoon out of the fact that he neglected to name Nellie Morse. When the cartoonist and his trainer sought to forecast the future last March they did not think the filly would have a chance in the Churchill Downs masterpiece so contented themselves with naming the filly for the Oaks, where she would be opposed only by her own sex.”

“Today Fisher could make several thousands dollars on his filly merely because of the chance he figures to have to win the derby, provided that her name was among the list of eligibles….A few dollars less than the value of Nellie Morse’s feed bill for a week, invested in March would have doubled the value and given her a chance to win two $50,000 stakes within a single week, something no thoroughbred in the world has yet accomplished.”

“Undoubtedly Fisher would be willing now to give the entire derby stake or a great part of it, just for the honor that it would be to have his filly home first in both the Preakness and the Kentucky derby. He cannot buy the privilege now with all the money that he could beg, borrow and steal. Two months ago it was ridiculously cheap, considering the golden opportunity that rests in the filly’s hoofs today.”

Nellie Morse was unplaced in three other races as a three-year-old and she did not win a race at four. The Preakness was her last victory. Bud Fisher sold her to Warren Wright in 1931. She foaled the first thoroughbred for Wright at the famed Calumet Farm. That foal – Nellie Flag – became the first stakes winner and champion for the most successful thoroughbred operation of the twentieth century.

The stories of Rachel Alexandra and Nellie Morse have this interesting parallel. Neither filly was nominated for the Kentucky Derby. They both missed the race for different reasons. In Rachel Alexandra’s case, the owners (foolishly) decided not to run her. Nellie Morse couldn’t run because no provision existed for supplementing an entry in the Derby as there is today. No amount of money would have permitted Nellie Morse to run in the Derby one week after her Preakness win.

On Saturday, Rachel Alexandra will attempt to join Mollie Jackson, Idlewild, Miss Woodford, and Nellie Morse as the only other fillies or mares to win the Woodlawn Vase.

Read more about the Woodlawn Vase at The Rail

SOURCES, NOTES, AND OBSERVATIONS

“Nellie Morse Splashes Home to Preakness Victory,” Washington Post, May 13, 1924

Article from the Augusta Chonicle about the foaling and sale of Nellie Morse to Bud Fisher

Comprehensive list of fillies in the Preakness from Cindy Pearson Dulay at horse-race.net

Kent Hollingsworth, The Kentucky Thoroughbred (University Press of Kentucky, 1985) at Google Books

Image of Nellie Morse from Bob Moore’s Those Wonderful Days (1976)

More history of the Woodlawn Vase at the Preakness website

Looking forward to the Preakness. I will not be venturing down I-95 to the zoo at Pimlico – a venue that does not hold a crowd well. I will be making the trip to New York for the Belmont Stakes in a few weeks but will be content watching the Preakness at Delaware Park.

Hope everyone has a successful Preakness weekend.

THANKS FOR READING AND GOOD LUCK!

This year’s crazy result in the Derby had folks scrambling for historical analogies. Since Saturday evening – when the impossible happened in Derby 135 – two horses have been mentioned in several forums.

Mine that Bird’s victory has inspired talk of Donerail – the only other Derby winner at higher odds – and Canonero II – maybe the most improbable Derby winner in history.

Some of racing’s finest writers have chimed in with stories about Canonero. Dan Illman republished Charles Hatton review of the 1971 Triple Crown season from the American Racing Manual. Bill Finley wrote an article about Canonero for the New York Times Rail Blog. Kentuckyderby.com had an engaging, and visually stunning, piece by Kellie Reilly. And, a few months back, Steve Haskin (no doubt anticipating the result this year) wrote one of the most detailed accounts yet on the South American colt’s unlikely road to the Churchill winner circle.

Image: Jockey Roscoe Goose who rode Donerail to victory in the 1913 Kentucky Derby (Kentuckiana Digital Library)

Not much has been written about Donerail. You can read a contemporary news story of his Derby win in the New York Times Archives or in the History of the Kentucky Derby, 1875-1921, which is available at the Internet Archive. As secondary source of note is the Greatest Kentucky Derby Upsets published by the Blood Horse in 2007. There the author writes that Donerail’s jockey, Roscoe Goose, like Calvin Borel, knew Churchill Downs well. In fact, Goose rode his first winner there in 1908 and for many years after was one of Churchill’s leading riders.

Goose stopped riding to become a trainer around 1920 after his brother – also a jockey – died when his mount crashed through the rail at Latonia. He died in 1971 after a lifetime in the racing game. Nearly sixty years after his ride aboard Donerail, the headline for his obituary in the Chicago Tribune read: “Roscoe Goose, 80, Dies; Rode Derby Longshot.”

I found a gem of an article on Roscoe Goose in the Washington Post archives by columnist Gerald Strine. Written during Kentucky Derby week in 1972, it celebrated the life of the lifelong horseman who had died the previous June. Under the headline “Goose Flew in Face of Odds,” Strine wrote:

“This was the week, each spring at Churchill Downs, when the little man would call together the informal meetings of the Knock Down the Favorite Club, of which he was president.

“He had the right, Roscoe Goose, rider of $184.90 Donerail in the 1913 Kentucky Derby, still holds a place in racing’s record books as the rider of the longest-priced winner in the classic’s 97-year history. As such, he detested ‘the chalk.’

“‘Did you ever take a look at the Derby footnotes to the chart of the ‘13 Derby?’ Goose once asked a young reporter. ‘It starts off saying ‘Donerail, showing startling improvement over his Lexington form…’ and it doesn’t leave it go at that. It says ‘Ten Point (the 6-to-5 favorite which finished second) was ‘distressed’ at the finish.’ When’s the last time you saw that term used?’

“Well, Ten Point and the people who bet on him probably had a right to feel distressed after being beaten by a 91-to-1 shot which, four days earlier, had finished fifth under a different jockey in a 1 1/4 mile race at Lexington. All Donerail had to do to defeat Ten Point was set a Churchill record of 2:04 4/5.

“Goose was born and reared in Kentucky of German parentage. The family name had been Anglicized from Gantz, but when Roscoe’s younger brother, Charlie, began to ride for the legendary E.R. Bradley, ‘the colonel’ didn’t deem it proper for two ‘Geese’ to be jockeys during the same period. Charlie rode as Charlie Gantz….

“…Goose was a journeyman jockey, schooled in the bushes of Elizabethtown and Hopkinsville, who knew how to handle himself against a Johnny Loftus or Charlie Peake or Eddie Ambrose when racing for $100 purses at Palmetto Park in South Carolina, often referred to as Custer’s Last Stand.

“Goose rode two other Derby horses in addition to Donerail. Both were longshots, both were sentenced to the mutuel field and both finished far back although both – Ed Crump in 1915 and Star Master in 1917 – were prominent for a mile.

“Not long after that, Goose retired, to become a trainer. He and his wife had no children, so they occasionally invited young apprentice riders to live in their house.

“A colorful, likable man was Roscoe Goose. His wife died a few years ago of cancer and last June 1, some five weeks after he had held the last session of the Knock Down the Favorite Club in the backstretch here, Goose died of a heart attack. He was 80, and he is missed. He would have had five good reasons why Riva Ridge could not win this Derby, and 10 good reasons why Hassi’s Image could.

“Not long after Goose died it was revealed he left an estate of $1,130,564. As one of his friends said here this week ‘that wasn’t bad, not bad at all, for a man who rarely got farther than 50 feet from the backstretch. But he bought and sold horses for people, and he was a good spot bettor who liked to have a little the best going for him. You can’t hate a guy for that.’”

Something tells me that Roscoe Goose would have enjoyed Derby 135 and Mine that Bird.

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Here are a few more interesting tidbits about the 1913 Derby:

* The favorite in the race Ten Point had never raced farther then an “extended mile”

* Donerail showed some promise at two but ran poorly in his debut at three. When Roscoe Goose rode him the first time in the prestigious Bluegrass Stakes, he finished a solid second. He ran a few days later in the Camden Handicap at Lexington and finished a tiring fifth — under a different jockey. The next race was the Derby. Don’t tell Roscoe Goose (or Calvin Borel) that a jockey can’t move a horse up.

* Donerail went off in the Derby at odds of 91.45 to 1 but he was not the longest shot in the field. That honor went to Lord Marhshall at odds of 183 to 1 –he finished 6th.

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SOURCES, NOTES, AND OBSERVATIONS

“DONERAIL FAST IN KENTUCKY DERBY,” New York Times, May 10, 1913

“Roscoe Goose, 80, Dies; Rode Derby Longshot.” Chicago Tribune, June 12, 1971

“Goose Flew in Face of Odds,” Washington Post, May 2, 1972

History of the Kentucky Derby, 1875-1921 which is available at the Internet Archive

Greatest Kentucky Derby Upsets (Eclipse Press, 2007) — available, in part, via Google Books

I went into this year’s Derby with three live Pick 3 tickets but not one of them had Mine that Bird (I would have had to hit the ‘all’ button). I did not cash a single ticket Oaks or Derby day but walked out of Delaware Park Saturday evening with a smile on my face — a result like that is why I love racing. If you can’t smile for Calvin Borel, Chip Wooley, and a 50 to 1 gelding from New Mexico you better check your pulse. I will be rooting for Mine that Bird in the Preakness (although Jess Jackson did him no favors with his recent purchase).

THANKS FOR READING AND GOOD LUCK!