A PANEL of racing experts was assembled 20 years ago to name the 100 greatest racehorses of the 20th century. The decisive winner of their poll was the immortal Man o’War, followed by Secretariat, Citation and Kelso.
Just one filly or mare made the top 35. She was Ruffian, the black lightning bolt who lit up the mid-’70s with an unbeaten string of 10 races, eight of them graded stakes from 51⁄2 furlongs to a mile-and-a-half, three of them in the filly Triple Crown. The experts listed her at 14th.
Ruffian in her time simply was incomparable, not just for her wins but for her blinding speed and stamina. A massive filly with the hindquarters of an elephant, she flew out of the starting gate with such propulsion that she would be long gone before her rivals had even heard the clang of the starting gate.
Then, nothing gained on her. No horse ever put a head in front of her in those 10 races. She pulverized the competition, race after race, winning by distances measured by daylight rather than lengths.
No one had ever seen anything quite like her. As one triumph followed another, she became the talk of the town, then the talk of the country. In her 11th start, a match race against the Kentucky Derby winner Foolish Pleasure at Belmont on July 6, 1975, she shattered her sesamoids, which claimed her life.
At that moment, she entered American racing lore. Ruffian’s exploits were so unique and electrifying that the panel of experts could not find another female horse even remotely close to her in stature. You had to go all the way down to No. 37 to find the next filly on their list, Lady’s Secret.
Ruffian stands alone.
Until now. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, she has a challenger. Her name: Rachel Alexandra.
Six months ago, hardly anyone outside Churchill Downs had ever heard of her. And the Kentucky hardboots knew her only because she had won a modest little stake, the Golden Rod, in November.
But since then, Rachel Alexandra has done nothing but razzle-dazzle the world. In the spring, she won two stakes at Oaklawn Park and one at the Fair Grounds.
As it turned out, they were just warm-ups. On the first of May, Rachel pulled into Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Oaks and won it by more than 20 lengths in a mesmerizing performance.
The race was one thing, the perception was something else. Here might be a filly for the history books.
Nobody spotted it quicker than Jess Jackson. Within a week, the wine mogul bought her for a reported $10 million, then turned her loose in the Preakness.
Rachel bombed ’em, then returned to win the Mother Goose at Belmont by a staggering 191⁄4 lengths in record time, and topped it off last Sunday with a runaway six-length annihilation of the Haskell Invitational.
Now the debate is raging. Jackson set it off when he said, “She’s the best filly since Ruffian, and she might even be better than Ruffian.”
Their similarities are eerie — an arching supremacy over their fields, a charismatic presence bordering on the magical, spellbinding speed and courage, records that inspire awe, even disbelief.
There is, however, one unbridgeable gap. Until her ill-fated match race, Ruffian never raced against colts. Now look at Rachel. As colleague Steve Haskin noted, she has beaten the winners of the Kentucky Derby, the Belmont Stakes, the Santa Anita Derby, the Louisiana Derby, the Illinois Derby, the Tampa Bay Derby, the Iowa Derby and the Blue Grass Stakes. Unbelievable.
So who is queen?
If you ask me, Ruffian clings to the crown by a fingertip. For now. But Rachel Alexandra is pressing hard. Give her another spectacular race or two and she could dethrone the monarch by year’s end.
