As with the baseball stars of that era, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, the names of the greatest horses of the Decade of the Roar are still with us, decades after most of those who witnessed their glory died. Who hasn’t heard of Man O’War? In an iconic decade, great racehorses became icons and remain icons.
Exterminator
The 1922 Horse of the Year was originally intended as a mere training partner for rival Sun Briar. Willis Sharpe Kilmer, who bought the Exterminator before his three-year stint, thought he had been taken for a spin when his trainer Henry McDaniel paid far more than allowed for the chestnut gelding. But there was a problem: Exterminator was still matching Sun Briar, a champion junior horse, speed for speed in practice.
The horse also seemed to have an instinctive understanding of race strategy: accelerate when necessary, hold back when McDaniel told him to. So when Sun Briar developed the ringbone, McDaniel encouraged Kilmer to enter his understudy at the upcoming Kentucky Derby. At first, Kilmer rejected the plan, until the president of Churchill Downs intervened, who had seen the Exterminator trainings.
Suddenly the inexperienced Exterminator with little competition found himself facing a particularly muddy Derby morning. But his furious finishing kick took him from the rear of the group, where he had waited comfortably during the race, biding his time, to the source, where he won by a length.
He continued to mature, running to the unusual age of nine and beating the horses that, in previous years, had outgrown him. In all, he had 33 wins at stake, a record that no American thoroughbred has ever broken.
Mad hatter and mad game
Although they tend to be overshadowed by the more famous half-brother Man O’War, these Thoroughbreds brothers, both sired by Man O’War Fair Play’s sire on the Mad Cap mare, took top honors in major races during the decade. 1920.
During his two-year stint, his older brother Mad Hatter took the Bellerose Stakes, while gaining a reputation as a temperamental, occasionally irritable horse, best understood by jockey Earl Sande. Following their third-year season loss to Sir Barton in the Maryland Handicap race, these two horses developed a rivalry, adding sweetness to Mad Hatter’s Pimlico victory over Sir Barton. But it was as a mature racing thoroughbred that Mad Hatter really shined, winning the Jockey Club Gold Cup and continuing to win races throughout the 1920s.
Mad Play, the younger of the two brothers (born 1921), also benefited from the expert guidance of the great Earl Sande. His three-year season saw impressive third places in the Preakness Stakes, but at Belmont (the last Triple Crown event) he earned lasting fame, beating his closest rival by a length and a half.
Both horses, after retirement, were found to be sterile, ending the possibility of a mad dynasty.
Man of war
Was Man O’War (1917-1947), as many have argued, the greatest thoroughbred racehorse of all time? It depends on the criteria you use. Consistency? (Man O’War won 9 of 10 races in his two-year season. His only loss was at the Sanford Memorial Stakes, where his rider failed to turn the start of this race since the era before the starting gates, and in which he was boxed at least three times, and still ranked second.
The following year he won every race he participated in, with a 20-1 record). Breakneck speed? (He set several world and American records.) Competitive will? (See that 20-1 record again.) General effect on sport? (Man O’War sired 64 classics winners, despite complaints from horse fans that he was paired with inferior mares. He was also Seabiscuit’s grandfather.)
No matter how you’re judged, it’s hard to argue too much with Blood Horse magazine’s statement, on its list of the 100 best thoroughbred American champions of the 20th century, that Man O’War belonged to the top of the list. that list.