all in Legends

As difficult to comprehend as it might be for someone living at a time when statistics have become an obsession, there’s no way of telling exactly how many races trainer Frank Y. Whiteley Jr. won in his career.

Numbers, though, are probably the least effective way of measuring the quality of his work and the tremendous respect he gained during the 48 years he spent caring for the horses in his barn.

They are, without question, the two best fillies to race on dirt in this century.

They most likely would both appear on a Top 10 list of North America’s all-time greatest fillies or mares.

Their combined collection of wins includes such prestigious Grade 1 stakes as the Breeders’ Cup Classic, Preakness Stakes, Haskell Stakes, Breeders’ Cup Distaff, and Kentucky Oaks.

They finished 1-2 in the balloting for 2009 Horse of the Years honors.

Throughout the long history of horse racing in the United States, California has produced an abundance of locally bred stars.

At the beginning of 1988, the attention of the racing world was focused – as usual – on the road to the Kentucky Derby. At the time, if you had asked racing fans to predict the winner of the 114th run for the roses, you might have heard support for Tejano, a four-time graded stakes winner in 1987;  Forty Niner, the champion 2-year-old male; or perhaps Success Express, winner of the 1987 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

In the United States, it took 37 years for American Pharoah to follow up Affirmed’s 1978 Triple Crown sweep.

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