Legends

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Landaluce, 1982 Oak Leaf Stakes, BloodHorse Library

Landaluce: Unforgettable Brilliance, Unimaginable Heartbreak

If there’s one thing that’s even more certain than a 1-20 shot at a racetrack, it’s the inevitability of death.

It comes to all of mankind, and animals as well.

Yet it remains immensely difficult to accept, especially when it comes far too early in someone’s life, such as it did for one of the greatest 2-year-old fillies of the 20th century.

Landaluce seemed invincible on the racetrack.

She won her five starts in dominant fashion, by a combined margin of 46 ½ lengths, including her first graded stakes victory, in which she romped home by 21 lengths.

Damascus won the 1967 Travers and a host of other races to be named Horse of the Year and champion 3-year-old.

Damascus: A Brilliant, Unforgettable Horse Racing Champion

Rivalries are on the verge of becoming passé these days.

With shorter careers and horses receiving more time off between races, the best horses are squaring off much less frequently than decades ago.

Col. Matt Winn: The Man Who Saved the Kentucky Derby

The history of horse racing is filled with stories of improbable, against-the-odds triumphs and legendary heroes who made the seemingly impossible, possible.

Pleasant Colony swept the 1981 Kentucky Derby and Preakness en route to championship honors.

Pleasant Colony: 1981 Kentucky Derby Winner Was a Genuine Racehorse

It had been a glorious five-year run.

Ron McAnally: The Making of a Masterful Horseman

Ron McAnally remembers one element above all others from the formative years he spent at the Covington Protestant Children’s Home, an orphanage in northern Kentucky. He will never forget the view.

“They tell me I used to sit at the window and stare for hours,” he said. “I wouldn’t talk to anybody.”

McAnally was at the tender age of 5 when he and his four siblings were sent to the home following the death of their mother. He sought comfort wherever he could find it, even at a window.

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