Legends

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Richard Duchossois: Arlington’s Man of Action

The first call to Richard Duchossois advised him that a small electrical fire had broken out at Arlington International Racecourse. The second indicated flames had spread but firefighters were on the scene and were confident they could contain them. The third urged Duchossois to rush to the scene.

When he arrived, he could not believe his eyes.

Dazzling Champion Safely Kept: Sprinting Past the Boys

Most of racing’s great battles of the sexes were contested at two-turn distances.

Old Friends Farm a Decades-Long Journey for Michael Blowen

Michael Blowen glanced at the 1977 Sports Illustrated cover of Triple Crown champion Seattle Slew when it arrived in the mail and immediately discarded it. A horse on the cover of such a prominent magazine?

“I thought thinking of them as athletes was absurd,” he said.

Blowen, then a writer for the Boston Globe, accompanied Bob Taylor, one of his editors, to Suffolk Downs seven years later. The visit to the Massachusetts track was life-changing.

Dahlia: An International Turf Heroine

The year 1973 is best remembered for the Triple Crown heroics of Secretariat.

Yet that same year also gave American racing fans their first glimpse of another great champion of that era.

Seabiscuit after defeating Triple Crown winner War Admiral in a Pimlico match race.

Seabiscuit: A True Rags-to-Riches Story

Seabiscuit was the perfect horse for his time. He did not look the part of a great racehorse. He was relatively small and knobby-kneed with a laid-back demeanor that suggested he would much rather sleep than step into the starting gate. It appeared he could not run a lick when he dropped the first 17 starts of his career, leaving him as the butt of bad jokes in his own barn.

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