Famous Horses

Marengo

admin March 25, 2025

The horse known as Marengo found fame as the favourite charger of Napoleon Bonaparte, later Napoleon I. A diminutive grey Arabian, who stood just 14.1 hands high, he was reputedly captured during the Egyptian Campaign during the French Revolutionary Wars and named after the Battle of Marengo, which was fought on June 14, 1800 in Piedmont, Italy, during the War of the Second Coalition. However, the register of the Imperial Stables contains no reference to ‘Marengo’, so it is conceivable that another horse was so-called, by way of a nickname.

Either way, following the Second Italian Campaign, Marengo carried the by-then Emperor for the whole of the Napoleonic Wars, from the Battle of Ulm in October 1805 to the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. Following that decisive conflict, in which Napoleon was defeated by a coalition led by the Duke of Wellington and Marshal Blücher, Marengo was captured by William, Eleventh Baron Petre and transported him to England. The horse was subsequently sold on to Lieutenant-Colonel William Angerstein, who stood him at stud at New Barnes, near Ely, Cambridgeshire.

Marengo died, of old age, at the age of 38 in 1831. His skeleton was preserved and put on display at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), established by the Duke of Wellington and other senior military commanders in Whitehall, London that same year. In 1963, it was moved to the National Army Museum, founded at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1960 and nowadays in Chelsea, London, where after substantial cleaning and conservation it remains to this day. Nevertheless, in 2017, councillors representing North Cork, where it is widely believed that Marengo was bred, wrote to the National Army Museum, requesting the repatriation of the skeleton. The museum declined the request on the grounds that it would not not ‘decolonise’ the museum of artefacts.

Secretariat

admin March 25, 2025

Popularly known as ‘Big Red’, Secretariat was arguably the greatest racehorse of all time. Foaled at the Meadow Stud in Doswell, Virginia on March 30, 1970, the son of 1957 Horse of the Year Bold Ruler was owned by Meadow Stable, under the auspices of Christopher Chenery and his daughter, Penny, and was put into training with Lucien Laurin in Hialeah, Florida as a two-year-old in January 1972.

Secretariat could finish only fourth in a maiden special weight race, over 5½ furlongs, at Aqueduct Racetrack, New York City on his debut on July 4, 1972, but was first past the post on each of his remaining eight starts as a juvenile. He was, however, he was demoted to second place, behind Stop The Music, in the Champagne Stakes at Belmont Park on October 14, 1972, having been deemed to have caused interference. Unusually, his exploits were sufficient for him to be voted Horse of the Year.

Christopher Chenery died on January 3, 1973 and Secretariat was syndicated for a then-world record sum of $6.08 million soon afterwards. In his three-year-old campaign, Secretariat would actually be beaten three times, in the Wood Memorial Stakes at Aqueduct in April, the Whitney Stakes at Saratoga in August and the Woodward Stakes at Belmont Park in September. However, in between times, he became the ninth winner of the American Triple Crown and the first since Citation in 1948. Not only that, he set stakes records, which still stand, in each of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes.

Secretariat was retired to stud in November 1973, having won 16 of his 21 races and just over $1.3 million in prize money, and was named Horse of the Year, for the second year running, shortly afterwards. In his latter years, Secretariat suffered from laminitis or, in other words, inflammation of the laminae, the delicate soft tissue structures that support the foot, as a result of which he was humanely euthanised in Paris, Kentucky on October 4, 1989.

Man O’War

admin March 25, 2025

Owned by American businessman Samuel Doyle Riddle and trained by Louis Feustel at Glen Riddle Farm in Berlin, Maryland, Man O’War was retrospectively selected as American champion as a two- and three-year-old by ‘The Blood-Horse’ and is widely considered one of the greatest racehorses of all time. Foaled on March 29, 1917 at Nursery Stud, near Lexington, Kentucky, Man O’War made 21 starts in 1919 and 1920, winning 20 of them and amassing nearly $250,000 in prize money. His sole defeat, by a neck, came at the hands of Upset, who was in receipt of 15lb, in the Sanford Memorial Stakes at Saratoga Race Course on August 13, 1919.

Upset went on to finish second, beaten a head, in the Kentucky Derby on May 8, 1920, but Riddle declined a rematch on that occasion, baulking at the idea of sending a three-year-old hundreds of miles, by train, to race over 10 furlongs in Louisville on the first Saturday in May. Instead, Man O’War made his three-year-old debut in the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore two weeks later, where he duly reversed the Saratoga form with Upset to the tune of 1½ lengths.

In the Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York he was sent off at 1/20 to beat sole rival Donnaconna and did so by 20 lengths in a time of 2:14.2, thereby taking more than two seconds off the previous world record for a mile and three furlongs, 2:16.4, set by Dean Swift in the Liverpool Cup in 1908. For his final start, Riddle sought a special match race with the four-year-old Sir Barton, the first winner of the American Triple Crown in 1919 – although it wasn’t known by that name until 1930 – for the Kenilworth Park Cup at Kenilworth Park in Windsor, Ontario. The so-called ‘Race of the Age’ failed to materialise, with Man O’War winning the $75,000 purse easily, by seven lengths.

Phar Lap

admin March 25, 2025

Nicknamed ‘The Red Terror’, Phar Lap was a mammoth chestnut gelding, who stood 17.1 hands high and achieved legendary status in Australia, and beyond, in the early years of the Great Depression. He was, in fact, foaled at Seadown Stud, near Timaru, New Zealand on October 4, 1926 and was bought, sight unseen, as a yearling by American-born businessman David J. Davis, at the behest of Syndney trainer Harry Telford.

Displeased with his purchase, Davis refused to pay training fees and the pair entered an agreement whereby Telford would receive two-thirds of any prize money won instead. Telford leased the horse for three years and at the end of that period was sufficiently well off to enter into joint ownership.

All told, Phar Lap made 51 starts, winning 37 of them, including 36 between September 1929 and March 1932. His major victories on home soil included the Australian Derby at Randwick Racecourse, Sydney in 1929, the Melbourne Cup at Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne in 1930 and the W.S. Cox Plate at Moonee Valley Racecourse, Melbourne twice, in 1930 and 1931.

Just over a fortnight after his final, record-breaking victory in the Agua Caliente Handicap at Agua Caliente Racetrack, near Tijuana, Mexico – at the time, the most valuable race run in North America – Phar Lap died, under mysterious circumstances in Menlo Park, California. In the early afternoon of April 5, 1932, he haemorrhaged to death, drenching groom Tommy Woodcock in blood in the process.

A subsequent autopsy revealed inflammation of his stomach and intestines, leading to various theories about his cause of death, ranging from acute gastroentiritis to accidental, or deliberate, arsenic poisoning. His skeleton is on display at Te Papa Tongarewa, the Museum of New Zealand, in Wellington and his taxidermied hide remains the most popular exhibit at Melbourne Museum.

Copenhagen

admin March 22, 2025

A grandson of the undefeated Eclipse and a son of Meteor, who finished second in the seventh running of the Derby, in 1786, Copenhagen enjoyed his own brief, but not entirely unsuccessful, racing career as a three- and four-year-old in 1811 and 1812. However, he is best remembered as a war horse, specifically as the favoured mount of Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington, who rode him at the Battle of Waterloo, which marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars, in 1815.

Foaled in 1808, possibly in the Danish capital, Copenhagen or, more likely, at Eaton Hall, the country seat of the Duke of Westminster, in Cheshire, North West England, Copenhagen was named, in either case, in honour of the British victory in the Second Battle of Copenhagen, which concluded in the autumn before his birth. Following his retirement from racing in May 1812, Copenhagen was sold to Charles Vane by his original owner Thomas Grosvenor and began his military career in Lisbon, Portugal during the Peninsular War.

Copenhagen was still a five-year-old when he was purchased by the Duke of Wellington, who went on to ride him before, during and after the Battle of Waterloo. Indeed, according to his epitaph, Copenhagen was ridden the ‘entire day’ – or, in other words, continuously for 17 or 18 hours – at the Battle of Waterloo by the ‘Iron Duke’. Wellington later wrote of his gallant horse, “…for bottom and endurance I never saw his fellow.”

In fact, Wellington held Copenhagen in such regard that when he died, of old age, on February 12, 1836 at the age 28, he was buried with full military honours, including a salute fired over his grave, at Stratfield Saye House, Hampshire. His grave is marked by a marble headstone, erected by the Second Duke of Wellington following the death of his father.