Violet is a direct relation of Reigh Count, Count Fleet, and Fleet's baby, One Count. You have no idea how cool that is. Reigh Count is a Kentucky Derby Winner. Count Fleet was the 1943 Triple Crown Winner, 1943 Horse of the Year, inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, and voted #5 of the Top 100 Race Horses of the 20th century by Blood Horse magazine. He earned $250,300, which is $2.6 million in 2002 dollars. He was so good at age 2 that the Jockey Club assigned him a handicap of 132 points, the largest ever imposed by that organization. He had 26 starts, 16 wins, 4 seconds, and 1 third. He was born March 24, 1940 and passed at the distinguished age of 33 on December 3, 1973. His owner, Hertz of the Hertz rental car company had a stable employee named Sam Ramsen who said of Count Fleet, "When that leggy brown colt wants to run, he can just about fly." And his jockey, Johnny Longden, once said about entering the Belmont, "Going into the race, I thought he'd have to fall down to get beat, and even then I thought he could get up and win. He was that good." But Longden admitted that the fast, high energy colt wasn't easy, he also said, "If he didn't have racing room, he'd go to the outside or just climb over horses. If you were in close quarters with him, you were in trouble."His son, One Count, also Violet's direct relation, shared 1952 Horse of the Year honors with the famous 2-year-old star, Native Dancer. Among the races he won, One Count won the Belmont Stakes, Travers Stakes, and the Jockey Club Gold Cup! No wonder when Violet puts her nose down and does a buckaroo crow hop and takes off, she just looks like high speed royalty! You can read more about Count Fleet and One Count on my friendly links at Thoroughbred Blood Lines! Violet has at least 4 lines from Count Fleet, and each is impressive. In two lines she's bred through One Count, in another she's bred through Count Fleet and a a Bull Lea filly, and the last is where Count Fleet and War Admiral are the sires of One Count and Wee Nip who produced Three Fingers! Awesome how much Count Fleet she has!
Read more about Count Fleet:
http://www.spiletta.com/UTHOF/countfleet.html
Video footage of Count Fleet's Triple Crown wins!
http://www.racingmuseum.org/hall/horse.asp?ID=51