Showing posts with label Reigh Count. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reigh Count. Show all posts

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Wining Effort and My Girls!

Violet's dam was a 1997 racehorse named Wining Effort who had a dosage index of 5 and career earnings of $10,672! Her own parents are Two's A Plenty and Right Effort by Rajab. Her dad earned $282,183 and Rajab earned $75,600, and his own dad, Jaipur earned over $618,000! So, Violet is well-connected to racehorses on her mama's side.

In fact, if you look at her pedigree, you'd be super impressed. Wining Effort has Dark Star, the only horse to beat the 1953 Kentucky Derby winner, Native Dancer. And she has One Count, the Belmont Stakes winning kid and grandkid of Count Fleet and Reigh Count. And she has War Admiral, and the double whammy Count Fleet, War Admiral kid cross to create Three Fingers!. And she's got a dash of Jaipur, the horse who beat Ridan in one of the most amazing match races ever. And Wining Effort has a splash of Stymie, lucky girl!

So, my sweet, dancing, flirty, girly, smart Violet is rich in dam history!

Sunday, May 6, 2007

Violet's and My First Derby Day Together!

I have loved horses my entire life. I read Black Beauty as a child. I read Misty of Chincoteague. I collected Breyers horses. I loved thoroughbreds. And I loved Secretariat. And this year marks the first time in my life that I owned a thoroughbred, shared a thoroughbred as part of my family. And such a lovely one -- beautiful Velvet Tenderness "Violet". I woke up on Derby Day joyful. I walked with my dog to Grounds for Thought, bought the Saturday paper, read about the horses preparing for Derby. Then I bought apples and carrots and visited my own thoroughbred. I praised her for her heritage. Groomed her with love. Told her that she's made of magic and speed and God's breath. And then I had a riding lesson with her. She was all light and floaty and powerful. And so that's how I spent my Derby morning with my first thoroughbred. I rode a four-year-old filly who is directly related to 7 Kentucky Derby Champions! War Admiral, Count Fleet, Reigh Count, Hindoo, Ben Brush, Pensive, Dark Star! How many women can say that's how they started their Derby Day!? Riding the descendant of Derby winners!! Yah Yah!!

Monday, January 29, 2007

Count Fleet -- Triple Crown Winner and Violet's Direct Relation!

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