Into each decade comes a handful of horses that help define that time for the fans who experience it. Alongside these familiar names are those who make their mark then but might fall by the wayside as years go by and their moments fall away. Remembering their accomplishments allows fans to put those periods in perspective, a new look at some horses who deserve recognition, in this case even a century after they competed.
From the last decade of the 19th Century comes three horses who were stars in their own time and whose achievements still resonate in the 21st Century.
Ben Brush (1893-1918)
Fans might know Ben Brush’s name for being the first to win a ten-furlong Kentucky Derby and the first to wear the blanket of roses, but this son of Bramble’s impact on racing goes beyond his place in its trivia.
Col. Ezekiel Clay and Col. Catesby Woodford of Runnymede Farm bought the mare Roseville, in foal to leading sire Bramble, from Eugene Leigh, prominent breeder, owner, and trainer. As a yearling, Roseville’s bay colt was sold at Runnymede’s annual auction, falling to Hall of Fame trainer Ed Brown (and Leigh, according to some accounts) for $1,200. Brown named the colt Ben Brush after the superintendent of Gravesend Race Track in Brooklyn, N.Y.
At 2, this son of Bramble won seven of his first 10 races, including the Holly Handicap at Gravesend. After that victory, Mike Dwyer, racing uncoupled from his brother Phil, purchased Ben Brush for a reported $18,000 and he added six more wins, including the Champagne Stakes. He opened his 3-year-old season with his 1896 Kentucky Derby victory before adding the Latonia Derby and the Schulte and Buckeye Stakes. In his final season on the track, though, Ben Brush shined even brighter.
At four, he won eight of his 16 starts, beating horses like 1895 Preakness and Belmont Stakes winner Belmar and Hastings, grandsire of Man o’ War, as he logged wins in the Suburban Handicap, the First and Second Specials at Gravesend, and the Citizens Handicap at Saratoga. Dwyer sold Ben Brush to James R. Keene at the end of the his 4-year-old season. He stood at Castleton Stud in Lexington until Keene’s death in 1913; Ben Brush was then sold privately to Sen. Johnson N. Camden. He lived out his final years at Camden’s Hartland Stud, passing away in 1918 and leaving a legacy that resonates still in the 21st Century.
Ben Brush’s significance for modern racing goes beyond his induction into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in its inaugural 1955 class. He was among the top 10 sires in the Untied States for five seasons, siring 1910 Belmont Stakes winner Sweep and Broomstick, winner of the 1904 Travers Stakes. In turn, those two produced a number of influential stallions and broodmares, including Dustwhirl, dam of Triple Crown winner Whirlaway; Brushup, dam of War Admiral; Regret, the 1915 Kentucky Derby winner; and a long list of others. He appears in the pedigrees of many classic winners from the last 50 years, including the last five Triple Crown winners.
Domino (1891-1897)
Along the tree-lined road that is Huffman Mill Pike in Lexington, Ky. lies Mt. Brilliant Farm, a historic property that lays claim to not one but two immortals. Formerly part of Faraway Farm, Man o’ War spent most of his stud career among these quiet fields. Nearby stands a monument to another fleet stallion, a dark dynamo. Inscribed in stone is a tribute: Here lies the fleetest runner that the American turf has ever known and one of the gamest and most generous of horses, Domino. A speedball on the racetrack and an influential stallion in the breeding shed, Domino remains one of the sport’s most important names of the late 19th Century.
A star on the Kentucky racing circuit of the 1870s, Himyar was second behind Day Star in the 1878 Kentucky Derby and third behind fellow stallions King Ban and Fellowcraft at Major Barak Thomas’s Dixiana Stud. When the chance to cover Thomas’ best mare, Mannie Gray, finally fell to him, the pairing became the stuff of legend. Their first foal Correction was a multiple stakes winner and later an influential broodmare, featured in the pedigrees of horses like Triple Crown winner Affirmed and Kentucky Derby winner Lil E. Tee. After Correction, Thomas bred Mannie Gray back to Himyar and produced a near-black colt named Domino.
Thomas sold Mannie Gray’s colt as part of his consignment of yearlings at Tattersalls in New York in June 1892. At the sale were James R. Keene and his son Foxhall. The elder Keene was not impressed with the yearling Domino, but Foxhall was, snagging the colt for $3,000. He was turned over for training to Albert Cooper, who trained the colt so strenuously that he bowed his front tendons. Cooper was dismissed; Domino was left with muscle soreness that made him tenuously racing sound for the rest of his career.
Nevertheless, Domino was dynamic on the racetrack. He went undefeated in nine starts at age 2, including the rich Futurity Stakes at Sheepshead Bay. At 3, he defeated Belmont Stakes winner Henry of Navarre in the Withers Stakes and then met that rival two more times that season. Domino returned at 4 to win four of his eight starts, losing twice to Henry of Navarre, before a foot injury forced Keene to retire him with 19 wins from his 25 starts. In 19 races at one mile or less, Domino amassed 18 wins and one runner-up finish by a head while conceding 24 pounds to the winner.
His racing days done, Domino stood his short stud career at Keene’s Castleton Stud in Kentucky. He covered two books of mares in 1896 and 1897 and then died suddenly in late July 1897, either from a paddock accident or spinal meningitis. Of the 19 foals from those two crops came horses like Commando and Caps and Bells. Commando won the 1901 Belmont Stakes and then went on to sire the undefeated Colin; prolific sire Peter Pan; and Celt, damsire of Triple Crown winner Gallant Fox. Caps and Bells became the first American-bred to win the Epsom Oaks. Despite his short time at stud, Domino’s name survives to this day through Commando, whose name appears in pedigrees more than a century later.
Henry of Navarre (1891-1917)
Where Domino was brilliant at one mile or less, Henry of Navarre was dazzling at a distance. At 2, the season when most races are run at sprint distances like five or six furlongs, the royally named colt was not as flashy as his rival. At 3 years old and beyond, Henry of Navarre was a star.
Bred by Lucien Appleby at his Silver Brook Stud in New Jersey, the chestnut colt was the son of 1884 Preakness winner Knight of Ellerslie, a product of Captain Richard Hancock’s Ellerslie Stud in Virginia. As a yearling, Henry of Navarre was sold for $3,000 to Byron McClelland, a trainer who would later condition 1895 Kentucky Derby winner Halma and Margrave, who would win the 1896 Preakness for August Belmont II.
At 2, Henry of Navarre won six of his 10 starts, taking the Breeders Stakes at Lexington in just his second start and then adding Golden Rod and Dash Stakes later in the year. Though his juvenile season was a good one, Domino’s undefeated record helped him stand out as the year’s best 2-year-old. The two would not meet that season, but the next season, with its longer distances, offered chances for battles to remember.
Henry of Navarre started his season with four straight in-the-money finishes in races like the Metropolitan and Brooklyn Handicaps. He met Domino in the Withers at Morris Park, where the black dynamo ran down Henry in the race’s final strides to win by a head. After that, the two parted ways until the fall, when they met again in a match race at Gravesend.
In the interim, Henry had logged 11 wins in 12 starts, most at a mile or longer, including victories in a 1 1/8-mile Belmont Stakes and the 1 ¼-mile Travers. His resume was better than his rival’s, who was less dominant at 3 but no less popular than he had been the year before. The two met again at Gravesend, this time in a special match race at 1 1/8 miles. Domino and Henry of Navarre were eye-to-eye over the last half-mile, neither giving way to the other, dueling so closely that they hit the wire together, a dead heat.
Henry of Navarre would meet Clifford, a 4-year-old who had proved himself to be a star on the Western (i.e., Kentucky) circuit, in special race a week later and lost by a scant nose. The three rivals would confront each other one last time on Oct. 6, with Henry of Navarre finally turning the tables on both in a thriller at Morris Park. That was his last start of his 3-year-old season, during which he won 13 of his 20 starts.
Over the next two seasons, Henry of Navarre would win 10 of his 12 races, including the Suburban Handicap, before retiring to August Belmont II’s Nursery Stud in Kentucky. Belmont had purchased the son of Knight of Ellerslie during his 4-year-old season and stood him in Kentucky until 1909. As gambling reformers threatened to shut down racing in New York, Belmont relocated the stallion to his stud in France, where Henry of Navarre stayed until 1911. Upon his return to the United States, Henry became one of the first stallions to join the United States Army Remount Service, standing at Fort Royal in Virginia. He spent his final years siring potential cavalry mounts for the armed services.
From dazzling performances on the track to enduring legacies in the pedigree of stars, these three horses were among the best of the best of the last years of the 19th Century. Their accomplishments garnered them places in the sport’s long memory as we look back at those who came before and remember what they brought fans then and the impact they have on the sport now.
