hit show brings contemporary attention to the star-crossed stallion who won the 1960 kentucky derby

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1960 kentucky derby, gary and mary west, hit show, john w greathouse, rock sand, royal coinage, venetian way

Among the 20 colts entered for the 2023 Kentucky Derby on May 6, there is one who is unique among his peers for a tie to a Kentucky Derby winner of decades past. Hit Show has this special heritage and was bred in Kentucky by Gary and Mary West Stables Inc. and races for the Wests, like many other of their homebreds.

Hit Show’s dam, also bred by the Wests, is the Tapit mare Actress, who won her maiden in the Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan Stakes at Pimlico in 2017. And the dam of Actress is Canadian champion Milwaukee Appeal (Milwaukee Brew), winner of the Woodbine Oaks and second in both the G1 Alabama and Spinster during her championship season.

After these two high-class racers, the family thins out for a couple of generations until we come to Hit Show’s fifth dam, the stakes winner Here’s Inez (Venetian Court). She is the connection to one of the least-known Kentucky Derby winners, at least in pedigrees.

That horse is the 1960 Derby winner Venetian Way.

Bred in Kentucky by John W. Greathouse, whose family still owns and operates Glencrest Farm near Midway, Ky., Venetian Way came from the first crop of the Eight Thirty stallion Royal Coinage, who won the 1954 Saratoga Special and Sapling and finished third behind divisional champion Nashua (Nasrullah) in the Futurity Stakes.

Rock Sand, winner of the 1903 English Triple Crown, is the male-line ancestor of 1960 Kentucky Derby winner Venetian Way. Although the latter left little trace in pedigrees, Rock Sand is widespread as the broodmare sire of Man o’ War and as the sire of Tracery, winner of five premier events: St Leger, Champion, Eclipse, Sussex, and St James’s Palace Stakes.

Injured in the Futurity and subsequently sent to stud at the Stallion Station outside Lexington, Royal Coinage sired some good-looking foals, but Venetian Way was a star among them from the first. Brought to the 1958 Keeneland summer yearling sale by his breeder, the striking chestnut colt with a blaze down his face sold for $10,500 to Isaac Blumberg’s Sunny Blue Farm.

The following year, Venetian Way proved both precocious and talented. Among other races, he won the Washington Park Futurity, one of the richest events for juveniles at the time, and continued to progress into his second season of racing.

However, while unquestionably talented and ranked second behind only divisional champion Warfare (Determine) on the Experimental Free Handicap ratings of juveniles for their 3-year-old season, Venetian Way had more than his share of challenges. He was reported to have bucked shins multiple times, to have sore stifles, and eventually was found to have a splint which made him unwilling even to leave his stall.

These nagging physical woes kept Venetian Way from prospering in accord with his natural ability. He would race well, then poorly. Owner Blumberg and trainer Vic Sovinski persevered, however, and in the spring of 1960, Venetian Way ran a superb race to finish a nose second to Bally Ache (Ballydam) in the Florida Derby. That effort mattered enough that, although Venetian Way did not win a Derby prep, he still started a well-regarded third choice among 13 runners at Churchill Downs.

In the 1960 Kentucky Derby itself, the race second-choice Bally Ache led the way until Venetian Way rallied past him in the stretch to win by 3 ½ lengths. E.P. Taylor’s Victoria Park (Chop Chop) was 7 ½ lengths farther back in third, and favorite Tompion (Tom Fool) was fourth.

Venetian Way was then unplaced behind front-running Bally Ache in the Preakness before returning to finish second in the Belmont Stakes behind Celtic Ash (Sicambre). The flashy chestnut Venetian Way did not win another top race, subsequently was injured in the Arlington Classic when third, and was retired to stud.

As a sire, however, Venetian Way was woefully infertile and sired only 31 foals, then fractured a hind leg and was euthanized in 1964 at age seven. None of the stallion’s foals won a stakes, but one of them, a colt by the name of Venetian Court, is the hero of his sire’s star-crossed stallion career.

Racing from age two through seven, Venetian Court won only two of 17 starts, earning $5,283. That doesn’t seem like a racing record to build a story on, nor a record likely to earn the horse a spot at stud. Somehow, it did.

Sent to stud in Ohio, Venetian Court sired only about half as many foals as Venetian Way, but one of those was a stakes winner. That was Here’s Inez, and she is the fifth dam of Hit Show.

From the data I can summon, the family of Here’s Inez is the only connection between contemporary graded stakes winners and the 1960 Kentucky Derby winner Venetian Way, a handsome colt of great talent and a powerful mix of good and ill fortune.

The romance of finding a nearly forgotten former hero of the Kentucky classic among the ancestors of a current Derby entrant is an entertaining story, but the keys to the talent and potential of Hit Show lie in Candy Ride, his outstanding sire, and Actress, his graded stakes-winning dam, and her sire, Tapit, a source of classic ability without question in contemporary racing.

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big prices for old horses

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american racing manual, august belmont, bold venture, equine sales, flying fox, king ranch, nearco, ormonde, rock sand, stallion values, tracery

In his response to a comment in yesterday’s post about the price that August Belmont II paid for English Triple Crown winner Rock Sand, Observer asked about record prices for horses a century ago and thereabouts.

Although it’s a bit sticky to evaluate prices from that far back because of the changes we’ve seen from inflation and changes in currency valuation, prices from around 1900 through the 1930s were fairly comparable.

At the time that Belmont bought Rock Sand, the sum he paid was equal to the second-highest price for a stallion that I could find. Both Triple Crown winners Ormonde and Rock Sand are recorded as trading for that sum. They sat in second place behind the great European racer Flying Fox, who was bought for $189,000. (None of these transactions was in dollars, but for many years, the static valuation of the British pound sterling at $5 to the single pound formed a standard conversion factor.)

The top prices began to inflate somewhat through the 1920s and 1930s. According to the American Racing Manual of 1940, the top half-dozen prices stood at $300,000 for Nearco and Call Boy (Derby winner), $265,000 for Rock Sand’s son Tracery, $250,000 for Mieuxce, Blenheim, and Windsor Lad.

Prices for American stock had plummeted by this time, however, and the sale price in 1939 for the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Bold Venture was $40,000. Robert Kleberg of King Ranch purchased him, and for that far-sighted sportsman, Bold Venture subsequently sired Triple Crown winner Assault, Kentucky Derby and Belmont winner Middleground, and Gazelle Stakes winner On Your Own.

size in racehorses

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english triple crown, rock sand, size in the racehorse

How big is big enough? From a biomechanical point of view, 16.2 is plenty of height and too much for many animals, and plenty of great horses never got close to that size.

With increased size comes increased need for greater energy, slightly larger (and denser) bone to carry the increased weight, and better balance to move the horse efficiently.

Yet today, as in times past, the bigger a yearling is, the better it sells. This is apparently a human inclination, and reason is our only aid in calming the notion that bigger is better. It is nothing new.

For instance, Vigilant, in the London Sportsman of 13 June 1903, wrote:

It is surprising how people, and presumably good judges too, hanker after size in horses. A big yearling has always a better chance of making a fair price than has a medium-sized one, and in estimating the prospects of supposed Derby horses, we are constantly told that so and so has not grown, as if more growth were the be-all  and end-all of a racehorse. The truism that a good big one is better than a good little one is repeated … [with] … no suggestion of the vital fact that good big ones are extraordinarily scarce, while good little ones are pretty numerous, and unless we are well aware of this we are almost sure to go astray if we compare horses by size along and give the bigger ones indiscriminately the preference.

I am led to write on this subject by having seen so many statements that Rock Sand does not fill the eye as a Derby winner should, the meaning, as I presume, being that he has not the size and range of an Ard Patrick or an Ormonde, a Persimmon, a Galtee More, or shall we say a Jeddah.

Well, but the same people who say or write these things will also be telling us at another time that medium-sized, short-coupled horses are the most suitable for the Epsom turns and gradients, and that one like Ard Patrick, for example, would be more at home on the Town Moor at Doncaster.

The truth, however, appears to be that a good horse finds all courses pretty suitable, and that, within certain limits, the size of the animal does not make a difference. … The stable estimate of Rock Sand is that he stands 15.3, and that this is an amply sufficient height for a Derby winner, there are abundant records to prove. Taking the two successive years 1867 and 1868, we find that the Derby winners Hermit and Blue Gown were, if anything, below the 15.3 standard — indeed, I doubt if Blue Gown stood more than 15.2, and he was even shorter in his forehand than Rock Sand.

Rock Sand not only won the Derby at Epsom but also the English Triple Crown and, after his importation to the States to stand at August Belmont’s Nursery Stud for a time, sired many top-class horses, as well as the dam of Man o’ War.

Size today is much the same as it was a century ago: medium is better and yet subordinate to the quality and talent of the athlete.