Colin (horse)

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Colin

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Sire: Commando
Grandsire: Domino
Dam: Pastorella
Damsire: Springfield
Sex: Stallion
Foaled: 1905
Country: United States
Colour: Brown
Breeder: Castleton Stud
Owner: James R. Keene
Trainer: James G. Rowe, Sr.
Record: 15:15-0-0
Earnings: $178,110
Major Racing Wins & Honours & Awards
Major Racing Wins
National Stallion Stakes (1907)
Great Trial Stakes (1907)
Champagne Stakes (1907)
Brighton Junior Stakes (1907)
Saratoga Special Stakes (1907)
Grand Union Hotel Stakes (1907)
Futurity Stakes (1907)
Matron Stakes (Colts' Div. 1907)
Flatbush Stakes (1907)
Eclipse Stakes (1907)
Produce Stakes (second half, 1907)
Withers Stakes (1908)
Belmont Stakes (1908)
Tidal Stakes (1908)
Racing Awards
Horse of the Year (1907, 1908)
U.S. Champion 3-Year-Old Male (1908)
Honours
United States Racing Hall of Fame (1956)
#15 - Top 100 U.S. Racehorses of the 20th Century

Infobox last updated on: September 21, 2006.

Colin (1905-1932) was an undefeated American thoroughbred horse racing champion.

Contents

[edit] One of the very greatest

A brown colt with three white socks and a blaze down his face, Colin was bred at Castleton Stud in Kentucky, a farm owned, though seldom visited, by London born financier James R. Keene and trained by Hall of Famer James G. Rowe, Sr.. Rowe had handled many top quality horses in his long career, including Sysonby, Hindoo, who was never out of the money, and the first filly to win the Kentucky Derby, Regret. Just as he himself was, all these and more of his horses (Miss Woodford, Luke Blackburn, Whisk Broom II, Commando, Peter Pan, were inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Rowe's boss, James Keene, was not keen on Colin, noting the misfiguring curb, or thoroughpin, on a hock...meaning Colin had an ungainly enlarged hock. He'd been just as disdainful of an earlier purchase: Colin's grandsire Domino, (another eventual Horse of the Year in 1893 and Hall of Famer), but his son, Foxwell Keene, went ahead and bought Domino anyway. Domino produced the Hall of Famer and 1900 and 1901's Horse of the Year, Commando, and Commando produced Colin out of the English stakes winning mare Pastorella (by Springfield).

A friend of Keene's, De Courcey Forbes, always named the Castleton foals. Colin was for "Poor Colin", a pastoral poem by the English poet laureate Nicholas Rowe, thus neatly connecting the name of Colin's dam and the name of his trainer, a trainer who took a keen interest in his horses. A hands-on trainer, Rowe was famous for the personal attention he paid to his horses. He literally traveled in the same railroad car with them. Aware that Colin's swollen hock would give him trouble, Rowe attended to it diligently with massages and cold water baths.

Consistently rated as one of the best horses in American racing history, and a real celebrity with both fans and horsemen, Colin started fifteen times in his two year career and never lost a race. Twelve of these races were when he was still a two-year-old. In an age that valued stamina and maturity (unlike the speed that seems so important today), Colin was still viewed with awe by the horsemen of his time. Those races at such a young age must have been truly thrilling to watch. As sportswriter Abram Hewitt said, "The blood surges, and the pulses quicken at the very sight of such Olympians on the track." Hewitt had "listened to old-time horsemen talk about Colin with an other-world expression on their faces." Hardly surprising that he was voted the Eclipse Award for Horse of the Year twice: in 1907 and 1908. He was also America's Champion Three-Year-Old Male in 1908.


[edit] An unblemished racing career

  • Winning at Two
    • Broke his maiden against 23 rivals at Belmont Park on May 29, 1907 going off as the 6/5 favorite.
    • National Stallion Stakes (racing just three days later, he broke the track record)
    • Eclipse Stakes (raced four days later with bucked shins and carrying 125 pounds in the pouring rain)
    • Great Trial Stakes (given 24 days rest, carrying 129 pounds, without extending himself)
    • Brighton Junior Stakes (beginning to be talked of as the "best two-year-old in history. His swollen hock was beginning to recede, but he began coughing, a very worrisome symptom.)
    • Saratoga Special Stakes (still coughing, and not looking well, but not about to stop Colin beating the unbeaten Uncle. His jockey, the eventual Hall of Famer Walter Miller said, "I could have gone away at any time. Even if loafing along, he can get into action quicker than any horse I have ever seen when it becomes necessary. Seems to me he can go right from a loafing gallop into his full racing speed in one stride," but he "never wants to do any more than he has to.")
    • Grand Union Hotel Stakes (four days later, without exertion and without a cough. Said the "The Thoroughbred Record," "Colin has become as much of a public idol at Saratoga as he was at Brighton Beach and Sheepshead Bay and his defeat would have been looked upon as a public calamity.")
    • Futurity Stakes (50,000 showed up at Sheepshead Bay to watch. Colin was "the absolute master of the situation," in stakes-record time of 1:11⅕ for the straight six furlongs.)
    • Flatbush Stakes (although promised time off and a rest, Colin raced one week later, winning by three lengths)
    • Brighton Produce (about this and the Matron Stakes, "The Thoroughbred Record" exclaimed, "The more one sees of him, the more firm is the conviction that he is the best horse ever bred in America or ever raced here.")
    • Matron Stakes (Colt's Division, beating Fair Play)
    • Champagne Stakes (by six lengths, beating the only filly to show up, Stamina. Colin was mobbed in the paddock by fans. "The Thoroughbred Record" was overcome by his dominance. He also established a new American record of 1:23 for the distance on a straightaway.)
  • Winning at Three
    • Withers Stakes (with a new jockey, another eventual Hall of Famer, Joe Notter. Although Colin wired the race, most agree Notter wasn't as good on Colin as Miller. But Miller was increasingly having difficulty making weight. Colin beat a driving Fair Play)
    • Belmont Stakes. (Not timed because of heavy rain; Colin ran lame in the fog over the objections of Rowe, and thanks to the keeness of Keene. Again, he beat a very game Fair Play. It was close but it was Colin's, even though many said Notter misjudged the finish line.)
    • Tidal Stakes (a political statement by Keene, claiming Colin would fill the stands even though New York had recently banned gambling. They came out to see him, though not exactly filling the stands.)

[edit] Colin at stud

Colin's last victory came on June 20, 1908 after which he was sent to England to race, but was pulled up lame in a workout, injured badly enough for even Keene to call it a day. He then retired to stud where he was neglected by the English due to his American bloodlines. First in England, and then back in Kentucky after Keene died, Colin was not the most potent of stallions. Plagued by infertility, his old racing rival, Fair Play, whom he'd often beaten, sired Man O' War, but Colin still managed eleven stakes winners out of 81 foals in 23 seasons at stud, which translates into 14% of his get. One of these was the paternal grandsire of the great Alsab. Another was On Watch, the broodmare sire of another great, Stymie. Lost in the Fog's female line traces to Colin's dam, Pastorella.

He lived a good long life, dying in 1932 at the age of twenty seven on his last farm, the Belray near Middleburg, Virginia. His lifetime earnings amounted to $178,110.

Kent Hollingsworth wrote in "The Great Ones": "Great horses have been beaten by mischance, racing luck, injury and lesser horses running the race of their lives. None of these, however, took Colin. He was unbeatable."

[edit] Honors due

Colin was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1956 and in The Blood-Horse magazine ranking of the top 100 U.S. thoroughbred champions of the 20th Century, he was ranked #15. It would be eighty years before another horse, Personal Ensign, retired unbeaten.

During his day, Rowe was considered America's greatest trainer. Yet all he wanted on his epitaph were these three words: He Trained Colin.

[edit] References

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