Cavalcade (horse)

Cavalcade (1931–1940) was an American Hall of Fame Champion Thoroughbred racehorse.

In the early 1930s, Bob Smith, a trainer with a history of spotting talent, had been hired by heiress Isabel Dodge Sloane to stock her newly formed Brookmeade Stable. A descendant of the 1893 English Triple Crown champion Isinglass, Cavalcade was purchased as a yearling for $1,200. Among the other yearlings Smith bought for Brookmeade Stable that year were Time Clock for $700 and High Quest for $3,500.

In his two-year-old racing season, Cavalcade showed a bit of what was to come at age three. Although he won the Hyde Park Stakes, of his eleven starts in 1933 he won twice, with three second- and three third-place finishes. In a year when no colt dominated his age group, Cavalcade was among the best, although there were no official champions named in American racing until 1936. Cavalcade's 1934 campaign was marked by his dominance of the future Hall of Fame colt Discovery whom he first defeated in the Chesapeake Stakes while setting a new race record time.

The 1934 U.S. Triple Crown Races

Of their three very capable colts, for the Kentucky Derby Brookmeade Stable raced Cavalcade as well as Time Clock, who had won the Flamingo Stakes. Sent off as the bettors' heavy favorites, Cavalcade won the race by more than three lengths over Discovery with Time Clock a disappointing seventh. After Time Clock's poor showing, his handlers replaced him in the Preakness Stakes with the third stablemate, High Quest, who had won April's Wood Memorial. High Quest won the Preakness, beating Cavalcade by a nose with Discovery in third place. Cavalcade skipped the longer Belmont Stakes but went on to win the American Derby and Arlington Classic, defeating Discovery in both, then set a new track record in winning the Detroit Derby. The colt ended the 1934 racing season with six wins and a second in his seven starts and was unofficially named the Champion 3-Year-old Colt and Horse of the Year.

At age four and five, Cavalcade started twice each year without a win. He finished second once and unplaced in the other three. Retired to stud duty at Sloane's Brookmeade Stud in Upperville, Virginia, Cavalcade died just four years later at age nine. Of his limited offspring, the most notable was the gelding Dinner Party, who won 37 steeplechase races.

Cavalcade was inducted in the United States' National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1993.

References

• Cavalcade's pedigree and racing stats
• Cavalcade's 1934 Kentucky Derby
• Cavalcade at the United States' National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame
• Cavalcade's offspring at the Triple Crown database by Kathleen Irwin and Joy Reeves