Remembering the Tragedy of Ruffian 15 Years Ago

“Incredible” and “unbelievable” have been rendered bleeding, meaningless things by the hucksters (and prosaists) of today, but they described what the grand filly Ruffian had become 15 years ago Friday -- the day she had to die trying to prove she was real.

It was the morning of The Great Match Race at Belmont Park. In the television-inspired hype Ruffian and Foolish Pleasure had been weighed, measured, scrutinized and analyzed. A horseman’s glance would have told him that she was bigger and stronger and, in her statutory “dark-bay-or-brown” blackness, gorgeous. Foolish Pleasure was a fine-looking bay colt, functionally designed, with just enough muscle in the right places, like a middleweight contender.

But Ruffian was, in all the versatile senses of the word in French, formidable, and people were being awed and intimidated. Female horses just were not supposed to be that good.

Foolish Pleasure would be the instrument to put the uppity filly in her place. He had done nothing to deserve the job but be 3 years old and win the Kentucky Derby.

Ruffian meanwhile had won everything a 3-year-old filly ought to win, easily, including what is now gallantly known as New York’s Triple Tiara by an aggregate 25 lengths. Her past performances in 10 races showed no digit but 1; no horse had ever been ahead of her.

Neither the Stuart Janneys who bred and owned Ruffian nor the Greers who owned Foolish Pleasure had any great enthusiasm for the New York Racing Association’s grandiose plan. Originally Ruffian was to face the Derby, Preakness and Belmont winners, but the owners of Belmont winner Avatar begged off, pleading that their horse was too tuckered for a big race July 6. (He was then taken to Hollywood Park for the big Swaps, June 29; nobody really wanted to meet Ruffian.) The owners of Preakness winner Master Derby were given a consolation prize for the broken date, and Ruffian and Foolish Pleasure were left alone.

Like it or not, trainer Leroy Jolley took his assignment seriously. Foolish Pleasure would, literally, have to have speed he had not even used yet to cope with Ruffian. After a “slow start” in the Comely she hit the half-mile in 45 seconds flat, then coasted to win by eight lengths. The chart said that Jacinto Vasquez rode her “confidently” to win the Coaching Club Oaks in stakes-record time; it could have said “arrogantly.”

“Weight for age, sprinting, she could beat any horse in the world,” said John Nerud. Seven years earlier Nerud had trained Dr. Fager, the fastest horse, up to a mile, there ever was.

So Jolley “put speed in” his colt. Foolish Pleasure was a finisher. In none of his seven 3-year-old races had he made the lead before the stretch, but this time he would have to run “from the get-go.” On Thursday before the Sunday race, Foolish Pleasure worked five furlongs in an eerie :56 2-5, about as fast as horses can run.

So the knowledgeable among the 50,764 at Belmont were not surprised when they fired out of the distant chute as if they were in a six-furlong sprint. Not surprised, but uneasy. The first half-mile would go in :44 3-5, and they were going a mile and a quarter.

At that point in his Kentucky Derby, which is a mile and a quarter, Foolish Pleasure was sitting 12 lengths back, watching 28-1 Bombay Duck cook himself in :45 2-5. The only Derby winner to “shade” 46 seconds would be the celebrated “freak,” Spend A Buck, 10 years later.

The folly of the tactics became evident, and moot, about 100 yards before the half-mile mark. Ruffian, on the inside, dropped her head and swerved toward Foolish Pleasure. The maximal pressures had shattered both sesamoids behind her right front ankle.

The sesamoids are two pyramidal-shaped bones that act as a “pulley” for the flexor tendons, imparting the horse’s massive power to the tiny pastern, connective to the hoof.

In other words, as a veteran horseman of the school of disbelief put it as Ruffian lay dying, “Somebody threw a fast half-mile at the bitch and she came unbuckled.”

All eyes seemed to be on Ruffian, staggering in agony near the outside fence, where Vasquez had led her after jumping off. Some people were running toward her, through the infield. Jockey Angel Cordero, watching from the press box, glanced at the toteboard and issued a cogent footnote.

“Jesus Christ!” Cordero yelled. “He went in eight-and-three by his bleeping self!”

Such was Foolish Pleasure’s momentum from the special speed put into him that he completed six furlongs in 1:08 3-5, one fifth of a second off the Belmont track record. In the official racing cliche he had been “allowed to run along on his own courage,” without challenge or urging. Foolish Pleasure galloped home for the $225,000 in 2:02 4-5, faster than three of the previous five Kentucky Derbys. (The $125,000 second money “reverted to” the NYRA, presumably because Ruffian failed to finish the course.)

Horses have lachrymal glands. The tears were streaming down Ruffian’s face when the ambulance delivered her to trainer Frank Whiteley’s barn. Dr. Manuel Gillman removed the air cast and put her bleeding foot into a bucket of ice, which immediately assumed the color of cola. The ankle mechanism was not merely fractured, but shattered. Earlier in the day Gillman had said that Ruffian was the finest anatomical specimen he had examined in 20 years as an NYRA vet.

What the doctors proposed to do was heroic, and quixotic. It was manifest that Ruffian would not race again, but there was a chance, however remote, that she could be saved for breeding. She was such a magnificent “individual” (the term for extraordinary conformation) and she had the best blood of Nasrullah on her paternal side and Native Dancer “on the bottom line.”

At Dr. William O. Reed’s hospital, across Longfield Avenue from the Belmont backstretch, the team of doctors strove mightily. They would reassemble the sesamoids as best they could and secure the ankle with a strong cast, reinforced with wire.

Esposito’s bar (Est. 1936), as some racing reporters learned that long night, is 105 running steps from the front door of Reed’s hospital. They became walking steps as periodic progress reports by the doctors were relayed through John Esposito’s two pay phones.

Approaching 2 a.m. it seemed that John’s liquor license might be in jeopardy. Only four reporters remained (for the record, the other three were Jerry Green of the Detroit News, Ken Denlinger of the Washington Post and Chris Scherf of United Press International), but Ruffian’s crisis had not passed.

The hospital remained closed to the media. Dr. Alex Harthill, as spokesman at the door, had reiterated the principal peril. Ruffian was such a strong and energetic animal, and she would be so confused, panicked and pained when she emerged from the powerful anesthesia that her impulse might be violent. If she kicked the cast off, they could not apply another. She could not survive more anesthesia.

“She has to help us,” Reed said. “Only she can save herself.”

Dr. Edward Keefer, the “people doctor” of the team, was reiterating the possibilities at 2:25 a.m. when the door behind him opened and a large arm, with the sleeve rolled up above the massive bicep, reached out and clutched Keefer’s shoulder.

“We have a problem,” Dr. Bill Reed’s voice said. “The fixation ...”

The fixation had come unfixed as Ruffian revived and rebelled.

The remaining reporters were allowed into the outer office. A door to the next room was open. Frank Whiteley, 60 going on 90, slumped deep in a stuffed chair, a study in gray. It had been eight hours and 20 minutes since post time of a race that did not last 44 seconds. Whiteley had just performed the formality of advising his owners that their splendid animal had to be “humanely destroyed.”

“They’re going to put her down,” said Bill Johnson, a NYRA publicity man, his voice near a sob.

And then it was done and it was 3 o’clock in the morning, with one more call to make in the phone booth.

Bob Creamer, the editor at Sports Illustrated, took the dictation. He knew something about greatness. He has written definitive books called “Babe” and “Casey.” Creamer asked only one question.

Yes, he was told. She was on the lead.