"Fuller has long left it up to the public to help take back the true legacy of Dancer’s Image. It is out of his hands and has been for many years. Rather, it is up to members of our sport, the powers that be in Kentucky, and the general public to change this error. Fuller placed his bets for the Derby, and true sportsman that he is, he enjoyed every minute of the race. Somewhere deep inside, though, I see a man who waits and waits. He waits to see the day when his best horse will be acknowledged properly."

"The line that began with Vosburgh reached its apex – but also its culmination – with Hatton. His erudite, lively writing elevated Thoroughbred racing to the classics during a time when horse racing was the most popular spectator sport in the country. Hatton’s death, at age 69, left a gap that seems increasingly unlikely to be filled. Racing itself has changed, and so, too, has the style in which its writers chronicle it. Stories about heroes of the turf have given way to stories about slot machines and animal welfare and declining revenue streams. There is, with reason, more cynicism now. Hatton had a greater stage to play on. One could imagine him writing about the theater or literature, but instead he wrote his Iliad about horse racing. He saw it as his task to uphold its history and principles."

Bill Finley: "You can argue that Frankel did a good job of getting a lot out of a horse who had physical problems and/or that Ghostzapper was sensational when right. That's all true, but is he a Hall of Famer? To this voter, a Hall of Famer is a horse who proved itself time and time again, who passed numerous tests and conquered many challenges and challengers. How many times must a horse have run to be Hall of Fame worthy? I don't know the answer to that, but I do know it's more than 11." (So, what about Invasor and other horses of the aughts?"

"... document[ing] every location in the United States that hosted thoroughbred racing from 1865 to the present."

"Beyond the coincidence of the numbers involved, the only thing any records Citation and Rapid Redux would have in common is the fact that they were established in a counter-clockwise direction."

"... the Kelco, that rudimentary handicapping tool from the 1960s. Jackson is determined to find a Kelco, either the slide-rule or the hand-held electronic version, or short of that find someone who can explain to him what made the Kelco tick. On Jackson's behalf, I called the Smithsonian and they hung up on me."

"While the photographs might make some squeamish, they represent to me more than a simple record of a horse’s funeral. They represent a beloved ruler lying in state, his faithful subjects paying their last respects. They represent the end of an era -- the most magical and significant time in our sport’s history. And they show that, although his blood still courses through countless Thoroughbreds like Blame, Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta, Man o’ War was, after all, mortal."

"Go ahead, racing people -- keep arguing. The arguing, in fact, is about the most solid substance we have when it comes to Horse of the Year. There is only one rule governing what constitutes a potential Horse of the Year -- that the horse has started at least once in North America -- and guidelines have never been more specific than that. Form an opinion and send in your ballot. That is all that is asked of the 250 voters who were polled to determine the 2010 Eclipse Award winners, including Horse of the Year."

"He was the first American equine idol. In the age when flickering black and white ten-inch television pictures were all the rage, Native Dancer stood alongside Milton Berle, Ed Sullivan and Arthur Godfrey as a television luminary in the mid 1950s. Blessed with power, speed and playful charisma, Native Dancer regularly mugged for cameras and waggled his ears to the delight of his admirers. But more importantly, his image was easily recognizable in those grainy television images when viewers often had trouble zeroing in on the field of browns and chestnuts that all looked alike."

"When that corresponds to the kind of tremendous athletic talent we see in the Belmont -- talent that sets him not just above but a whole category apart from the other horses -- we see what seems to be impossible, a vision of where our understanding of limitations and categories breaks down, and something almost supernatural emerges. Not for nothing did Jack Whitaker on national TV resort years later to the Andalusian term Duende, usually applied to the effects of the performing arts or poetry, to describe Secretariat's eerie accomplishment ..."

"Interestingly, both horses are winners of the Preakness Stakes (gr. I). When was the last time a foal was bred from two winners of the same American classic, you may ask? The year was 1921, when 1905 Belmont winner Tanya visited Peter Pan, the 1907 winner. The union created Ragtime, a claimer who made 76 starts and raced to age 10."

"So that's what we're looking at here. The race course survived into the 1960s, amazingly enough. The superintendent's building and the other buildings were used until about 10 years ago, for use by the old Metropolitan District Commission and the Public Access Board."

"Consisting of an ensemble of connected buildings built in the Shingle and Colonial styles, the Charles River Speedway Headquarters recalls the late 19th-early 20th century summer estates in seaside and rural areas. Designed by William D. Austin, a prominent Boston architect, and constructed in 1899 as a companion complex for a recreational racetrack, the Headquarters served the Metropolitan Park System of Greater Boston as a gateway to the recreational attractions along the river. Although in need of updating and restoration, the complex retains its architectural integrity ..." See also: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalregister/4967169681/

"No marker even identifies it as the headquarters of the long-ago-vanished Charles River Speedway. Preservationists want that changed. The cluster of six ramshackle structures was named yesterday to an annual list of the 'Most Endangered Historic Resources' in the state. The distinction from the advocacy group Preservation Massachusetts is designed to pressure the owner of the property, the state Department of Recreation and Conservation." Photos from the BPL: http://www.bpl.org/online/sportstemples/temple.php?temple_id=5

"Longevity would seem wasted on many people, but that was never the case with Noble Threewitt, a man who proved that you don't have to train great horses to be a great horseman."

"The fact that no one (including Brunell) ever claimed copyright on charts tells us that their content was common knowledge by the time they made it to print in the 1890s. If anyone had a significant case that they owned the intellectual property of the charts, surely they would have come forward considering the money they could have made."

"Through Aug. 2, Brockton's leading jockey was Howard Lanci, 42, with 30 victories. Seven of them were recorded June 30, and according to the American Racing Manual, that is a single-day record at a Massachusetts fair." Collisions, distractions, records. NYT article from 2001 on the return of racing at the Brockton fair.

"Patterns in the great ones are apparent, but the answers never seem to satisfy."

Leading Nashua into the winner's circle at Washington Park racetrack, September 1955. LIFE photo.

Sport Illustrated's gentlemanly mention of the death of William Woodward Jr. in the November 7, 1955 issue.

1974 Sports Illustrated profile of Denise Boudrot. "As soon as the mutuels open there is a quick drop in odds -- the housewife money coming in -- then a leveling off till the very end, and another drop, the smart money. But if the fans are creating false favorites for her, and if the four-letter gutter word for woman ricochets about the grandstand when she loses, Denise remains a most popular rider. 'Go home and have a baby' is about the most pointed remark she ever hears."

"There is nothing 'greyhoundish' in his make-up and his flanks are well skirted at that."

"He pulled away from the fast traveling Hoodwink as a great horse should ..." (Lawrence Realization)

"The point here is not to denigrate an admirable soon-to-be champion but to question the level of superlatives surrounding him and the seemingly different standards used to define greatness in American and European racing."

Lovely portrait of the great horse.

From SI Vault, an account of the 1963 Kentucky Derby: "Only a handful of admirers stood up to be counted when a sleek chestnut colt named Chateaugay won the Blue Grass at Keeneland nine days before the Kentucky Derby by taking a head decision over Get Around ..." News reel footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPQavM1x1ZI