Word: noor
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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This December, veteran Jockey Johnny Longden began riding Noor, and talking him up as the horse to beat in the $100,000-added Santa Anita Handicap. Longden said Noor was "maybe the best horse I've been on since Count Fleet," winner of the Triple Crown...
When big, rangy, almost coal-black Noor arrived in the U.S. two years ago, most of the cards were stacked against him. The Irish-bred three-year-old had to get used to running on dirt tracks, instead of the springy turf he raced over in England when he finished third in the Epsom Derby. Besides that, the colt had a bad ankle, which kept him on the shelf for months...
...eleven Handicap starters paraded to the post last week, the crowd of 65,000 was betting the all-powerful Calumet Farm entry-Citation, Ponder and Two Lea-as though it was money in the bank. With the Calumet trio at 1-to-3, Noor was a lukewarm 6-to-1 second choice. At that, it seemed a surprisingly short price considering the opposition. But as it turned out, Longden knew best...
...Noor, a stretch driver from way back, was flying at the far turn. At the head of the homestretch, he collared Calumet's pace-setting filly Two Lea-at the eighth pole he pulled away. Citation, closing well under his burden of 132 Ibs., led the Calumet varsity as Two Lea and Ponder carried the devil-red & blue silks across the finish line in formation...
Said Jockey Longden: "We just sighted the wire and set sail." It was fast sailing. With a 22-lb. pull in the weights, Noor (whose 110-lb. package was 3 Ibs. less than Two Lea's and 14 less than Ponder's) had run the mile-and-a-quarter in two minutes flat-just a fifth of a second off the world record and 1⅓ seconds faster than the track record set by Seabiscuit in the same race ten years...