Word: whirlaway
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Barn 41, Belmont. Since 1940, Calumet Farm has been a front runner in the U.S. racing stakes. Whirlaway, Pensive, Twilight Tear and Armed were the horses that first carried Calumet's devil red and blue to fame & fortune. In the past three years, Calumet's Citation and Coaltown, Fervent and Faultless, Pot o' Luck, Ponder, Bewitch and Wistful have run away from all competition. Other horsemen may not be happy about it, but the public is. Fans know that Calumet is not a betting stable, and that its horses are always sharp when they go to the post...
Nitwit Champion. Such thoroughness, practiced more in Europe than in the U.S., aims to develop disciplined horses that can adjust to race-track life. But there was one notable exception, a nitwit named Whirlaway, in the 1939 yearling crop...
...Jones recognized Whirlaway as a potentially great horse?even though he was foolish and eccentric off the race track, and completely crazy on it. It took three men to put a saddle on him. In the paddock the horse shook like an aspen. When he went into a turn during a race, no amount of strong-arming by a jockey could keep him from going wide...
Bull-headed Ben rolled up his sleeves. Month after month, he led Whirlaway around like a puppy dog, let him inspect the inside rail, sniff the starting gate, look over the stands. Now & then, Ben would stop to let the horse nibble at some grass. Whirlaway visited the paddock so often that it began to seem like a second home. Gradually the addled horse seemed to realize that there was nothing about a race track that was going to hurt...
...ride Lawrin, a 9-to-1 shot in the Kentucky Derby. "Not me," says Eddie. "I want no part of him." But Jones talked him into it, and Eddie got the biggest wallop of his life ("You only win your first Derby once"). The next time it was Whirlaway, and the Triple Crown. This February, the chances of Arcaro riding Citation for Ben Jones were about 100 to 1 against. Eddie, up on Assault, had crashed into Ben's pride & joy, Armed, in the Widener Handicap...