MAN O' WAR 1917-1947

Thoroughbred champion

Popular Legend

Nicknamed "Big Red" for his deep chestnut color, Man o' War was America's legendary thoroughbred race-horse. Beautiful, powerful, and seemingly invincible, he so appealed to the general American public that he is credited with popularizing a sport that had often been regarded either as a diversion for the wealthy or as a sinister lure to those addicted to "immoral" gambling.

Early History

Man o' War was bred by August Belmont I, the great American turfman for whom Belmont Park was named. The colt, a son of Fair Play, was foaled in Kentucky and sold as a yearling to Samuel D. Riddle at a Saratoga, New York, race meeting for $5,000, a notable bargain since the horse earned $249,465 in purses and, later, even more in stud fees. During 1919 and 1920, when he was two and three years old, Big Red won twenty of his twenty-one races.

Career

Man o' War's only loss—to the appropriately named Upset—came in the August 1919 Sanford Memorial Stakes, his seventh race as a two-year-old, during which he was slowed by a bungled start, by an obvious foul, and by the 130 pounds he was carrying to Upset's 117 pounds. As a three-year-old he won all eleven of the races he started. He did not run in the Kentucky Derby because Riddle thought the distance too long for a three-year-old early in the racing season, but he did take the other two races in the Triple Crown, the Preakness and the Belmont. Man o' War set track records in at least two of his races as a three-year-old, despite carrying increasingly heavy weights, often more than 130 pounds. When his horse's weight requirement advanced to 138 pounds, Riddle decided to retire him. In the last contest of his career, the Kenilworth Gold Cup in Canada, Man o' War easily beat the Canadian champion and 1919 Triple Crown winner, Sir Barton, in a match race.

Dwyer Stakes

Sportswriter Grantland Rice regarded the match race between Man o' War and John P. Grier as one of the greatest thoroughbred races in history. The two horses confronted each other on 10 July 1920 in the Dwyer Stakes at Aqueduct. Clarence Kummer rode Man o' War, and Ed Ambrose was up on John P. Grier. Riddle instructed Kummer to "Lay alongside of Johnny Grier—use the whip only when you need it. Just once is enough—if you have to." Kummer followed these orders explicitly. The horses ran neck-and-neck, and their times were spectacular: 23.24 seconds at the first quarter; 57.24 seconds at the five-furlong pole; 1 minute 9.24 seconds at the six-furlong marker; and 1 minute 35.36 seconds at the mile pole. In the stretch Kummer touched Man o' War once with the whip, and the horse responded by taking a huge twenty-four-foot stride (the standard stride of the thoroughbred racehorse is eighteen to twenty feet) that thrust him into a one-length lead. Man o' War won the race by nearly two lengths and set a new world record of 1 minute 49.12 seconds for the mile-and-one-sixteenth course. This race particularly captured the public's imagination.

Retirement

Riddle retired Man o' War to Faraway Farms in Lexington, Kentucky, where he was named Leading Sire in 1926, a year in which his offspring won forty-nine races. Among his most famous colts were American Flag, who won the 1925 Belmont Stakes; Crusader, who took the Belmont in 1926; and War Admiral, who won the Triple Crown in 1937. Man o' War's birthday party each year was almost always attended by the governor of Kentucky. Before his death on 1 November 1947 at the age of thirty, more than one million visitors came to see the thoroughbred who had been labeled by Will Harbut, his groom, "the mostest hoss that ever was."

Sources:

Bryan Field, "Horse Racing," in Sport's Golden Age, edited by Allison Danzig and Peter Brandwein (New York: Harper, 1948), pp. 86-110;

George Gipe, The Great American Sports Book (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1978), pp. 251-252;

Grantland Rice, "Big Red: 'The Mostest Horse,' " in Esquire's Great Men and Moments in Sports (New York: Harper, 1962), pp. 87-88;

Wells Twombly, 200 Years in Sports in America: A Pageant of a Nation at Play (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976), pp. 164-166.

Man o' War 1917-47, American racehorse, by Fair Play out of Mahubah, bred by August Belmont near Lexington, Ky., and owned by Samuel D. Riddle after 1918. A large reddish-colored colt capable of tremendously long strides, he raced only as a two-year-old and three-year-old, but in this short time (1919-20) won 20 out of 21 races and set five world records. His one loss was to a horse named Upset at Saratoga in 1919; he ran second. One of the most renowned stallions in the history of American thoroughbred racing, "Big Red," as Man o' War was often called, went on to become a leading sire.

Bibliography: See D. Ours, Man O' War: A Legend like Lightning (2006).

man-of-war (also man-o'-war) • n. (pl. men-of-war also men-o'-war) hist. an armed sailing ship. ∎  (also man-o'-war bird) another term for frigate bird. ∎  short for Portuguese man-of-war.

man-of-war also man-o'-war n. pl. men-of-war or men-o'-war an armed sailing ship.