On hallowed ground: The Calumet cemetery

On a recent fall afternoon, after taking a peek at new-to-U.S. stallions Musketier and Red Rocks, both recently arrived at Brad Kelley's Calumet Farm for stud duties, I detoured through the equine cemetery before taking leave of the historic land. It felt, to put it lightly, very special to be there. I was like a kid in a candy store. It was cold and the sun was beginning to set, so I walked around and took photos more quickly than I'd have liked, but I did get a picture of every marker, some of which I will post here although they are not all easy to read.

Bull Lea's statue and the setting sun.

There are 63 gravestones in the Calumet cemetery, although five or six of the horses are not interred there. Sadly for racehorse cemetery aficionados like me, that means that the markers for Barbizon, Coaltown, Hill Gail, Iron Liege, and Mark-Ye-Well are figureheads only. The horse in question, who died in France and is reputed online (without sources) to have been later reburied at Calumet, is Whirlaway. Next time I'm at the Keeneland library, I will have to do some proper research and see if I can corroborate the movement of his remains to Kentucky.

Bull Lea's grave is centered at the back of the cemetery. Markers of the seven male classic winners buried or memorialized there form a semi-circle -- matching the curve of the front of the base of Bull Lea's statue (created by Portuguese-born sculptor Antonio da Costa) -- in front of the stallion. In another semi-circle across the statue lie all the mares, except for Two Lea, that produced Kentucky Derby winners. Facing outward -- looking in the same direction as his statue -- to Bull Lea's immediate left are his daughters Twilight Tear, Miz Clementine, Bewitch, Bubbley, Real Delight, Amoret, Two Lea, and Twosy; and to his immediate right, his sons Gen. Duke, Commodore M., Armed, Coaltown (not interred), Yorky, and Mark-Ye-Well (not interred). Two Lea's burial place indicates that keeping the line of Bull Lea progeny intact, minus his classic winners, superseded the importance of keeping the Derby-producing mares together.

Bull Lea's statue keeps a vigil over the cemetery.

Here is a list, organized by year of death, of the headstones:

Horse (color [as provided on stone], sex, sire, dam), YOB-YOD:

1. Slow and Easy (chestnut, f, Colin - Shyness), 1922-1944

2. *Dustwhirl (bay, f, Sweep - Ormonda), 1926-1946

3. Pensive (chestnut, c, Hyperion - §Penicuik II), 1941-1949

4. Potheen (brown, f, Wildair - Rose O'Grady), 1928-1950

5. Some Pomp (chestnut, f, Pompey - Some More), 1931-1951

6. Jane Gail (chestnut, f, Blenheim II - Lady Higloss), 1944-1952

7. Two Bob (chestnut, f, The Porter-Blessings), 1933-1953

8. Nellie Flag (chestnut, f, American Flag - Nellie Morse), 1932-1953

9. ?Whirlaway (chestnut, c, Blenheim II - §Dustwhirl), 1938-1953

10. Twilight Tear (bay, f, §Bull Lea - Lady Lark), 1941-1954

11. Hug Again (chestnut, f, Stimulus - Affection), 1931-1956

12. Unerring (brown, f, Insco - Margaret Lawrence), 1936-1956

13. Gen. Duke (brown, c, §Bull Lea - §Wistful), 1954-1958

14. Hydroplane II (chestnut, f, Hyperion - Toboggan), 1938-1958

15. Miss Rushin (bay, f, Blenheim II - Lady Erne), 1942-1958
16. *Penicuik II (chestnut, f, Buchan - Pennycomequick), 1934-1958

17. Ponder (dark bay, c, §Pensive - §Miss Rushin), 1946-1958

18. Whirl Some (gray, f, §Whirlaway - Some Pep), 1945-1958

19. Armful (black, f, Chance Shot - Negrina), 1933-1962

20. Miz Clementine (bay, f, §Bull Lea - §Two Bob), 1951-1962

21. Bewitch (brown, f, §Bull Lea - §Potheen), 1945-1962

22. Commodore M. (bay, c, §Bull Lea - Early Autumn), 1951-1963

23. Armed (bay, g, §Bull Lea - §Armful), 1941-1964

24. Bubbley (dark brown, f, §Bull Lea - §Blue Delight), 1950-1964

25. Bull Lea (bay, c, Bull Dog - Rose Leaves), 1935-1964

26. Iron Maiden (bay, f, War Admiral - Betty Derr), 1941-1964

27. Wistful (chestnut, f, Sun Again - §Easy Lass), 1946-1964

28. xCoaltown (bay, c, §Bull Lea - §Easy Lass), 1945-1965

29. Sun Again (chestnut, c, Sun Teddy - §Hug Again), 1939-1965

30. Blue Delight (brown, f, Blue Larkspur - Chicleight), 1938-1966

31. Mar-Kell (bay, f, Blenheim II - §Nellie Flag), 1939-1966

32. Waynoka (f, War Admiral - Leonissa), 1949-1966

33. Yorky (bay c, §Bull Lea - §Waynoka), 1957-1966

34. Easy Lass (brown, f, Blenheim II - §Slow and Easy), 1940-1968

35. xHill Gail (dark bay, c, §Bull Lea - §Jane Gail), 1949-1968

36. Real Delight (bay, f, §Bull Lea - §Blue Delight), 1949-1969

37. Citation (bay, c, §Bull Lea - §Hydroplane II), 1945-1970

38. xMark-Ye-Well (bay, c, §Bull Lea - §Mar-Kell), 1949-1970

39. On-and-On (bay, c, *Nasrullah - §Two Lea), 1956-1970

40. Amoret (bay, f, §Bull Lea - §Mar-Kell), 1952-1971

41. Bardstown (dark bay, g, *Alibhai - §Twilight Tear), 1952-1972

42. xIron Liege (bay, c, §Bull Lea - §Iron Maiden), 1954-1972

43. Two Lea (bay, f, §Bull Lea - §Two Bob), 1946-1973

44. A Gleam (bay, f, Blenheim II - §Two Lea), 1949-1974

45. Plum Cake (chestnut, f, §Ponder - §Real Delight), 1958-1976

46. Princess Turia (chestnut, f, Heliopolis - §Blue Delight), 1953-1975

47. Twosy (bay, f, §Bull Lea - §Two Bob), 1942-1975

48. xBarbizon (c, Polynesian - Good Blood), 1954-1982

49. Mon Ange (chestnut, f, Tom Fool - §Two Lea), 1962-1982

50. Tim Tam (dark bay, c, Tom Fool - §Two Lea), 1955-1982

51. Best Turn (dark bay or brown, c, *Turn-to - §Sweet Clementine), 1966-1984

52. Sweet Tooth (bay, f, §On-and-On - §Plum Cake), 1965-1988

53. Lucinda Lea (bay, f, §Best Turn - Little Stormy), 1975-1989

54. Sagace (Fr) (bay, c, Luthier - Seneca (Fr)), 1980-1989

55. Sweet Clementine (bay, f, Swaps - §Miz Clementine), 1960-1989

56. Alydar (chestnut, c, Raise a Native - §Sweet Tooth), 1975-1990

57. Katonka (bay, f, Minnesota Mac - Minnetonka), 1972-1990

58. Kennelot (bay, f, Gallant Man - Queen Sucree), 1974-1994

59. Lech (bay, c, Danzig - Wedding Reception), 1988-1994

60. De La Rose (bay, f, Nijinsky II - Rosetta Stone), 1978-2001

61. Gdynia (chestnut, f, Sir Ivor - Classicist), 1978-2001

62. Our Mims (bay brown f, Herbager - §Sweet Tooth), 1974-2003

63. Sugar and Spice (bay, f, Key to the Mint - §Sweet Tooth), 1977-2004

§ denotes a sire or dam also interred or memorialized at the Calumet cemetery
x not interred
? may or may not be interred
* denotes an imported horse, and is included here as it is noted on the stones.

Numbers 58-61 are burials from the Henryk de Kwiatkowski era of Calumet.

Numbers 62 and 63 were bred and raced by Calumet but died elsewhere; they were returned to their birthplace for burial.

Discrepancies or errors:

21. Bewitch: Her National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame page and other sources say she died in 1959, contrary to the 1962 on her gravestone. She is buried between Miz Clementine (died 1962) and Bubbley (died 1964).

Bewitch: Born in 1945 and died in 1962.

42. Iron Liege: He died in Japan. According to some sources, his year of death was 1971, contrary to the 1972 on his gravestone.

48. Barbizon: Sources indicate he died in 1983, contrary to the 1982 on his gravestone.

61. Gdynia: The name of her sire, Sir Ivor, is misspelled as "Siv Ivor" on her marker.

Observations and curiosities:

~On Bull Lea: Thirteen of his progeny are buried at Calumet, with four more memorialized in the cemetery, for a total of 17 markers for progeny of the farm's great foundation sire.

Triple Crown winner Citation, with his sire Bull Lea in the background.

~On Citation: Of the many things written on his two stones, it was the last two lines that caught my eye: "winner of computer race of century, April 1968".

~On Two Lea: Four of her progeny, the most of any broodmare, are buried in this cemetery. Blue Delight, Sweet Tooth, and Two Bob (Two Lea's dam) each have three sons or daughters buried, although only one of Sweet Tooth's died while living at Calumet. All of these mares are also buried at Calumet.

Two Lea, the broodmare with the most progeny buried in this cemetery.

~On Iron Maiden: She produced 1957 Kentucky Derby winner Iron Liege (who famously defeated one of my favorite horses, Gallant Man, in that race). Her daughter Iron Reward produced 1955 Kentucky Derby winner Swaps (not for Calumet), and Swaps is noted on Iron Maiden's epitaph. (Sidenote: Iron Maiden's dam Betty Derr is the eighth dam, but not through Iron Maiden, of 2014 Kentucky Derby winner California Chrome.) Calumet bred Miz Clementine to Swaps and got Sweet Clementine, who produced Best Turn, who sired Calumet champion Davona Dale (plus Cox's Ridge, not for Calumet); Best Turn, Sweet Clementine, and Miz Clementine are buried at Calumet.

Iron Maiden, dam and granddam of Kentucky Derby winners.

~The dams of two Triple Crown winners are buried at Calumet: Dustwhirl and Hydroplane II. Burials Iron Maiden, Jane Gail, Miss Rushin, Penicuik II, Princess Turia, and Two Lea foaled Kentucky Derby winners.

Citation's dam Hydroplane II. 

~1958 was a bad year: Calumet lost a Kentucky Derby winner, the dam of a Triple Crown winner, the dams of two other Kentucky Derby winners, and the well-regarded young colt Gen. Duke.

~On Alydar: His grave is the closest to the front of the entry path, on the right side walking in (on the left, from the direction Bull Lea faces). He and his stakes-winning half-sisters Our Mims (champion) and Sugar and Spice have the most ancestors buried at Calumet: Within the first four generations of their dam Sweet Tooth's pedigree, every single ancestor bar Nasrullah, his sire Nearco, and dam Mumtaz Begum, are all buried at Calumet. They are: Sweet Tooth (first generation), On-and-On and Plum Cake (second generation); Two Lea, Ponder, and Real Delight (third generation); and Bull Lea, Two Bob, Pensive, Miss Rushin, Bull Lea, and Blue Delight (fourth generation). One fifth generation ancestor, Penicuik II, is also there.

~More on Alydar: He is the last horse buried on the farm during Calumet ownership, after his death on November 15, 1990. Katonka, who also died in 1990, predeceased him, dying on July 4.

Only Alydar and Citation have both a standing headstone and a stone that lies flat. Bull Lea's stone lies flat, with a statue instead of a headstone.

~Alydar's marker faces the post naming Calumet's Kentucky Derby winners: Whirlaway, Pensive, Citation, Ponder, Hill Gail, Iron Liege, and Tim Tam on the front; Forward Pass, who was awarded the 1968 Kentucky Derby well after the fact -- the final court ruling was handed down in 1972 -- following the drug-related disqualification of Dancer's Image, on the obverse. Alydar's placement facing the Kentucky Derby monument is ironic since he ran second to Affirmed in all three of the Triple Crown races.

~Although he is not buried at Calumet, Alydar's great rival Affirmed used to stand at the farm, and he occupied the stall directly across from Alydar's.

~On Sweet Tooth: She was Broodmare of the Year in 1977, the season Our Mims was champion three-year-old filly and Alydar was a Grade 1-winning two-year-old. Her grave marker, which is taller than the headstones that predate it, identifies her as "dam of stakes winners" but only names Our Mims. Sweet Tooth (who, I was told by John Greathouse, as I recall -- he worked with her at one time -- was misnamed) was also the dam of Grade 1 winner Sugar and Spice.

No mention of Alydar or Sugar and Spice on Sweet Tooth's gravestone.

~On Forward Pass: He is the only Calumet-bred Kentucky Derby winner who does not have a marker in the cemetery. He won the Preakness Stakes on his own merits and died in Japan in 1980. [Correction: Calumet-bred Strike the Gold, who won the 1991 Kentucky Derby -- not for Calumet -- and died in Turkey in 2011, also does not have a marker.]

~On Tim Tam: His epitaph mentions that this Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner was second by "1/2 length" in the Belmont "on broken sesamoid bone."

~On Dustwhirl: Her son Whirlaway is mentioned on her epitaph, but unusually, there's no mention of his Triple Crown. Compare this to the information on Hydroplane's epitaph, for instance, which not only says that Citation won the Triple Crown but, oddly, credits her as being granddam of 1956 Preakness winner Fabius -- Fabius was sired by Citation, not out of one of her daughters.

Dustwhirl, the first Triple Crown-producing broodmare interred at Calumet.

~On Commodore M.: This horse, named by Calumet's Lucille Markey after her husband, Admiral Gene Markey, has the only marker of the 63 with no additional comments other than color, year of birth, year of death, sire, and dam. He sired just 42 foals, but one of them, Comely Nell, was the dam of Derby/Belmont winner Bold Forbes. Comely Nell's female line remains active in the 2000s; she's the fifth dam of Grade 1 winner Mushka.

~On Our Mims: This champion filly, later the namesake of Our Mims Retirement Haven, has a detailed epitaph that mentions not only her Kentucky Oaks but also that she was Rerun's Moneigh Equine Artist of the Year in 2002. The last line reads: "somebody's favorite horse."

~Twelve of the gravestones are engraved with birth and death dates, not just the years. Lucinda Lea (aged 14) and Sweet Clementine (29) died on the same day: May 1, 1989. French-bred stallion Sagace, who won the 1984 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (and was disqualified from first in the 1985 Arc), died on May 4, 1989, three days after the two mares.

~Buried or memorialized in the cemetery are 42 bay, brown, or dark bay variations; 17 chestnuts; one gray (Whirl Some); one black (Armful); and two whose colors are not identified on their stones: Barbizon (who was a dark bay), and Waynoka (registered as black).

~The youngest horse interred is Gen. Duke, who was four, and the oldest is Twosy, at 33. (Twosy became the fourth dam of 1988 Kentucky Derby winner Winning Colors.)

~Hall of Fame members buried or memorialized: Citation (inducted 1959), Whirlaway (1959), Armed (1963), Twilight Tear (1963), Bewitch (1977), Two Lea (1982), Coaltown (1983), Tim Tam (1985), Real Delight (1987), and Alydar (1989). Calumet also bred and raced Hall of Famer Davona Dale (1985), but sold her as a broodmare. Bull Lea's epitaph is out-of-date: It says he is the sire of three Hall of Fame representatives, but there are now six in the U.S. and one, Bull Page (broodmare sire of Nijinsky II), in Canada.

Hall of Famer Armed, a gelding, is just one of the Horses of the Year buried here.

~Henryk de Kwiatkowski, who bought Calumet in 1992, raced 1982 champion three-year-old male and Belmont Stakes winner Conquistador Cielo. As a matter of pure coincidence, that colt's fifth dam is Dustwhirl, who is buried at Calumet.

I could go on (and on...and on), but instead I'll toss in some more headstone photos and call it a day.

Twilight Tear, filly who was named Horse of the Year as a three-year-old in 1944.

Champion Nellie Flag, the third dam of 1976 Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes winner Bold Forbes.

Penicuik II, whose son Pensive won the 1944 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes and sired Derby winner Ponder (buried at Calumet, he in turn sired Kentucky Derby winner Needles).

Potheen was the dam of four stakes winners, including champion Bewitch, who beat Citation.

1936 Kentucky Oaks winner Two Bob was the dam of champion Two Lea, who was the dam of champion Tim Tam. Two Bob was fifth dam of 1988 Kentucky Derby winner Winning Colors, who won the classic 30 years after Tim Tam.

Wistful, another Kentucky Oaks winner, was co-champion three-year-old filly with stablemate Two Lea in 1949.

Unusual Path to Acclamation

The 1990 Nureyev-Rossard colt as a yearling.

Havre de Grace, Zenyatta, Rachel Alexandra, Azeri, Lady’s Secret, All Along, Moccasin, Busher, and Twilight Tear aren’t the only female Horses of the Year who have made their mark in the United States. Another, Rossard, is a most unusual source of stakes winners in this country, unusual because she carries a quaint country code after her name: (DEN) for Denmark, where she was foaled in 1980. Her grandson, Acclamation, picked up an Eclipse Award last night as 2011 champion older male.

Rossard had been an exceptional runner in Scandinavia. In 1983, she won the Denmark Derby, Swedish Derby, Danish Oaks, Swedish Oaks, Danish St. Leger and the Danish 1,000 Guineas for trainer Hans Adielsson. The filly won all Danish classics that season bar the 2,000 Guineas. She was named Horse of the Year in Sweden, as well as champion three-year-old filly in Denmark and Sweden.

She made eight starts the following season in North America, for Catherine T. Koffend and trainer Evan S. Jackson, winning three times, including the Grade 1 Flower Bowl Handicap at Belmont Park under Laffit Pincay Jr.

Rossard was a daughter of Swedish St. Leger winner Glacial, a Danish-bred son of Pardal. Pardal, a full brother (by Pharis) to Arc winner Ardan, had won the Jockey Club Stakes, Princess of Wales’s Stakes, Lowther Stakes, and the Great Yorkshire Stakes, all in England. Rossard’s dam was the British-bred Peas-Blossom, who was exported to Denmark after she had failed to win on the racecourse, a daughter of the Paul Mellon-bred stakes winner Midsummer Night. Rossard’s was a stout pedigree, and unheard of bloodlines in North America.

That being said, the success of this family is not unprecedented on the continent. This is the same female family as 1986 Canadian Broodmare of the Year Loudrangle. Light of Day (by Hyperion), Rossard’s third dam, was also the third dam of Loudrangle, who produced 1986 Canadian Horse of the Year Ruling Angel – another female Horse of the Year – and 1987 Canadian champion Tilt My Halo, and was granddam of two more Canadian champions: 2004 Horse of the Year Soaring Free, and 1988 champion three-year-old colt Regal Intention.

Rossard was retired to stud following her lone season of racing in North America, and she was subsequently bred to dual Arc winner Alleged. John T.L. Jones Jr. of Walmac Int’l purchased her from the 1985 Keeneland November sale consignment of Pegasus Stud for $300,000.

Crystal Springs Joint Venture and Jones (in partnership with Red McCombs one year) bred the mare’s first three foals: a 1986 colt by Alleged (Pitchfork); 1988 filly by Nureyev (Dot Dot Dash); and 1989 filly by Miswaki (Danish Prospector).

With three foals on the ground – one of which, Pitchfork, had raced, managing just a placing – Crystal Springs and Jones put Rossard, in foal to Walmac’s flagship stallion Nureyev, through the 1989 Keeneland November sale, where Jones bought out his partner for $320,000, probably more for the valuable Nureyev foal in utero than for the mare herself.

Nureyev, sire of Unusual Heat.

Rossard foaled a stout, near-black colt on January 1, 1990. Jones bred the mare back to Nureyev’s Grade 1-winning son Stately Don and sold her to Kirsten Rausing – the Swedish doyenne of Newmarket-based Lanwades Stud in England – for $55,000 at the Keeneland November sale that autumn.

A skittish Unusual Heat meeting me (my arm) for the first time.

Unusual Heat with his best childhood friend, Julie's Jazz.

When the Nureyev colt was a yearling, Walmac offered him at the now-defunct Keeneland July sale, where he was not sold for $185,000. A year later, Jones’s Two Creek Ranch consigned him to a two-year-olds-in-training sale, selling him to The Oaks (Dr. Thomas T.S. Liang) for $250,000, and he was subsequently exported to Ireland and sent to the Curragh yard of trainer Dermot Weld.

The colt, named Unusual Heat, was moderately successful, winning four-of-ten starts from two to four in Ireland. He won three Listed stakes races, two at a mile and one at nine furlongs, and was third in the Group 3 Concorde S.

Owner Liang sent the horse to Richard Mandella in California, where he made his first start as a six-year-old, debuting in an allowance at Santa Anita. He was a half-length second to stakes winner Nonproductiveasset, who had finished second in the Strub Stakes-G1 two years prior. Unusual Heat’s next race, another allowance, saw him run third – a length and a neck behind 1995 Breeders’ Cup Turf-G1 winner Northern Spur (Ire) and Grade 2 winner Wavy Run (Ire).

Encouraged by Unusual Heat’s ability to hang with the big boys, Mandella ran him with stablemate Atticus, another son of Nureyev (who later won a Grade 1), in a minor stakes race at Hollywood Park, but he could only finish fifth, one place behind Atticus. Fifteen days later, on June 10, 1996, Unusual Heat was entered in a claiming race, which he won under Laffit Pincay Jr., who had guided the horse’s dam Rossard to her Flower Bowl victory.

But the real winner that day was Barry Abrams and the Auerbach family, although it would be some time yet before they realized the full extent of it: Abrams and Auerbach (along with Team Green and Wolkoff, et al) claimed Unusual Heat from Liang for $80,000, beating out trainer Mike Mitchell in the shake.

He raced twice for the new ownership, all in less than two weeks from the claim. With Chris Antley aboard (the only time Pincay did not ride him Stateside), Unusual Heat ran sixth of seven in the Grade 2 Shoemaker Breeders’ Cup Mile S., then he won a $125,000 claiming race on June 29th by 2-1/2 lengths.

The chart line reads that he “returned lame.” Eight months later, the tendon injury he had sustained in the race hadn’t healed well enough for a return to the track, and he was retired. There had been a deal to sell Unusual Heat to an Argentine farm for stud duty, but when that fell through, his owners thought they had no other option and concluded, “Why not stand him ourselves?”

Why not, indeed.

Unusual Heat duly rewarded their faith in him by quickly producing top-quality runners, despite starting off with a first crop of just 15 foals, two of whom would go on to be stakes winners. He has been the leading sire in California from 2008-2011, and sired the newly minted Eclipse Award winner Acclamation, who won three Grade 1 stakes last year and one in 2010.

Other top sons and daughters of Unusual Heat are Grade 1 winners Golden Doc A, The Usual Q. T., Unusual Suspect, Grade 2 winners Burns (who sadly passed away at Santa Anita last year), Lethal Heat, Pretty Unusual, and Tucked Away, and Grade 3 winner Lightmyfirebaby. Among his other stakes winners (24 in total) are Grade 1-placed Bel Air Sizzle and Grade 2-placed Spend it All Baby. Many of these, although not Acclamation, raced as homebreds for the Auerbachs and were trained by Abrams. Acclamation was bred by Old English Rancho,  where Unusual Heat stood before moving to Harris Farms prior to the 2011 breeding season, and trained by Don Warren on behalf of E.W. “Bud” and Judy Johnston (of Old English Rancho) and Peter and Mary Hilvers.


(Click here to go to Unusual Heat’s website.)

As it turned out, from thirteen named foals out of Rossard, Unusual Heat was the only one who was any count on the racetrack. But his older full sister, Dot Dot Dash, produced multiple stakes winner Dash of Humor (by Distorted Humor), dam of 2011 stakes winner Lil Bit O’Fun (by Langfuhr); and stakes-placed Two Dot Slew (by Evansville Slew), dam of 2011 stakes winner Angelica Zapata (by Sharp Humor).

Stakes producer Dot Dot Dash, as a two-year-old.

Dot Dot Dash, a full sister to Unusual Heat, and a very different physical type to him.

Danish Prospector, the Miswaki filly out of Rossard, is granddam of stakes winner Three’s a Crowd (by Ecton Park). Note that three of the four stakes winners under daughters of Rossard are by Forty Niner-line sires.

Rossard produced her last foal, for Tim Holland, in 2002. The mare was found dead of old age in her paddock at Huntertown Farm in Paris, Kentucky, in March of 2005, at the age of 25.

As a sidenote to this blog post, I knew Rossard, as well as Dot Dot Dash, Danish Prospector, and Unusual Heat as youngsters. I don’t remember much of Rossard physically except that I think she was plain and not a big horse, nor do I recall her personality. (I would scan in a photo if the entire R section of my filed pictures hadn’t disappeared.) She shared her paddock with Parrish Princess, the dam of champion Princess Rooney and a Nureyev filly (Julie’s Jazz) who was Unusual Heat’s playmate.

Danish Prospector was the first horse I ever showed at a yearling sale, at Keeneland in July of 1990. I was paired up with her because she was small, especially for a foal of January 7, and the thought was that she would look less tiny next to an equally small me. I remember a British stud manager inspecting the plain bay filly and saying to me, “Even with you holding her, she’s still small.”

"E.T." (and the gray tail of Parrish Princess).

A year later, during a summer vacation from high school, I worked in the yearling barn with Unusual Heat. I had also known him as a foal, when one of the farmhands nicknamed him “E.T.” because he thought the marking on the colt’s face was in the shape of Spielberg’s martian. As a yearling, the Rossard colt, as he was then known, was not my favorite to exercise: he was very thick – a tank – and always had some fancy footwork with undiscriminating, rather violent placement of his shod feet, but occasionally I ended up having to turn him out. One night, he stomped on me so hard I thought my little toe was severed. I managed to get him to his paddock, then hobbled back to the barn to take off my shoe and sock to see the damage. My toe was smashed but, I was happy to note, still attached to my foot. To this day, there’s a bump on it.

A tank, after being bought back in July of his yearling year.

Who would have ever thought that the U.S. breeding industry’s most influential female Horse of the Year of the last 30 years (not counting Havre de Grace, Zenyatta, and Rachel Alexandra, who haven’t produced foals yet) would be a Danish-bred, primarily Scandinavian-raced, one?