Native Dancer, Secretariat, Gallant Fox, John Longden - August 16th

John Longden rode his 6,000th winner, riding Prince Scorpion to victory while at Exhibition Park. ~1965

 

Triple Crown winner Gallant Fox was beaten by 100-1 shot Jim Dandy in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga Racecourse. ~1930

 

Rockingham Park began to film its races from the vantage of a helicopter, using the equipment as a "mechanical patrol judge." ~1946

 

John Campo swept the top three spots in the Adirondack Stakes with his trainees Harvest Girl, Bonnie Empress and Drama Critic. ~1976

 

Secretariat won his first stakes race, the Sanford Stakes, at Saratoga Racecourse. The time for the six-furlong race was 1:10, the fastest time for the distance at Saratoga that year. ~1972

 

Storming Home unseated his rider, Gary Stevens, at the finish of the Arlington Million in a spectacular incident that resulted in Sulamani being named the race winner. Stevens suffered a fractured vertabra and collapsed lung in the spill. ~2003

 

Native Dancer concluded his 22-race career with a victory in the Oneonta Handicap, a non-betting exhibition race at Saratoga Racecourse that he won by nine lengths while carrying 137 pounds. Although he raced only three times in 1954, Native Dancer was subsequently voted Horse of the Year, partly because he had been denied that honor in the previous year, despite having won nine of 10 races, all of them stakes. Tom Fool, 1953 Horse of the Year, had had a perfect 10-for-10 record. ~1954