Secretariat, Count Fleet, Ruthless, Charlie Whittingham - June 19th

Count Fleet won his first race, at Aqueduct Racetrack. ~1942

 

Officials of Arlington Park invited Secretariat  to compete in a specially created race, the $125,000 Arlington Invitational Stakes. ~1973

 

The NTRA All-Star Jockey Championship from Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, Tex., was nationally televised for the first time on ESPN2. Shane Sellers won the 12-jockey competition. ~1998

 

Sheepshead Bay racecourse opened for a six-day meet. The track was the original site of the Suburban, Futurity and Realization Stakes, which eventually were transferred to Belmont Park. ~1880

 

Charlie Whittingham became the second trainer in history, behind D. Wayne Lukas, to top $100 million in purse earnings when he sent Little by Little to a second-place finish in the sixth race at Hollywood Park. ~1992

 

The inaugural Belmont Stakes was run at Jerome Park in the Bronx and was won by a filly, Ruthless who defeated colts to earn $1,850 for her victory. Ruthless was one of a group of fillies known as the "Barbarous Battalion," daughters of the mare Barbarity, owned by Francis Morris of New York. The other "battalion" members-all full sisters-were Remorseless, Relentless, Regardless and Merciless. ~1867