Zipse: Remembering Ruffian 50 years after the match race

This is the first of two columns about the battle-of-the-sexes match race 50 years ago at Belmont Park. Part 2 on Monday focuses on Foolish Pleasure.

Like a snowflake destined for the highest mountain peak, Ruffian was released from the heavens, shone above all others, and left our world abruptly.

On the 50th anniversary of the great filly’s final race, I wanted to celebrate the life and times of perhaps the greatest female horse ever to grace an American racetrack.

Before Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta, there was Ruffian, and she was something else.

I was just a kid then, but thanks to my dad, I was a regular at Belmont Park for many of the big races of the time. Thankfully, I was not at Belmont Park on July 6, 1975.

Like millions of others, I watched the match race on television. The old black and white in our living room was how I witnessed the battle of the sexes pitting undefeated Ruffian against the best 3-year-old colt in the nation Foolish Pleasure.

The Kentucky Derby-winning colt also was a champion, but the filly was the star of the show.

Foaled at Claiborne Farm, the beautiful dark bay was owned and bred by Stuart Janney Jr. and Barbara Phipps Janney of Locust Hill Farm.

A daughter of Reviewer, Ruffian was a granddaughter of the great Bold Ruler and was out of Native Dancer mare Shenanigans. Ruffian was trained by Frank Whiteley Jr. and made her career debut on May 22, 1974, at Belmont Park.

Her unique talent was on display immediately as she dominated her competition from the start and won the maiden race by 15 lengths.

Ruffian would win all five starts as a 2-year-old in impressive fashion. The powerhouse filly went to the lead in each race and overwhelmed her competition with disdainful ease.

Her only challenge that season came from an extremely fast filly named Hot n Nasty. The two met in the Grade 1 Sorority Stakes at Monmouth Park in Ruffian’s fourth career race. My father still talks about the race.

Having blitzed her competition coming in, the little speedball pushed Ruffian through blazing early fractions that summer afternoon on the Jersey Shore. Hot n Nasty made the much bigger filly work for it, but eventually the favorite pulled clear to win by 2 1/2 lengths in stakes-record time of 1:09.

Ruffian would finish her championship juvenile season by winning the Spinaway Stakes (G1) at Saratoga by 12 3/4 lengths in stakes-record time of 1:08 3/5.

She was entered to run in the Frizette Stakes at Belmont Park but was scratched due to a fever.

A hairline fracture soon was discovered, and Ruffian was done with her first season, a perfect and powerful 5-for-5.

After nearly eight months away, the champion returned as a 3-year-old not having lost a step. Ruffian rolled through her competition in an allowance race and then the Comely Stakes (G3) in April at Aqueduct before embarking on New York’s Triple Tiara.

On May 10, Ruffian won the one-mile Acorn (G1) by 8 1/2 lengths as the 1-10 favorite under regular rider Jacinto Vasquez. Three weeks later she was bet down again and this time won the nine-furlong Mother Goose (G1) by 13 1/2 lengths in another stakes-record time.

Moving from Aqueduct to Belmont for the final leg of the Triple Tiara, the great speed of Ruffian was stretched to the distance of 1 1/2 miles for the Coaching Club American Oaks (G1). She opened a large lead on the backstretch but was challenged on the far turn before turning away Equal Change to sweep the series.

The 2 3/4-length final margin was the second smallest of her career. Through her first 10 races Ruffian had won at distances from 5 1/2 furlongs to 1 1/2 miles with an average winning margin of better than eight lengths.

Even more amazing, she set or equaled the record in each of her nine stakes victories. An unmatched superstar, the challenge of facing males was the next step for the great filly.

Rather than waiting for the Travers (G1), Ruffian would come back just 15 days later to run going 1 1/4 miles at Belmont Park.

The match race originally was planned to be a meeting between Ruffian and each of the three winners of the Triple Crown series that spring, but when Belmont winner Avatar did not accept, Preakness winner Master Derby was dropped to create a one-on-one matchup.

The favorite in each leg of the Triple Crown, but narrowly beaten in the final two legs, Foolish Pleasure, who had 29 days between the Belmont and the match race, represented the males.

Vasquez, who had ridden Foolish Pleasure in nine straight races including his Kentucky Derby victory, chose to be aboard the filly. The speedy Ruffian was the clear favorite over her male rival.

As Billie Jean King had done less than two years earlier in her ballyhooed tennis victory over Bobby Riggs, Ruffian was a female hero set to represent her entire gender.

The racing world was abuzz for the event. And then the unthinkable happened.

Breaking just a little bit awkwardly, Ruffian quickly righted herself and edged in front, but Foolish Pleasure and rider Braulio Baeza were not about to let the filly have an easy lead in the match race.

Setting ridiculously fast fractions up the long Belmont straight with the male champion at her hip, Ruffian broke down.

A stunned Belmont Park crowd watched as Foolish Pleasure finished the match race alone.

Every effort was made to save the wondrous filly that evening. Alas, her injuries were too much to overcome. After awakening from the surgery in no mood for a peaceful recuperation, Janney made the heart-wrenching decision not to let her suffer any longer.

At my age back in 1975, it was all a little bit too much to fully understand. I only knew of the sadness in my household that afternoon and the next morning seeing the newspaper headline of her ultimate fate.

As Secretariat had done two racing seasons earlier, Ruffian transcended horse racing. Her speed was unrivaled, and her racing career was unmatched. She was a national superstar. And suddenly she was lost.

A half-century removed from racing’s greatest tragedy, Ruffian remains an icon and hero not only for those who were around to see her race but also for new generations able to discover the greatness of the filly for the first time.