Rosario, Gun Runner, Justify are elected to Hall of Fame

Nine new members have been elected to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. The class of 2024 is composed of jockey Joel Rosario and racehorses Gun Runner and Justify in the contemporary category; jockey Abe Hawkins and racehorses Aristides and Lecomte have been selected by the pre-1900 historic review committee; and Harry F. Guggenheim, Clement L. Hirsch and Joe Hirsch were chosen by the pillars of the turf committee. Rosario, Gun Runner and Justify all were elected in their first year of eligibility.

The 2024 Hall of Fame class will be enshrined on Friday, Aug. 2, at the Fasig-Tipton sales pavilion in Saratoga Springs at 10:30 a.m. EDT. The event is open to the public and free to attend.

Joel Rosario, 39, a native of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, has won 3,604 races through April 20 and ranks no. 4 all time in North American purse earnings with $318,313,804 in a career that began in 2003. The Eclipse Award winner for outstanding jockey in 2021, Rosario won the 2013 Kentucky Derby with Orb and the Belmont Stakes with Tonalist in 2014 and Sir Winston in 2019. He has won 15 Breeders’ Cup races, including the Classic with champion Accelerate in 2018 and Horse of the Year Knicks Go in 2021. Rosario has ranked among the top 10 in North American earnings 15 times, including topping the list in 2021 with a career-best $32,956,215. He has also ranked in the top 10 in wins five times.

A chestnut colt bred in Kentucky by Besilu Stables, Gun Runner (Candy Ride—Quiet Giant, by Giant’s Causeway) won the Eclipse Awards for Horse of the Year and champion older male in 2017. Racing from 2015 through 2018, Gun Runner compiled a record of 19-12-3-2 and earnings of $15,988,500, the second-highest total of any North American-based horse behind Hall of Famer Arrogate.

Trained by Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen for owners Winchell Thoroughbreds and Three Chimneys Farm, Gun Runner’s championship season in 2017 included Grade 1 wins in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, Woodward, Whitney and Stephen Foster. 

A chestnut colt bred in Kentucky by John D. Gunther, Justify (Scat Daddy—Stage Magic, by Ghostzapper) became America’s 13th Triple Crown winner and was voted the Eclipse Award winner for Horse of the Year and champion 3-year-old male in 2018. He crossed the finish line first in all six of his career starts, spanning 111 days from his career debut on Feb. 18, 2018, through his Belmont Stakes coronation on June 9. Note: Justify’s record of six wins from six starts and earnings of $3,798,000 is subject to change pending an ongoing appeals process related to his disqualification in the 2018 Grade One Santa Anita Derby.

Trained by Hall of Famer Bob Baffert for owners China Horse Club, Head of Plains Partners, Starlight Racing and WinStar Farm, Justify won his first two starts at Santa Anita, then crossed the finish line first in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby. He went on to defeat champion Good Magic by 2 1/2 lengths in the Kentucky Derby, beat Bravazo by a half-length in the Preakness and swept the Triple Crown with a 1 3/4-length win over Gronkowski in the Belmont, his final start.

The three contemporary selections were chosen by a nationwide voting panel of 177 members from a group of 17 finalists submitted by the Hall of Fame’s nominating committee. To be elected, finalists are required to majority approval from the voting panel after earning two-thirds support from the nominating committee to advance to the ballot.

Abe Hawkins, who's birthday is unknown, earned nicknames including the The Black Prince, the Dark Sage of Louisiana and the Slayer of Lexington for his prowess as a jockey in the pre- and post-Civil War years. Arguably the most celebrated rider in America prior to Isaac Murphy and the first Black athlete to gain national prominence, Hawkins is remembered foremost for his victory aboard Lecomte vs. Lexington at the Metairie Course in New Orleans on April 1, 1854. That day, Hawkins piloted Lecomte to a record 7:26 for the distance of four miles to hand Lexington the lone defeat in his Hall of Fame career.

An enslaved person on Duncan Kenner’s Ashland plantation in Louisiana, Hawkins won a documented 25 races from 1864 through 1866 and countless informal and undocumented events during the course of his career. Hawkins first appeared as a rider at Metairie in 1851 and rode for Kenner for a decade beginning in 1854. After the Civil War, as a free man, Hawkins went north and achieved celebrity and fortune, particularly at Saratoga Race Course, Jerome Park and the course at Paterson, N.J.

In 1866, while riding for Woodburn Farm’s R. A. Alexander, Hawkins won the Travers Stakes and Jersey Derby aboard Merrill and the inaugural Jerome Stakes at Jerome Park with Watson. Kenner invited Hawkins to return to Ashland as a free man if he wished, which he did later in 1866. He rode during Metairie’s races that December, but by the following May, Turf, Field and Farm reported his death.

“As a rider and a jockey he had no equal in this country … Good riders and strictly honest ones are rare; therefore, the death of Old Abe is an irreparable loss to the American turf.”

Hawkins, however, was not dead. Days later, Hawkins read of his own demise in the St. Louis Republican. After a brief recuperation, he felt well enough to travel to Cincinnati to ride in the Buckeye Jockey Club’s spring meet. Unfortunately, his illness returned and worsened. Hawkins died of consumption on May 27, 1867, and his body was shipped back to Ashland. Hawkins’ former owner, Kenner, buried him at Ashland in a brick tomb under a live oak tree near the plantation’s training track.

Hawkins rode many of the best horses of his era, including Arrow, Asteroid, Louis d’Or, Minnehaha, Panic, Rhinodine and Whale, among others. His riding style later came to be known as the American seat, which Hall of Fame jockeys Tod Sloan and Willie Simms popularized some 20 years later.

Bred in Kentucky by his owner, H. P. McGrath, Aristides (Leamington—Sarong, by Lexington), a chestnut colt foaled in 1872, won the inaugural Kentucky Derby in 1875. Trained by Hall of Famer Ansel Williamson, Aristides, a week before the Derby, finished out of the money in the Phoenix Hotel Stakes. He came back in the Derby before a crowd of 10,000 to defeat Volcano by a length, with Ten Broeck fifth. His time of 2:37 3/4 was the fastest ever to that date by a 3-year-old for 1 1/2 miles.

Following the Derby, Aristides won the Withers Stakes at Jerome Park, finished second in the Belmont to Calvin, and was third in the Travers. Aristides’ second-place finish in the Belmont was attributed in the press to his having been pulled to allow stablemate Calvin to win. Calvin’s victory was said to have landed $30,000 in bets for McGrath. Aristides went on to win the two-mile Jerome Stakes that fall Calvin was second, Hall of Famer Tom Ochiltree was fourth and closed his season with a win the two-mile Breckinridge Stakes Tom Ochiltree finished third. Aristides is retrospectively acknowledged as the champion 3-year-old male of 1875.

Overall, Aristides posted a record of 21:9-5-1 with earnings of $18,325. Aristides died on June 21, 1893. 

Bred in Kentucky by Gen. Thomas Jefferson Wells, Lecomte (by Boston—Reel, by Glencoe), a chestnut colt foaled in 1850, made his debut at the Metairie Course in New Orleans on April 5, 1853, in a 2-year-old sweepstakes at mile heats. Although he was a foal of 1850, Lecomte was still considered a 2-year-old. Southern rules that were in effect prior to the Civil War designated ages of horses as calculated from May 1. Lecomte won both mile heats, including a time of 1:45 1/2 in the second heat, the fastest ever raced in America at the time.

Lecomte did not race again until November. He returned to win at two-mile heats at the Pharsalia Course in Mississippi before winning three races in three weeks back at Metairie to remain undefeated through five starts. His victory on Jan. 6, 1854, was in mile heats against Sallie Ward, considered one of the best mares in the South prior to the Civil War. Lecomte was finally defeated when he met up with Hall of Famer Lexington in the Great State Post Stakes in consecutive four-mile heats.

By early 1855, Lecomte had won nine of 10 races and owned American records for one and four miles. Lecomte and Lexington met once again April of 1855. Lecomte appeared to be in poor condition and was easily defeated by Lexington in the first heat. Lecomte was withdrawn prior to the second heat.

Lecomte developed a severe case of colic and died on Oct. 7, 1857. His overall record was 17:11-4-1 with earnings of $12,360.

The Museum’s Historic Review Committee considered only candidates from before 1900 this year. The Committee will review the era of 1900 through 1959 in 2025 and 1960 through 2000 in 2026.

In addition to his considerable impact on horse racing, Harry F. Guggenheim was a leading figure of publishing, mining, government service, aeronautics and philanthropy. Born in New Jersey in 1890, Guggenheim developed a passion for racing after graduating from Cambridge University. He became a significant figure in the sport as an owner, breeder and industry leader.

Under the name Cain Hoy Stable, Guggenheim won 540 races as an owner with purse earnings of $6.2 million. He also bred the winners of 1,230 races. Cain Hoy campaigned 1953 Kentucky Derby winner Dark Star, champion Bald Eagle, and Hall of Fame member Ack Ack .

Overall, Guggenheim bred 43 stakes winners, including a few in partnership.

Guggenheim, who was elected to The Jockey Club in 1951, was the leading breeder in total earnings in England and Ireland in 1963. He bred Ragusa, who raced for J. R. Mullion and won the Irish Derby, English St. Leger, and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes that year.

Along with Hall of Fame members John W. Hanes and Christopher T. Chenery, Guggenheim outlined a plan for a nonprofit to reorganize New York racing in the 1950s, which eventually led to the creation of the New York Racing Association. In 1969, with his health failing, Guggenheim dispersed all his stock except his stallions and homebred colt Ack Ack. His breeding stock went to Keeneland’s fall sale that year and his horses in training were sold at Belmont Park for a gross of $4,751,200 for 137 head, a record gross for a dispersal.

Guggenheim served in the Navy in World War I and World War II. During the first World War, he served in France, England and Ireland. Guggenheim was  stationed in the South Pacific during World War II as a tail gunner on a torpedo bomber. He rose to the rank of captain by the end of the war. Guggenheim was also the U.S. ambassador to Cuba from 1929 until 1933. 

Guggenheim died at the age of 80 in 1971.

Clement L. Hirsch was born in 1914 in St. Louis into a successful family of retail merchants. During his youth, Hirsch’s family moved to California. 

After serving in the Marine Corps in World War II and being involved in the invasion of Guadalcanal, Hirsch purchased his first racehorse in 1947. A member of The Jockey Club, Hirsch was successful with a number of horses imported from South America, among them the colt Figonero, who won the 1969 Hollywood Gold Cup and set a world record for 1 1/8 miles in winning the Del Mar Handicap. He was also successful with the filly Magical Maiden, who won the 1991 Hollywood Starlet and the 1992 Las Virgenes Stakes. In 1993, Magical Maiden won the Chula Vista Handicap at Del Mar, a race that track officials later renamed the Clement L. Hirsch Handicap.

While successful racing horses, Hirsch is best remembered in the sport as a co-founder and president of the Oak Tree Racing Association. In 1968, the operators of Del Mar decided to cancel their fall racing program and to host only a summer meet. Hirsch, along with other racing enthusiasts, and other racing enthusiasts, formed Oak Tree to annually host a fall meet at Santa Anita Park. It proved to be successful and Hirsch served as its president from its inception until his death in 2000. 

In 1998, Hirsch was awarded the Commissioners Cup by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association. He also served as a director of the Thoroughbred Racing Associations TRA and California Thoroughbred Breeders Association. He received a special Eclipse Award in 1999. Following his death in 2000, the Oak Tree Racing Association honored him by changing the Oak Tree Turf Championship Stakes to the Clement L. Hirsch Memorial Turf Championship for the 2000 renewal.

Hirsch’s legacy in the sport lives on. His mare Magical Maiden is the granddam of 2009 Kentucky Derby entrant Papa Clem and the 2021 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprinter winner Ce Ce through her Grade 1-winning daughter, Miss Houdini. Papa Clem and Ce Ce were both campaigned by Hirsch’s son, Bo Hirsch. 

Born in New York City in 1928, Joe Hirsch enjoyed a prolific journalism career that carried him from the eras of Citation and Native Dancer to the dawn of the 21st century. He earned a degree in journalism from New York University, then served in the United States Army for four years. Following his time in the military, Hirsch worked briefly for The New York Times before joining the staff at The Morning Telegraph. He then transitioned to its companion publication, Daily Racing Form, where he worked from 1954 through 2003 and became one of racing’s most impactful figures.  

Hirsch was the author of five books and the founder and first president of the National Turf Writers Association in 1959. He was instrumental in the creation of the Arlington Million in 1981. 

Hirsch won an Eclipse Award for outstanding newspaper writing in 1978 and the award of merit in 1992 for his lifetime of service. 

“Joe Hirsch was much more than just the dean of American racing writers for half a century. He was a global ambassador for the sport, a mentor to two generations of journalists, and probably the most universally respected figure in the world of horse racing,” said Steven Crist, a longtime colleague of Hirsch and former publisher of Daily Racing Form.