Newsreel Footage of Man O' War
 

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Dorothy Ours was doing some research and found this newsreel footage (no audio) of Man O' War pre-race and then the start and finish of the Lawrence Realization. Pretty incredible.

cool! but so brief...

isn't that the race he won by 100 lengths? (give or take a length!)

Doug just ruined another pair of tube socks.

Fantastic!

Nah.

He thinks MOW would be a nickel claimer these days, based on his figs.

Yup he beat Hoodwink at 100 lengths after Riddle's niece Mrs. Jeffords entered him as a sporting gesture to prevent a walkover. Per Wikipedia, the fount of all accurate knowledge, MOW still has the world record for 1 5/8 at 2:40 4/5 (I assume on dirt, I don't know the record on turf). Not the most traveled distance these days, but that's still pretty amazing. Even in that limited footage, it's hard for me not to see the class. Some horses just have that aura.

All they had was fixed cameras so the footage shows him moving through the range. Interesting to me is that for many years MOW was written of as being very hard to manage yet in the footage I have seen of him being saddled, handled, walked etc. he looks no less manageable than any racehorse.

Thanks for posting this - great to see!

You'd be surprised...but figures make themselves when the class levels are as simple as they were in those days, when you have post race form for every horse at a click, and when horses race more frequently and often with tighter form.

That said, he wasn't slow. Even compared to top horses in the 1910's and 1920's ... he was very fast.

I have him rated as very slightly the best 2yo of the 1910's decade and the best 3yo of the 1920's decade.

However, in terms of all-time greats discussions, he is massively overrated and probably because of his aura.

He came along right as American horse racing was coming out of a time period where it took an absolute beating...foal crops had been badly diminished -- racing was better in parts of Europe during this time. The good stock had suddenly been heading there -- where as later it would be imported here in a reverse type scenerio.

Whisk Broom was initally born here, but was sent to Europe where he had a 7-for-23 record and he ran just three races in America in 1913. He won them all and swept the elusive "New York Handicap Triple Crown" (Met Mile, Brooklyn, and Suburban)

He completed the Triple Crown sweep by winning the Suburban under 139lbs and running 2:00 flat for 1 1/4 miles at Belmont Park. He's in our Hall of Fame despite only making 3 career starts in the USA.

That's pretty incredible. I enjoyed watching the brief minute or so of it. There's a slightly creepy one of his funeral out there somewhere.