Count Turf
Count Turf | |
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Sire | U.S. Triple Crown wins: Kentucky Derby (1951) |
Honours | |
Count Turf Drive, Louisville, Kentucky | |
Last updated on May 27, 2010 |
Count Turf (April 27, 1948 – October 18, 1966) was a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who won the 1951 Kentucky Derby. His grandsire Reigh Count won the 1928 Kentucky Derby and his sire Count Fleet won the 1943 Kentucky Derby and went on to win the Triple Crown. The only other father/son/grandson combination to win the Kentucky Derby was Pensive, Ponder, and Needles.
Background
Bred and raised at Runnymede Farm near Paris, Kentucky, Count Turf was owned by New York City restaurateur Jack Amiel who bought him at a yearling sale for $3,700. Amiel named him Count for his sire and Turf for his Turf Restaurant in Times Square. In the mid-1950s, Amiel dispensed with his ownership of the Turf Restaurant and became a co-owner of next-door's Jack Dempsey's Broadway Restaurant.
Racing career
Racing at age two, Count Turf's best showings were second-place finishes in both the
In the 1951 Kentucky Derby, Count Turf was one of twenty horses entered.
For the ensuing two legs of the Triple Crown series, Count Turf did not run in Preakness Stakes but then finished seventh in the Belmont Stakes, twenty lengths back of winner Counterpoint. In October 1951, Count Turf was sent to race in California under the care of trainer Bill Finnegan. [2] Racing at age four and five, he met with limited success, his most notable performance a win in the 1953 Questionnaire Handicap at Jamaica Race Course but he came out of the race lame and was retired.[3]
Stud career
At stud, Count Turf stood at Almahurst Farm in Nicholasville, Kentucky, then at Elmhurst Farm near Lexington, and finally at Windy Hills Farm in Westminster, Maryland. As a sire, his accomplishments were modest, producing only two stakes race winners. One of those was Manassa Mauler, so-named by Jack Amiel for the widely known pugilistic nickname of his friend Jack Dempsey.
Count Turf died in 1966 and is buried at Windy Hills Farm.
Pedigree
Sire Count Fleet |
Reigh Count | Sunreigh | Sundridge* |
---|---|---|---|
Sweet Briar* | |||
Contessina | Count Schomberg | ||
Pitti | |||
Quickly | Haste | Maintenant | |
Miss Malaprop | |||
Stephanie | Stefan The Great | ||
Malachite | |||
Dam Delmarie |
Pompey | Sun Briar | Sundridge* |
Sweet Briar* | |||
Cleopatra | Corcyra | ||
Gallice | |||
Charming Note | Polymelian | Polymelus | |
Pasquita | |||
Alburn | Alcantara | ||
Face A Main |
References
- ^ "Seeing Is Believing". Time. May 14, 1951.
- ^ "Bill Finnegan Named Trainer of Count Turf". Los Angeles Times. October 19, 1951.
- ^ Kentucky New Era - July 20, 1953