Count Fleet – One Of The Best Two Year Old Race Horses Ever

By Author: Lee Lane-Edgar
Total Articles: 365
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Count Fleet had one of the most spectacular two year old campaigns of all time, and was ranked by Bloodhorse magazine as the 5th greatest U.S. Thoroughbred racehorse of the 20th century. He was racing’s sixth Triple Crown winner.
He was born on March 24, 1940 at Stoner Creek Farm in Kentucky, sired by 1928 Kentucky Derby winner Reigh Count out of a mare called Quickly.
Count Fleet started his career comparatively early in contrast to today’s thoroughbreds, making his debut on June 1, 1942. He got off to a slow start as he finished second after swerving at the start and he ran out of ground in the short 5 furlong race. In his second race, he encountered some trouble early on and again finished a fast closing second.
It was not until his third start that the breakthrough occurred, which came on June 19, 1942 at Aqueduct racetrack, in which he went off at below even money odds. He justified his favoritism and drew off by 4 lengths.
He proceeded to win five of his next seven starts, and then he showed that he of the stuff legends are made of. While preparing for the Belmont Futurity, Count Fleet worked ...
... an astonishing six furlongs in 1:08 1/5 - unprecedented for a horse of any age at any time. Four clockers timed him, so there was no mistake. The work time was a full second off the track record. The blazing work probably took something out of him as he went on to finish third in that race. However, he would never lose again in his career.
In his final four starts at two and his six starts at three, Count Fleet would stamp himself as one of the great thoroughbreds of all time, drawing comparisons from some to the legendary Man o’ War.
He served notice of his potential greatness in the one-mile Champagne Stakes at Belmont which he won easily by 6 lengths in a track record time of 134 and 4/5, and which would not be broken until 1977 by another great two year old that went by Seattle Slew.
All his future victories came with ridiculous ease, and he rattled off 10 consecutive victories, none with a winning margin of less than 3 ½ lengths, and which included two victories of 25 or more lengths.
He then easily trounced an allowance field in preparation for the Pimlico Futurity on October 31, 1942 in which he equaled the track record and easily defeated his former rival Occupation by five lengths, the same margin by which Occupation had defeated Count Fleet in the Belmont Futurity earlier that month.
Count Fleet went off as the second choice to favorite Occupation, no doubt due to his having been defeated by that one twice previously, but from this point on he would go favored for the remainder of his career, the betting public never letting him escape for anything better than 40 cents on the dollar.
The largest margin of victory Count Fleet would register came in his final race of his 2-year-old season, the Walden Stakes under 122 pounds. He won by 30 lengths.
He set or equaled two track records as a 2-year-old – three if you count the legendary 108 and 1 work, and completed his two-year-old season by winning 10 of 15 starts (today we are lucky if we get to see a horse race more than three times as a 2-year-old). He never finished out of the money in those 15 starts.
Needless to say, he was named the American Champion Two-Year-Old Male Horse of 1942. Such is his renown that today two races are named in his honor, the Count Fleet Stakes at Aqueduct and the Count Fleet Sprint Handicap at Oaklawn.
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