Horse Racing Fantasy Community

Great horseracing rivalries don't materialize as often as one would think. With the huge purses and super-lucrative breeding rights that are on the line in the contemporary climate of the highest level of thoroughbred racing, the opportunities for the best of the best to actually face each other on the track are few and far between. The very best horses don't race all that often anymore, if you look at the numbers. For instance the great mare Zenyatta, recently retired, finished her career at an impressive 14-0. Those 14 races she ran were spaced out over a career that lasted three years. That's not a knock against her at all, because over those 14 races she was able to win $5,474,580, which means that she averaged $391,041 per start! When that kind of money is on the line, it's easy to see why owners and trainers wouldn't be willing to send their star athletes out to the track with the frequency of earlier eras.
Another factor is the introduction of synthetic racing surfaces, which weren't in existence even 8 years ago, but are now so prevalent and accepted that The Breeders' Cup World Championships have been held on a synthetic track for the last two years. This factor was what kept the two best horses in the land in 2009, the great Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta, from facing each other in the Breeders' Cup Classic, denying fans the chance to settle the issue of Horse of the Year once and for all. With the stakes so high, it doesn't pay for a trainer to send his horse to compete on a surface that he's not sure his horse really likes, and that's why Rachel Alexandra's braintrust held her out. How can you blame them?
But let's face it, even if those two great female horses had faced each other in that star-studded event, a rivalry wouldn't have developed because it's unlikely they would have faced each other again. I think that it's a sad casualty of the current state of racing that rivalries just aren't in the cards. Oh, they can happen, but it would almost be an accident.
I like looking back to the old days, days when there were two types of racing surfaces, dirt and turf, and even the highest level of racing featured purses that weren't so astronomical. The result: the best of the best raced more frequently, and therefore the chances of rivalries happening were almost infinitely higher than they are now. Most people think of the 1978 rivalry between Affirmed and Alydar as the signature rivalry in the history of the sport, and with good reason. However, Dr. Fager and Damascus, like Affirmed and Alydar after them, were both great thoroughbreds. They didn't face each other as many times as the latter pair, but their meetings were highly anticipated and lived up to their billing. Damascus was great at 3, but he would be even more famously remembered if he hadn't finished a disappointing third in the Kentucky Derby. But he rebounded strongly that fall, capping his three-year old season with a smashing 22-length victory in the Travers Stakes. Dr. Fager was unable to run in that race because of a viral infection. Racing fans throughout America clamored for these two horses to face each other. Soon, they would get their wish.
Dr. Fager was always a great horse, even as a juvenile. He won 4 of 5 starts at 2, then had an impressive 3-year old campaign before going on to post on of the most remarkable seasons in racing history at 4, in 1968.

The highly anticipated matchup of these two amazing horses started when they were both three-year-olds, on April 15, 1967. After that first meeting, they would meet three more times. The late, great Harvery Pack narrates this incredible footage:

Damascus and Dr. Fager may have split their 4 meetings, but if you match them up in our great online racing game maybe you can break the tie between them and change history!