Round Table (horse)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Round Table (1954-1987) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse who is considered the best turf horse in American racing history. Because most North American races are run on dirt tracks, he raced primarily on the dirt but won 14 of his 16 races on the grass.
Trained by Moody Jolley, at age two Claiborne Farm owner Arthur B. Hancock, Jr. sold an 80% interest in Round Table after his second start of the year to Oklahoma oilman Travis M. Kerr. His only significant win came in October when the colt won the Breeders' Futurity Stakes at Keeneland.
Racing at age three, with Kerr having hired William Molter as his trainer, Round Table won the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland in track record time. He then finished third to Calumet Farm's Iron Liege in the Kentucky Derby with the heavily favored Bold Ruler finishing 4th. After the Derby, Round Table was shipped back to race in California where he scored eleven consecutive wins, several of which would later become Grade I stakes races. He wound up the leading money winner of 1957 and won the first of three straight U.S. Champion Turf Horse titles.
In 1958, Round Table dominated American Thoroughbred racing. He began the year by capturing the races which are now known as the Strub Series at Santa Anita Park, becoming the first horse to win the Malibu Stakes, the San Fernando Stakes and the Santa Anita Maturity, now the Strub Stakes. He ended the racing season as the winner of every racing award available to him including Horse of the Year. Five years old in 1959, he won 9 of his 14 races and won his third Champion Turf Horse title. Retired at the end of the racing season to stand at stud at Claiborne Farm, Round Table became one of the most important sires of the 20th century, according to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.
Round Table sired 83 stakes winners and his worldwide reputation both in racing and as a sire was such that when racehorse owner Queen Elizabeth II visited Kentucky in 1984, she asked to see the famous 30-year-old horse.
Round Table lived to extreme old age, dying at the age of 33 in 1987. He is buried at Claiborne Farm.
[edit] References
- McEvoy, John. Round Table: Thoroughbred Legends (2002) Eclipse Press ISBN 1-58150-072-6
- Round Table's pedigree
