Ruffian’s Day, a Different Time

E.S. Lamoreaux III won four national television Eclipse Awards and was a founding producer and the long-time executive producer of “CBS News Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt.” He reflected on Ruffian’s death for The Rail.

I’ve been reading all the various takes on Eight Belles’s death, including the “Brought to you by Yum Brands” conundrum, and it brings to mind what a different place racing, indeed the country itself, was in when Ruffian went down in her match race at Belmont on a July Fourth weekend 33 years ago.

I was the CBS producer of weekend newscasts. My old travelling companion Heywood Hale Broun was there to report for us and for CBS Sports, which carried the event. The audience, 18 million, was the largest ever to watch a thoroughbred race. When Ruffian went down there was a collective gasp in the studio. There was sadness, but no rancor.

Ruffian was a seasoned racehorse, a maturing 3-year-old who was undefeated in 10 races. Eight Belles was a baby by comparison. It was said that Ruffian was more mature, more muscular than Secretariart. They both had Bold Ruler in their pedigree.

Woodie Broun was visibly moved as he looked into the camera for his signoff and spoke these words to the millions hoping for a miracle. “We do know that Ruffian, never beaten, has lost a race. How much more than that she has lost rests in the hands of the veterinarians who will strive very hard to keep greatness alive. This is Heywood Hale Broun at Belmont Park in New York.”

Simple, poignant and elegant. It was pretty much all America had to go on except for the printed word. Compare that to the babble of the 24-hour newscasts of today. Ruffian was euthanized the next day.

Years later, reflecting on Ruffian’s career, Woodie said: “The remarkable thing about Ruffian was that until the moment of the tragic accident, no horse had ever been in front of her. In her regal and majestic way she denied the lead to one and all. She was not going to allow it if it killed her. And it did kill her. As a sporting tragedy it is ahead of anything I can remember.”

But then Woodie Broun, the traditionalist, didn’t live to see the Derby renamed, “The Kentucky Derby brought to you by Yum Brands.”

Comments are no longer being accepted.

Janet May 8, 2008 · 3:04 pm

I am not so sure that Mr.Lamoreaux’s memories are entirely correct. I loved Ruffian and followed her career with great devotion. I can remember the horror I felt when she went down, and the grim comment made by Foolish Pleasure’s trainer, LeRoy Jolley after the race to the effect that it was a shame, but that is horse racing. I can remember too, the bitterness that some who were part of the nacent woman’s movement felt and also the ugly rumors that Ruffian was put down to collect the insurance. For years after I lost all interest in horseracing which was difficult since my family was involved. For me the passing years have brought some closure. I am grateful that she did not spent years as a broodmare producing foal after foal and dying of colic induced by an overworked reproductive system like Winning Colors and Lady’s Secret. I will always remember that Ruffian went out on the lead and died a warrior’s death. Thinking of her still brings tears to my eyes.

Mary Kaye Vavasour May 8, 2008 · 3:12 pm

This reflection brings to mind numerous ironies, given the context in which we are recalling Ruffian. Stuart Janney III, who was just appointed the head of the Jockey Club’s Thoroughbred Safety Committee is the son of Ruffian’s breeder/owner, who was roundly condemned for entering her in the match race. Her sire, Reviewer, was notoriously unsound, having broken down three times before being retired to stud. He was a son of Native Dancer, who is present in the pedigrees of all of the last Kentucky Derby’s starters (and 75% of all thoroughbreds)…these issues are literally in the DNA of the racing world, whose inbreeding in not confined to just its horses.

Smileyjane May 8, 2008 · 7:09 pm

I believe that they operated on Ruffian, but when she came out of the anesthetic, she started fighting her restraints, and rebroke the leg. Horses who survive serious injuries and the surgery and care they require, are generally patient and easy to handle, as Barbaro was. So, they did not kill her for the insurance. Generally, matchraces are exceptionally hard on the two horses running, because there is no let up from gate to wire. In some sense, Ruffian’s experience is analogous to Eight Belles’–at the end of the Derby, when it was only Eight Belles and Big Brown, she seems to have seen it as a matchrace, and to have had the same desire to prevail.

laserRob May 8, 2008 · 8:14 pm

“Compare that to the babble of the 24-hour newscasts of today.”

Quantity vs. Quality. Sounds familiar.

Anyway, had the Internet existed in Ruffian’s day todays racing landscape would be………….

Change will come sooner than later.

Hopefully you’re around in 10 years to write:

Eight Belle’s Day, A Decade of Change

Rob

maryann727 May 8, 2008 · 8:33 pm

Ruffian did break her leg again as Smileyjane states. One advantage Barbaro had in addition to advancements in repairing equine fractures, is waking from the anesthesia suspended in a recovery pool so he was protected from reinjuring himself.

For anyone who is interested in knowing more of the details, William Nack writes about the efforts to save her in his memoir “Ruffian, A Racetrack Romance” (pages 100-107) He also provides much information about why the Janneys finally agreed to the match race with Foolish Pleasure.

dsadel May 9, 2008 · 6:39 am

I think one big difference was that back in the 1970s the American public had not seen a steady stream of high profile horses in high profile races suffer fatal breakdowns on the racetrack. Ruffian’s accident was seen as–well–an accident.

Eight Belle’s death is part of a pattern. The best bet at the Breeder’s Cup is that some horse or other is going to die. I’ve pretty much stopped watching it. The Triple Crown–which had been pretty safe is getting the same way–let’s see Charismatic, Barbaro now Eight Belles is getting to that level.

The Thoroughbred industry is going to have to make some big changes in order to survive. Unfortunately, with all of the money involved, I doubt they are going to be willing to do what it is going to take.

joe May 9, 2008 · 1:40 pm

Nack’s book is very good, but let’s not forget Jane Schwartz’s Ruffian: Burning from the Start. Now, reading Joe Dape’s To The Swift, a goldmine of past writings on the triple crown, I understand how we have lost an appreciation of the written word. Those writers were artists, as opposed to the breathless shouters of television, and the misinformed instant experts of the internet.

Crissie May 14, 2008 · 7:21 pm

Thanks to Janet for mentioning the rising women’s movement in connection with Ruffian’s match race. Those of us who were around and involved at the time remember how the race felt like a referendum on women’s worth, idiotic as that sounds. This was less than two years after the notorious Billie Jean King-Bobby Riggs “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match, which had the same emotional resonance — in some stupid way Billie Jean was fighting to show that women had the right to take up space and breathe oxygen. And of course in 1975 we were also fighting for more states to ratify the (doomed) ERA. Ruffian was carrying a huge symbolic weight on her muscular shoulders and blown-glass ankles, and I will never forget that freshly-harpooned feeling I got when the TV showed her falling behind and then going down. The Wikipedia article about her claims that she banged up her shoulder coming out of the gate and was running hurt, and that when her jockey realized this he tried to pull her up, but that Ruffian, who loved to run and was a fierce competitor and had never been behind another horse in a race, flat-out refused and essentially ran her leg to shreds rather than quit. I still can’t even call her name to mind without tearing up.

susan May 16, 2008 · 12:58 am

Correction to a post above:
Ruffian’s fragile sire, Reviewer, was not by
Native Dancer; he was by Bold Ruler, sire
of Secretariat. Ruffian was a granddaughter
of Native Dancer on the side of her dam
(Shenigans).

Ruffian had incurred a compound (open) fracture,
and probably would have died of infection
even if she had been cooperative during her
recuperation.

As terrible as it is to see horses injured,
I dread the day when we may see a jockey
killed on live TV. For make no mistake;
horse racing is dangerous for its human
athletes, as well. Jockeys are killed and
crippled regularly, albeit not as frequently
as are the horses.

Multiple factors are probably to blame for
the current fragility of the thoroughbred.
But think about this: since (I would estimate)
mid-20th century, modern medicine has saved
many horses, allowing them to race successfully,
and to live to be bred. In earlier times,
many would have died; others would have survived,
but would have remained obscure, and their
bloodlines less coveted. But today, routine x-rays catch bone chips or hairline fractures before
they escalate into catastrophic injury; surgeries “cure” minor (and sometimes not minor) fractures.

As mentioned in a previous post, Reviewer, sire of Ruffian, broke down three times; the great
filly of the ’80’s, Personal Ensign, raced with screws in her leg. Personal Ensign went to become a very successful broodmare. Would either horse have even survived to be bred, had they
lived in, say, 1920? This has been going on
for half a century or so. No doubt some
horses break down because of a bad step/bad
luck, but surely some are breaking down
because of weak or brittle bone. I would
guess it is difficult, or often even impossible,
to to tell the difference. But both groups have
been entering the gene pool for five or more
generations of thoroughbreds, and continue to do so.

I have a friend who races a small string,
and owns a broodmare. She tells me it is
difficult to obtain the medical/orthopedic
history of the stallions she is considering as studs. (She is not breeding to expensive,
top-of-the-line horses whose racing careers
are well known.) She is trying to be a
responsible breeder, but the industry
does not make it easy.

Rachel April 27, 2011 · 6:29 pm

A jockey was already killed on the track. At Los Alamitos I believe. A horse had stepped on the back of his head or neck after he fell from his horse. He was just about to get up when it happened :( a dangerous sport but very thrilling to watch. Keep it mind the good sides to racing also, for it it not always a bad thing.