IMPROBABLE LUCK'S ROYAL BLOODLINES: TWO TRIPLE CROWN WINNERS
Improbable Luck’s pedigree. The Triple Crown winners are highlighted in red.
They say that winning the Triple Crown of American horse racing is the hardest thing to do in all sports. If you don't know what that is, the Triple Crown is a series of three races run in five weeks. The first race is the Kentucky Derby. This is the hardest race to win in the world. You can not buy it, but some people spend their lives trying to. The best horse does not often win. The Preakness Stakes is run two weeks later. You have to face a fresh field of horses and perhaps some of the best horses from the Derby whose connections feel their horse should have won. You cut back in distance and have to run in a different state. The last race is the Belmont Stakes. This is run in New York and is known as the Test of the Champion. It is the longest race in the series, and it tests a horse's pedigree and a jockey's skills. It also takes a master trainer to prepare a horse for this race. These three races are limited to three-year-old horses. This means a horse only has one chance in its life to run in each. Only thirteen horses have won it. Each one was a freak. Two Triple Crown winners appear in Improbable Luck's pedigree.
SECRETARIAT
Secretariat winning the 1973 Preakness Stakes.
The first horse is Secretariat. In 1973, Secretariat swept the Triple Crown, breaking a 25-year drought. He was so dominant in his wins that he still holds that track record in all three races. More astonishing is the different styles he displayed in winning each race. In the Derby, he came from last place to win going away. In the Preakness, he made a tremendous move around the first turn and carried his speed to the finish. In the Belmont Stakes, he went wire to wire by a startling 31 lengths. Upon his death he was autopsied. His heart weighed nearly three times the weight of an average thoroughbred's heart. However, no horse displayed more heart than the other Triple Crown winner in Improbable Luck's pedigree.
SEATTLE SLEW
Seattle Slew winning the 1977 Kentucky Derby.
Seattle Slew was arguably the greatest bargain in the history of thoroughbred racing. Purchased for the low price of $17,500, his owners never had to work another day in their lives. Slew rocketed through the Triple Crown undefeated. Slew was what old-timers call "a boss hoss." This is another term for Alpha male. Other horses were terrified of him and refused to run with him. This also included the two times he raced against a fellow Triple Crown winner, Affirmed. Slew hated to lose, and in his Jockey Club Gold Cup loss of 1978 he gets passed by a horse named Exceller, and makes an astonishing rally to almost pass him just before the wire. In the breeding shed Seattle Slew passed on his tremendous will to win to his children. As long as horses are running you can be sure that there will be offspring of Seattle Slew in the very best of them.
IMPROBABLE LUCK
There is a saying in racing that goes, "When it comes to breeding, you breed the best to the best and hope for the best." Improbable Luck's bloodlines are filled with some of the best names ever to set foot on a track. Secretariat and Seattle Slew are just a few of those names. Fingers crossed, he soon steps onto the track and makes his ancestors proud.