25 Favorite Events

Tomorrow is my 25th birthday. In honor of that, I thought it would be a good time to count down my 25 favorite events in horse racing. Most of these are races, but some of them are births of foals. The other note is that all of these events will have happened during the time I was born (so no Triple Crown moments :() Also most of these events took place within the last 10 years as that's how long I've been following racing. With that here we go!

25. Birth of Smarty Jones' first foal: Even though 2003 was the first year I followed horse racing, Smarty mania made me a fan. His first foal a filly out of Shoppingwithbetty was adorable!

24. Zenyatta's Classic win: Zen fans please calm down, it's not that I didn't enjoy her win. It's that well... she was far from my favorite racehorse. That being her win against 2 horses who their division honors that year in 2009 and the Derby winner? That is impressive. Her heartbreaking loss the next year well was heartbreaking for me.

23. English Channel finally winning the BC Turf: After several years of trying, the Smart Strike colt was finally able to get thorough to the BC winners circle. Although he was a bit overshadowed by his now stallionmate Curlin who won the Classic that same day.

22. Rockcide giving birth to her first foal: The 1/2 sister to Funny Cide foaled a Roman Ruler colt. Named Rule, he would go onto become G1 placed.

21. Afleet Alex winning the Hopeful: To see a horse from the closest track to my house was very cool. Of course Alex went onto do bigger and better things which you will see later on in this list.

20. Seeing Unbridled Belle win both the Obeah and DelCap: Man did that girl love Delaware. She won in every year she made a start at the track. I can't wait to see her foals hopefully in a few years. 

19. Funny Cide's final race: This will be the only Gutsy Gelding race in the teens. He ended his career July 4th, 2007 in the Wadsworth Memorial at Finger Lakes. I was so happy that he was able to end his career the way he began it, with a win!

18. Personal Ensign ends her career undefeated: The 1988 Breeders' Cup Distaff defeating both Goodbye Halo who won the Oaks that year and Winning Colors who had beat the boys in the Derby. 

17. Dead Heat in the Travers: How cool was that! Alpha and Golden Ticket battling it out  for the win. The right result had happened and both sets of connections where happy.

16. Rachel Alexandra winning the Golden Rod: I had been following her since June of 2008 and was ecstatic that she had won for her first Graded Stakes race. Little did we know what would happen!

15. Rockport Harbor wins the Remsen: It wasn't that he won by so little, it was that he did it with guts! Unfortanlly an injury suffered in the race might have cost him what could have been a great career.

14. Rags to Riches winning the Oaks: To defeat a field that included Cotton Blossom, Dreaming of Anna and Octave? That was freaking impressive. But what she did 5 weeks later... would be historical. 

13. Births of Jess's Dream and Cozmic One: Better known as the first born sons of Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta respectively. It would be very funny if they ever face off on the track. But I'm not getting my hopes up.

12. Funny Cide winning the Sleepy Hallow: Sure it was only a NY bred race, but he hold off Spite the Devil who would be a Graded Stakes winner in his own right.

11. Hard Spun winning the Port Penn: The first time that I had seen a race in person. Honestly skipping most of my math class was the best decision that I could make.

10. Smarty Jones wins the Derby: All the pressure in the world and he gets it done. Starts what would be a four year run of popular runners from the Mid-Atlantic area.  

9. Kip Deville wins the BC Mile: One of my favorite horses of all time. He became the second OK bred to win a Breeders' Cup race.

8. Rachel Alexandra wins the Oaks: One of my favorite races of all time. It wasn't who she beat, it was how she did it.

7. Street Sense's Derby: Even though I was rooting for Hard Spun, I was so happy that the Juvy winner was able to break the Jinx. Of course he would go onto win the Travers.

6. Havre de Grace and Blind Luck's duel: That DelCap will go down as the possible best race in the past 10 years. It was the sixth race that they faced each other and honestly the best if the bunch.

5. Rags to Riches wins the Belmont: Boys vs girl with of course the fairer sex winning! Gave her trainer and jockey their first TC win.

4. Hard Spun's King's Bishop win: It was his only G1 win of his career, but he was very gutsy to turn back the challenge of First Defense. Had there not been any Street Sense or Curlin well... We would be talking about the 3yo Champ.

3. Afleet Alex's Preakness win: Talk about having your heart in your throat. The infamous bump and run which Alex prevailed over Scrappy T.

2. Rachel Alexandra's Woodward win: There could be many things that I could say a out this race, but the fact she won under that pressure? That takes a ton of heart to get it done. Something that she had.

1. The horse that started it all for me, Funny Cide: That 2003 Derby would be the race that got me interested in racing. His Preakness got me believing that I was going to see something special, of course he came up just short in the Belmont, but never gave up on him.