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Ruffian Ronnie Dee
(c) Copyright 2026 by Ronnie Dee
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I am in my eighties, so I remember her well. She was born April 17, 1972. Her sire was Reviewer, who was injured three times during his three year racing career. He was a son of the great Bold Ruler. Her dam was Shenanigans, a daughter of Native Dancer. Enough pedigree to earn you a spot on any racetrack.
If you were born after 1965, you may not know much about the dynamo named Ruffian. She was a big, strong thoroughbred filly like Winning Colors, only better. A dark bay, almost black horse, with a small white mark on her forehead, a beautiful animal who literally loved the racetrack. It said that she would get very excited whenever she saw a track. She just wanted to run and if you ran against her, she didn't want to beat you, she wanted to bury you.
The world fell in love with Secretariat in 1973, when he won the triple crown and set all of those records and Ruffian came right behind him and blasted into the hearts of racing fans on May 25, 1974, when she won her first race by 15 lengths. She went off at 4-1 odds and won a 5 1/2 furlong sprint by 15 lengths. That actually sounds impossible to do, but she did it. It was the only time in her career that she raced with positive odds. She was odds on, and I mean really odds on, like 1-10 or 1-20, in every other race, and she ran in some big races.
Women all over the world loved her and so did a lot of men. But there was a real caveat: love her as you will, it did no good to bet on her. If you put $20 on her nose, you would make a $1 profit. Not much of a risk/reward thing is it?
Ruffian ran in ten actual races. The last was a match race against 1975 Kentucky Derby winner, Foolish Pleasure, which quickly ended in disaster. He was a a fine colt who won 11 of 14 races,
In her first ten races, she always took the lead immediately and increased it until the end. She won eight stakes races, five of them Grade one. In 1975, she won the "filly triple crown," which consisted of the Acorn Stakes, the Mother Goose Stakes and the 1 1/2 mile Coaching Club American Oaks, by a combined 24 1/2 lengths. No one ever got closer than 2 3/4 lengths in her career. She won by an average of 8 1/4 lengths for her career. She was big and powerful and intimidated the other fillies. Just to prove that she never dogged it, She set race or track records in every race she ran. She was filly of the year in 1974 and 1975. She was magnificent.
Pari-Mutuel wagering is set up so you are betting against other bettors and not the track. In the Comely Stakes at Aqueduct in 1975, Ruffian was bet down to 1-20 odds, which meant that, by law, the track has to pay you at least 5¢ on a dollar. If you bet two dollars on Ruffian to win, you would get $2.10 back.
But the betting on Ruffian was so heavy that the track went over $36,000 in the hole. That is a very rare occurrence.
An even rarer occurrence was in her charts. The racing charts show her in the lead at every call in every race. In other words, she took off as soon as the gate opened and she did not look back. This is so unusual that I don't know how to describe it. The Daily Racing Form charts all of the races everywhere. They note the position of every horse in every race that day. They note the position at least at every quarter, depending on the distance of the race. Ruffian was listed #1 on every chart at every position in every race she entered. That is phenomenal; an astounding accomplishment. The highly regarded Beyer Speed Rating, gave her a 94+ on nine of her ten races. That is also quite exceptional.
Ruffian was said to be all business. She was not mean, but she was very intelligent and didn't tolerate any foolishness. She would allow her stall to be tended to, but then get out, she wanted to be alone. She knew when it was race day and she was single minded. All she wanted to do was run, and vanquish her foes. And that she did. Unfortunately the Breeders' Cup races were not around during her time.
These thoroughbred horses are born and bred to run. It is as simple as that. They are athletes, big and muscular and beautiful. They know they are special. Ruffian was the biggest, fastest and most beautiful of all. And she knew it. She was sometimes called "Queen of the Fillies" and "The Black Queen."
The only other fillies who can be mentioned in the same breath as her are the superfillies, Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra, although Regret, the 1915 Derby winning filly ran in eleven races, winning nine and losing by a nose in one. She never lost to another filly.
Wayne Lucas' Winning Colors, the big grey filly won the 1988 Derby and had a pretty good career and Genuine Risk, the 1980 Derby winner, ran second in the Preakness and Belmont, becoming the only filly to run in all three Triple Crown races. They were all good horses, but none was close to Ruffian.
When the big match race was set up, jockey Jacinto Vasquez was the rider of both horses. He chose to ride Ruffian in the mile and a quarter contest, although he really didn't want the race to happen at all. He was certain Ruffian would win and it would prove nothing by doing so. Now a match race between her and Secretariat would have been something, but he was retired and no longer in training.
I read in a magazine that Vasquez likened Ruffian to Marilyn Monroe. He felt like: there was Marilyn and then there was everybody else; likewise, there was Ruffian, then there was everybody else.
This was 1975, right in the middle of the women's movement. Male vs female competition was at its peak. So a colt vs filly match race was a natural attraction. There had been a highly publicized race between Seabiscuit and War Admiral in 1938, but not a lot since then. Seabiscuit won, but War Admiral had won the triple crown, so nothing was really gained by the race.
Ruffian had been rested for several months when, as a two year old, she received a quarter crack in her right hind foot, but that happens, and after a long rest, she was running better than ever and the crack had been forgotten.
So on July 6, 1975, at Belmont Park, the match race was set up and a huge crowd was anxiously awaiting the event. Ruffian was, as usual, ready to go. She was standing in gate three, a little away from the rail and Foolish Pleasure was in gate four. There were 50,000 people in attendance and a TV audience of millions. Fortunately, I was not one of them.
When the bell rang and the gates opened, Ruffian uncharacteristically bumped her left shoulder on the gate and lost a step. Foolish Pleasure suffered no obstacles and bolted to the lead. Ruffian didn't like that and quickly caught up and had gotten her head in front when she took a bad step.
That is all it takes to ruin a brilliant career. Vasquez heard an audible "pop" and felt Ruffian give. He immediately tried to stop her, but the filly didn't want to quit. He got her stopped and jumped off. He could clearly see that she was in massive trouble as she had sustained a compound fracture of her right front leg. Help came quickly, but it was too late to help much. Ruffian still fought her handlers because of the pain and confusion she was feeling.
They got her in a van and off to the barn and then to a vet hospital. If it had been any other horse, they would have euthanized her right there on the track, but because of who she was, they would try to save her. But they were all experienced horsemen and they knew it was hopeless. Ruffian had shattered both sesamoid bones in the leg and it was compound and there was a lot of dirt in the makeshift cast and she was frightened and in shock and kept fighting to get up and there was nothing they could do to save her. She kept thrashing around in the hospital, making things worse, so they finally, sadly, put her to sleep.
The fans at the track and all over the world, who had watched on TV were sickened at this turn of events. Unbelievably, the great Ruffian was dead at three.
Lucien Lauren, Secretariat's trainer, had looked at her at age two and remarked that she might be as good as Secretariat. What blasphemy! But that is what even experts thought of her.
She was buried whole at the track with her nose pointed toward the finish line and a plaque commemorating her accomplishments was placed over her grave. When a racehorse dies and the owners feel they are worthy, usually, just the head and hoofs are actually buried. It is a special honor to be buried whole.
Because of extensive work being done at Belmont in 2023, her remains were exhumed and taken to Claiborne Farms in Kentucky, her birthplace, for permanent rest.
It has been over fifty years ago and people still cry when speaking of her. There is something that touches our hearts when a valiant animal like a police or war dog or beloved race horse dies so senselessly.
Ruffian has had a half-dozen books written about her and a movie was made about her. In Lexington, a road is named after her. People have not forgotten her and her legacy will stand.
Ruffian never needed any stimuli to go racing. Just show her the track and she was gone. There was probably no horse, ever, who loved the art of running and winning with more grit, speed and determination than Ruffian.
God
bless you big girl, we may never see another one like you.