The National Museum of Racing will induct its 2012 Hall of Fame class Friday
at 10:30 a.m. (EDT) at the Fasig-Tipton sales pavilion in Saratoga Springs, New
York. Jockeys John Velazquez and Anthony Hamilton, trainers Roger Attfield and
Robert Wheeler, and racehorses Ghostzapper and Planet will be enshrined. Tom
Durkin, the track announcer for the New York Racing Association, will serve as
the event’s master of ceremonies.
The ceremony is free and open to the public. The inductions are also
available through a live stream on the Museum’s web site at
www.racingmuseum.org
and www.fasigtipton.com.
Radio coverage will be provided by Horse Racing Radio Network.
Through Monday, Velazquez has won 4,841 races and has earned more than $268
million. He won the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Jockey in 2004 and 2005 and
led all North American riders in earnings during those years. He led all New
York jockeys in wins from 2001 through 2004 and set a record with 65 wins at
Saratoga in 2004. Velazquez has won 22 riding titles at New York Racing
Association tracks and has nine Breeders’ Cup wins. He posted 50 Grade 1 wins
from 2006 through 2011. Velazquez won the Kentucky Derby in 2011 with Animal
Kingdom and the Belmont Stakes in 2007 with Rags to Riches and 2012 with Union
Rags. His other major victories include the Travers, Alabama, Champagne,
Sanford, Personal Ensign, Whitney, King’s Bishop, Hollywood Derby and Kentucky
Oaks.
Hamilton was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1866 and won many of the
most prestigious races of the 19th century. In 1890, Hamilton rode Potomac to
victory in the third edition of the Futurity, which at the time was the richest
race in American history with a purse of $67,675. That year, Hamilton led the
nation in winning percentage (31.2). In 1891, he boosted his national-best win
percentage to 33.8 and won 154 races to place second in the national standings.
In 1895, Hamilton won two of the most prominent races in the country by
taking the Brooklyn Handicap on Hornpipe and the Suburban Handicap aboard
Lazzarone. The next year, Hamilton added the third major New York handicap
event, the Metropolitan Handicap, with Counter Tenor. Hamilton is the only
African-American jockey to win all three of New York’s major handicap races.
During this era, these races were generally considered to be more important than
the likes of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes.
Hamilton’s other major victories included the American Derby (1887), Lawrence
Realization Stakes (1891), Monmouth Oaks (1889, 1890), Monmouth Invitational
Handicap (1889, 1892), Juvenile Stakes (1890), Gazelle Handicap (1887, 1890),
Nursery Stakes (1886), Flatbush Stakes (1889, 1890), Sapling Stakes (1891),
Swift Stakes (1892), Toboggan Handicap (1890), Twin City Handicap (1886, 1888,
1889, 1892, 1894), Great Trial Stakes (1892), Tidal Stakes (1891), Hudson Stakes
(1889), and St. Louis Derby (1888), among others.
Through Monday, Attfield has saddled the winner of 1,745 races and has purse
earnings of more than $90 million. He has won the Sovereign Award for
Outstanding Canadian Trainer a record eight times and trained three Canadian
Triple Crown winners (Izvestia, With Approval, and Peteski). Attfield has won a
record-tying eight runnings of the Queen’s Plate and seven editions of the
Canadian Breeders’ Stakes. He won his first Breeders’ Cup race in 2011 when
Perfect Shirl took the Filly and Mare Turf. Attfield is a member of the Canadian
Racing Hall of Fame. The many other stakes races he has won in the United States
include the Wood Memorial, Flower Bowl, Shadwell Turf Mile, Maker’s Mark Mile,
Elkhorn, Yellow Ribbon, Orchid, and Carter Handicap.
Wheeler, whose career spanned from 1938 through 1992, won 1,336 races and
trained for prominent owners such as C.V. Whitney, J. Rukin Jelks, Greentree
Stable, and Nelson Bunker Hunt. He conditioned 56 stakes-winning horses,
including 1982 Champion Older Female Track Robbery. The majority of his career
predates the grading of races, but from 1976 on he won 18 of the 69 (26 percent)
graded stakes his horses ran in and 44 of his 175 (25 percent) overall stakes
attempts. In 1959 and 1960, Wheeler’s West Coast-based division included Tompion,
winner of the Santa Anita Derby, Blue Grass Stakes, and Malibu, and the distaff
pair of Bug Brush and Silver Spoon. Bug Brush won six stakes at 4 and set a
world record the day she beat males Hillsdale and Terrang in the San Antonio
Stakes. Silver Spoon, a member of the Hall of Fame, won 10 stakes in two years,
including the trainer’s first of back-to-back wins in the Santa Anita Derby, in
which she defeated Preakness winner Royal Orbit. He also sent out five winners
of the Hollywood Juvenile Championship, which prior to the Breeders’ Cup era was
one of the nation’s top races for 2-year-olds. From 1959 through 1969, Wheeler
was on the leaders list of the top 30 North American trainers seven times in
terms of earnings. His division accounted for more than 60 percent of the
earnings of the C.V. Whitney stable when it led all owners in 1960.
Ghostzapper, a son of Awesome Again out of the Relaunch mare Baby Zip, won
nine of 11 career starts and earned $3,446,120. He was named Horse of the Year
and Champion Older Male in 2004 when he posted a 4-for-4 record. Trained by Hall
of Fame member Bobby Frankel, Ghostzapper won the 2004 Breeders’ Cup Classic in
stakes-record time, covering the 1 1/4-mile distance in 1:59.02. That year, he
also won the Woodward Stakes, Tom Fool Handicap and Iselin Handicap. At three,
Ghostzapper won the Vosburgh Stakes. He closed out his career with a victory in
the Metropolitan Handicap at age five. Ghostzapper raced for Frank Stronach and
is currently a stallion at Stronach’s Adena Springs in Kentucky.
Foaled in Virginia at Maj. Thomas W. Doswell’s Bullfield Stable in 1855,
Planet was sired by Revenue out of the Boston mare Nina. Planet was a sensation
from the start. He made his debut with a victory over four others in mile heats
for a purse of $10,750 in Fairfield, Virginia, on May 4, 1858, and went on to
establish a record for career purse earnings that stood for 20 years. Planet
displayed his remarkable skill and versatility by compiling a record of 27-4-0
from 31 starts and earning $69,700. Known as “The Great Red Fox,” Planet was
regarded by many turf experts to be second only to the mighty Lexington among
the greatest American racehorses prior to the Civil War.
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