[QUOTE=5chestnuts;3453381]
I told him the last time I had driven through the farm was when Bruce Smart had been there to take photos of GR for a book he was writing – and Bruce ended up taking photos of my pair as well. So, both my pair and GR ended up with photos in Bruce’s book.[/QUOTE]
There’s going to be a third one, isn’t there? I sure enjoyed the first two.
GR was a queen–it’s nice to hear that her final resting place is befitting.:yes:
Run with the Wind dear lady.
Such heart. Such class. Such a grand old lady. I’m glad her ending was peaceful for her.
My eulogy for Genuine Risk from my journal tonight:
I always wanted a horse as a kid. I was able to ride a pony now and then, but I wanted a horse totally my own, and even then, as the grade-school perfectionist, I wanted to do things with that horse. Not just ride around the backyard. Not necessarily win the Olympics, either, although I have often from a young age imagined myself there. But I wanted to ride right. My childhood dreams were not of “having fun.” I wanted to give that horse what it deserved, to do it right. I had no doubt, even as a very young kid, that there was a right way and a wrong way to have horses, as there was in almost all other things in life. Doing it right, for me, was having fun.
But horses were not just other things in life, they were living beings, and they had a romance, a mystery, a majesty to them that household pets didn’t approach. I wanted the partnership, to share in that mystery, to dance the dance together, and to do it right. I wanted to know my horse and be worthy of it.
All of this in abstract, since I did not have a horse of my own until my mid teens. Once I started lessons at age 12, I dreamed of buying my favorite lesson horse someday. But the first specific horse that I fell in love with, for that individual horse, not just as a representative horse, came a few years before those lessons started. Her name was Genuine Risk.
A big chestnut filly who was a tomboy, she was undefeated up until her final Kentucky Derby prep in 1980, and she did well enough there that even though she didn’t win that one, she went on to the Kentucky Derby. A filly had not won since Regret way back in the early 1900s, but Genuine Risk’s encourage were not just going for historical or gender interest in the race. They really thought their horse, on her merits as a racehorse, not as a filly, could win.
And win she did. I was watching on TV in my grandparents’ living room, actually the first time I had ever seen a horse race. I still remember the announcer’s call in the stretch: “It’s Genuine Risk, and she’s genuine!” She powered on defiantly, claiming a decisive victory over the colts. Two weeks later, she finished second in a controversial Preakness Stakes in which many, myself included, thought she should have won by disqualification of the sole horse to finish ahead of her. I had tripped across the Derby broadcast by accident; I specifically looked for the Preakness two weeks later. She continued to the Belmont Stakes, the third race in the Triple Crown, and ran well to place there. Tough as nails, never backing down from a tussle. That was Genuine Risk.
It wasn’t the filly over colts angle that made me a fan. It was THAT filly with her muscular chestnut body, her blaze (to this day my favorite marking for a horse), and her attitude. I followed her career. I dreamed in my childhood naivety of someday buying her as a broodmare for my eventual stable. I followed her own trials at being a broodmare - many, many tries, only two successful births. I even named a small, sort of golden (among other colors) kitten with a sort-of-blaze and socks Genuine Risk when I rescued her early last summer. Jenny, as she grew to barncat-hood, amply demonstrated the tough-as-nails philosophy that made her namesake a champion.
This morning, Genuine Risk, age 31, the oldest living Kentucky Derby winner, was turned out into her paddock as usual. She took a few bites of grass, and then she lay down and, a few minutes later, died. Like her races, her passing was done on her own terms.
Farewell, champion of my childhood.
A few additional and/or clarifying bits from The Daily Racing Form:
“She never had a sick day in her life, and she was fine this morning,” Bert Firestone said. Firestone said Newstead manager John Moore fed Genuine Risk as usual Monday morning before turning her out for the day.
“She jogged away and ate a couple of bites of grass, then she turned around and started to come back and laid down,” Firestone said. “She tried to get up a couple of times, then just put her head down and went to sleep. She lived a very long life and a great life, and we were glad that it was so easy and peaceful.”
Genuine Risk produced only two live foals during her time at Three Chimneys Farm in Midway, Ky. The first was the colt Genuine Reward, by Rahy, in 1993, and the second was the Chief Honcho colt Count Our Blessing in 1996. Both were unraced. Genuine Reward has become a successful polo sire in Wyoming, while Count Our Blessing is a show hunter in New York.
Genuine Risk has been buried on a patch of lawn surrounded by flowers across from the Firestones’s house at Newstead. Bert Firestone said the family will plant a horseshoe of roses around or over the grave.
As for the much debated dispute with the Codex-Genuine Risk incident in the 1980 Preakness, her trained the legend LeRoy Jolley:
“It’s hard to say whether she’d have won,” Jolley said. “Obviously, Codex ran very well that day, and she certainly didn’t benefit from the incident. It had to cost her a pretty good amount. But whether she could have won or not, who knows? I would like to have seen it done in a normal manner, and we’d have had a lot better answer.”
“I knew that I took her out (wide),” [Angel] Cordero told The Baltimore Sun in 2005. " … I’d have to be stupid not to know that. … I know one thing: If I had touched her, I would have (been disqualified). All the eyes were on her. She was the hero of the year."
Cordero told The Sun he got hate mail for three years, mostly from women. "It’s like I would have done better if I’d stood in front of a microphone and said, ‘All women should stay home and cook,’ " he said.
Youtube.com Video 1980 Preakness Stakes: Another Angle Of “The Controversy”
I was pleased to hear NPR give a nice piece on her passing in the top of the hour news yesterday.
Goodnight grand lady.
She was truly GREAT! I remember the day she won the Derby…I just couldn’t believe it.
So sad to hear of her passing. God bless Genuine Risk!
[QUOTE=Tiempo;3456138]
I was pleased to hear NPR give a nice piece on her passing in the top of the hour news yesterday.[/QUOTE]
I did have to laugh a bit at the misuse by someone of the word ‘Philly’ instead of ‘filly’. They should’ve just said mare 
I just happened to stumble across this thread today at work, and had to immediately walk away from my computer. It wasn’t until I arrived home, that I was able to open the thread back up and have myself a good cry. Thank goodness hubby isn’t home this evening! She is my very first memory of racing. Anybody know who takes over the throne as oldest living Kentucky Derby winner now?
[QUOTE=Mali;3457409]
Anybody know who takes over the throne as oldest living Kentucky Derby winner now?[/QUOTE]
With her death, 1987 Kentucky Derby winner Alysheba is now the oldest living winner of the race. The 24-year-old is happily living in Saudi Arabia and treated like a king.
I believe it’s Alysheba.
what a loss. Glad she went peacefully though. there was a beautiful article in the Hartford Courant on her today. very happy to see her being acknowledged.
Hallie, here’s a hug especially for you and for including me in your book. You know I loved her as much as you did.
Washingtonian magazine did an honest to goodness and looong article on Genuine Risk and her connections back in 2002.
(Too bad that publication today does the same blah format of recycled cover articles year after year ("Best Eats’, ‘Best Places to Live’, Best Doctors, et al) like every other ‘city’ magazine.)
Anyhow - they’ve republished the GR article in light of her death
Washingtonian, author Kim Eisler, 2002: “Great Dame: Derby-winning Filly Genuine Risk”
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