Maryland’s stallion roster increased by 23 for the 1971 breeding season, bringing the number standing in the state to 205.
The most expensive new arrivals at $3,500 live foal were stakes sires National (by Nashua), standing at Woodstock Farm, and former Virginia stallion Tambourine (by *Princequillo), at Helmore Farm. The latter won the Irish Sweeps Derby in course record time.
The nation’s Horse of the Year Cigar was the latest link to fame for the Pons family and 113-acre Country Life Farm in Bel Air, Md. Home to that year’s leading Mid-Atlantic sire Allen’s Prospect, plus Citidancer, sire of three 1995 Maryland Million winners, Country Life was also the birthplace of Cigar, the first Maryland-bred named Horse of the Year since Challedon in 1939 and ’40.
Sagamore Farm’s Shared Account notched Fair Hill-based trainer Graham Motion his second Breeders’ Cup victory with an upset in the 12th Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf-G1. Under Edgar Prado, the 4-year-old filly paid $94 as she took down defending champion Midday (GB).
One story dominated the headlines. “The most prosperous racing season Maryland has ever seen, albeit it was an abbreviated one, wound up in a haze of allegations of doping horses, fixed-races, suits, injunctions and much bitterness, suspicion and ill-feeling,” wrote Don Reed. “Under the current wording and interpretation of the Maryland Rules of Racing a decent man has no chance to defend himself against an unjust charge of doping horses that he trains, even though the actual guilty party is apprehended in the act, should a positive saliva or urine test be returned from the chemists. . .
Steady Warrior continued his family’s Maryland Million Day success with a 7 1⁄4-length romp in the 25th running of the Maryland Million Nursery, duplicating the feat of his sire Cherokee’s Boy eight years earlier.
Allen Paulson’s Maryland-bred Cigar, trained by Bill Mott, closed out a perfect 10-for-10 season and extended his win streak to 12 with a victory in the 1995 Breeders’ Cup Classic-G1. A winning streak of that length was rare in the industry; for a horse over the age of 4 it was nearly unheard of in major competition.
Paul Mellon’s Fort Marcy won the Washington, D.C., International for a second time, which also pushed him over $1 million in earnings and nailed down Horse of the Year. The 6-year-old Virginia-bred won over a boggy course despite trainer Elliott Burch noting “Marcy likes it soft, but not this soft.”
Trainer Hirsch Jacobs shipped top handicap horse Stymie to Pimlico in November, and sent him to the post three times in 13 days. With two wins and a second in three stakes, Ethel Jacobs’ colorbearer secured national championship honors.
