Heartful, bred, owned, and trained by James F. Lewis III, was chalked up as least likely to succeed up until she started racing.
The 3-year-old Bold Monarch filly was a winner of four of her first five starts, including the Free State Stakes at Bowie. Injuries sustained as a yearling when she ran through a fence left her scarred for life.
On Lewis's low regard for the filly, prior to proving him wrong: "Breeding [Heartful] was just plain stupid luck. As a matter of fact, I remember when she got hurt as a yearling, she was one of two fillies out in that paddock. The other one was a Fleet Nasrullah filly named Maybellene. After the accident, I said to my wife, Penny: 'Well, at least we're lucky it wasn't the Fleet Nasrullah filly that got hurt.'"
A graded stakes winner later in the year, Heartful became a successful broodmare for Lewis. The dam of three stakes winners from five foals, her non-stakes winning daughter Heartful Star produced graded winner and Preakness runner-up Oliver's Twist.
- The Laurel Futurity, which carried a gross purse of $100,000, attracted 772 nominations for 1974. The largest nominator, Leslie B. Combs, named 43 horses for the race.
J. Louis LeVesque's L'Enjoleur capped the first of two Canadian Horse of the Year titles with his Laurel Futurity victory over future Eclipse Award winner Wajima while equaling the track record.
- Alma North, one of the finest race mares bred in Maryland, was retired by her owner Eugene Mori, after winning her final start, the Tuscarora Handicap at Liberty Bell, in January. She was book to Native Dancer's champion son, Raise a Native.
New Jerseyan Mori, founder and owner of Garden State Park, instead bred his prize mare to his own Twin Time that year. When Mori died in 1975, Alma North visited the best stallions in the world, although her most successful runner was her second foal, the Buckpasser stakes winner Duns Scotus.
