Just an Ordinary Wednesday at Belmont, Until…

But as we were to learn, this was no ordinary filly. She would go on to compete in eight stakes during her career, at seven different distances from 5 ½ furlongs to 1 ½ miles, and amazingly set or equaled a stakes record in all of them. In her 10 career victories, including a sweep of the NYRA Filly Triple Crown, her average margin of victory was an astounding 8 ½ lengths.

But before we recount the continued devastation of her opponents as a 2-year-old, let’s turn the clocks back even further.

Whiteley, in 1973, stabled his horses at the Camden Training Center in Camden, South Carolina, over the winter. When I visited there in June, 2000, the training center had been deserted for almost two months. Whiteley by then had a 176-acre farm about seven miles outside Camden. The stillness and quiet of the Camden barn area was interrupted by the occasional song of a wood thrush. Whiteley drove up a narrow dirt road and pointed out a barn just ahead and slightly off to the left. In front of it, across the road, was an empty patch of grass where another barn stood before burning down in the late 1970s, killing 10 of his horses.

As Whiteley drove past his old barn that still remained, he pointed his finger toward it and said, “Ruffian stood right there in stall 4. That was her stall when she came to me as a yearling in November until we brought her to the track the following April. And it was her stall when she came back here the following winter after her 2-year-old campaign.

“It’s just an empty stall now, but there are memories, that’s for sure,” Whiteley said. That was as nostalgic as he would get, and even that short comment contradicted his usual crustiness.

As we continued to drive through the training center, Whiteley did think back to the morning when he worked Ruffian three furlongs from the gate with another promising, fast filly named Lady Portia. Another of Whiteley’s fillies, named Yankee Law, had just concluded her morning exercise. But instead of leaving through the gap, her rider decided to stand by the outside rail and watch the two brilliant young fillies work.

As they came charging down the stretch together, Yankee Law began backing up toward the inside rail, right in the path of the oncoming pair. Lady Portia collided with Yankee Law, sending both their riders crashing to the ground. Miraculously, no one was seriously hurt, with Lady Portia suffering a mild concussion and a bloody nose.

Ruffian, meanwhile, never batted an eye through the entire incident and continued the final eighth of the work on her own as if nothing had happened. Despite all the turmoil and losing her workmate, she still worked her three furlongs in a blazing :33 flat. Demonstrating that kind of incredible speed and professionalism at such a young age was the first indication that Whiteley had something very special on his hands. She had come within inches of disaster, but instead, she bounded away unscathed and into history.

Whiteley actually had fallen in love with the Reviewer filly the first time he saw her as a yearling at Claiborne Farm, shortly before she was sent to him at Camden as a late yearling in November of 1973. Whiteley knew he was about to unleash a running machine, and he would wait until 9:30 or 10 o’clock before taking Ruffian out to the track for training. He wanted to make sure no one was around except his help. This was one horse he was intent on keeping under wraps until it was time to send her up to New York.

“You knew damn well the word would get out on her,” he said.