Brave Raj (1984–2006) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse who raced only one year but who earned 1986 American Champion Two-Year-Old Filly honors and won the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies.
A descendant of the great Nearco through both her sire Rajab and her dam, Bravest Yet, Brave Raj was bred in Florida and purchased by trainer Ben Perkins, Sr. for $24,000 at the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's February sale of 2-year-olds. After racing once, Brave Raj was acquired by California oil heiress Dolly Green. She entrusted her conditioning to trainer Mel Stute.
Brave Raj's 1982 earnings set a world record for fillies in her age group. However, a knee injury ended her racing career and she was retired to broodmare duty at Patchen Wilkes Farm in Lexington, Kentucky where she produced ten winners, including two who won stakes races. She died at Patchen Wilkes Farm on January 28, 2006, one week after losing a foal.
Famous quotes containing the words brave and/or raj:
“I hear many condemn these men because they were so few. When were the good and the brave ever in a majority? Would you have had him wait till that time came?—till you and I came over to him?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Dogmatic toleration is nonsense: I would no more tolerate the teaching of Calvinism to children if I had power to persecute it than the British Raj tolerated suttee in India. Every civilized authority must draw a line between the tolerable and the intolerable.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)