Racing Career
Bold Venture, trained by the Hall of Fame conditioner, Max Hirsch, was entered in the 1936 Kentucky Derby without achieving a single stakes win and his rider was an apprentice jockey named Ira "Babe" Hanford, who had been riding in races for less than a year. The boy's contract was owned by Hirsch's daughter, Mary, also a trainer. Just as Hanford's mount had never won a stakes race, no apprentice had ever won the Derby. They went out together as 20-1 shots.
That year, Brevity, owned by Joseph E. Widener of Elmendorf Farm, was the favorite. Brevity had won the Florida Derby and had equaled the world record for 1 1/8 miles. Indian Broom, owned by Austin C. Taylor, was second favorite after lowering Brevity's record in the Marchbank Handicap.
As soon as the gates opened, Brevity was knocked to his knees and the horse who would go on to win that year's American Horse of the Year award, Granville, threw his rider James Stout. Indian Broom was trapped in a scrum of racing horses. Bold Venture was in no better position. On the way out of the gate, another horse slammed into him, which was like, as Hanford said: "...a bowling ball hitting the pins." This started a chain reaction that caused Granville to throw Stout. But the apprentice rider somehow found his horse running room and by the backstretch Bold Venture was leading. But Brevity had righted himself, broken free of the pack, and came charging after Bold Venture. Before he could catch him, assuming he could, he ran out of running room. The two "beginners" had won the Derby.
The win did little for Bold Venture's reputation. Considering the terrible mess at the start of the race and that Charles Kurtsinger, the rider of the Santa Anita Derby winner He Did, claimed someone leaned over the rail and managed to snatch his whip causing his horse to come in seventh, all thought the victory by horse and rider a matter of bad luck for better horses.
Two weeks later Bold Venture, was entered in the $50,000 Preakness Stakes and ridden by George Woolf, had a second bad start, but still won…this time a nose in front of Granville.
Undefeated in his three-year-old season, and with two legs of the Triple Crown won, Bold Venture bowed a tendon and was retired.
Read more about this topic: Bold Venture (horse)
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