Grey Lag - 1921: Three-year-old Season

1921: Three-year-old Season

In 1921, he won the Belmont Stakes with Earl Sande up (this was the year after Man o' War's win and two years after Sir Barton's), the Dwyer Stakes, the Empire Derby, the Knickerbocker Handicap, the Devonshire International Handicap, and the Mount Kisco Stakes. He placed in the Lawrence Realization Stakes, the Brooklyn Handicap, the Queens County Handicap, the Empire City Handicap, the Saratoga Handicap, the Kings County Handicap, the Excelsior Handicap, the Metropolitan Handicap, the Suburban Handicap, and the Jockey Club Gold Cup. He came home third in the Withers Stakes.

At three, he matched the American record for 1 and 1/8 mile, and beginning with the Belmont, he won eight straight stakes races, six of them in July. During this streak he beat Exterminator as well as other older horses, and set a Canadian record. (Later he won the Brooklyn, and then in a further running, Exterminator would reverse the form to beat Grey Lag.)

For all this, he was unofficially named not only Champion Three Year Old Colt of 1921, but Horse of the Year.