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Spectacular Bid
Spectacular Bid (foaled February 17, 1976 – June 9, 2003) was a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who won the 1979 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes. He holds the world record for the fastest 10 furlongs on dirt, and also broke several track records. (A furlong is 1⁄8 mi or 0.20 km.) He won 26 of his 30 races and earned a then-record $2,781,607. He also won Eclipse Awards in each of his three racing seasons.
Spectacular Bid was the leading American two-year-old of 1978, winning the Champagne Stakes and the Laurel Futurity. As a three-year-old, he won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, giving him twelve consecutive victories. Spectacular Bid then tried to become the third consecutive Triple Crown winner, but he only came third in the Belmont Stakes after hurting his foot before the race. He recovered from the injury to win the Marlboro Cup and confirm his status as the best American colt of his generation. He was named American Champion Three-Year-Old Male Horse for 1979. In 1980 as a four-year-old, Spectacular Bid was undefeated in nine races, and was named American Horse of the Year.
Spectacular Bid was bred at Buck Pond Farm near Lexington, Kentucky by Madelyn Jason and her mother, Mrs. William Gilmore. He was a very dark gray (described as "steel-gray" and "battleship-colored") during his racing career although, like all grays, his coat lightened as he aged, and he eventually took on a "flea-bitten gray" appearance.
His sire was Bold Bidder, stakes winner of 13 races who also sired the 1974 Kentucky Derby winner, Cannonade. His grandsire was Bold Ruler, a U.S. Racing Hall of Fame inductee and an eight-time Leading sire in North America. His dam was the gray mare Spectacular by Promised Land, who, as a descendant of the broodmare Fly By Night, was a member of the same branch of Thoroughbred Family 2-d which also produced the Kentucky Derby winners Northern Dancer and Cannonade. Spectacular Bid was inbred 3x3 to the stallion To Market, meaning that this horse appears twice in the third generation of his pedigree. As of 2012 he remains one of the two most inbred Kentucky Derby winners in the last 50 years (Big Brown was similarly inbred to Northern Dancer).
As a yearling, Spectacular Bid was sold at auction for US$37,000 (equivalent to $197,000 in 2025) at the 1977 Keeneland September yearling sale to Harry and Teresa Meyerhoff of Hawksworth Farm, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The colt was sent into training with Grover G. "Bud" Delp, who remained his trainer throughout his career.
Spectacular Bid began his racing career on June 30, 1978, at Pimlico Race Course, where he came within 2⁄5 of a second of the track record for 5+1⁄2 furlongs. Three weeks later at his next start at Pimlico, an allowance race, he equalled the track record of 1:04.2. He notched stakes victories in the Grade III World's Playground Stakes, the Grade I Champagne Stakes, the Young America Stakes, the Grade I Laurel Futurity (in which he set a track record, a rarity for a two-year-old in a route race, running 1+1⁄16 mi or 1.7 km in 1:41.6), and the Heritage Stakes. He also finished second in the Dover Stakes and had his only out-of-the-money finish in the Tyro Stakes. Spectacular Bid's regular jockey was the teenager Ronnie Franklin.
By the end of his first year of racing, Spectacular Bid had won seven races in nine starts, set one track record and tied another, won US$384,484 and been unanimously voted the Eclipse champion two-year-old colt for the year.
Spectacular Bid's second year of racing began where his first left off, as he reeled off five wins in rapid succession: the Hutcheson Stakes, the Fountain of Youth, the Florida Derby (all at Gulfstream Park), the Flamingo Stakes (at Hialeah), and the Blue Grass Stakes (at Keeneland Race Course). After the Florida Derby, which Spectacular Bid won by 4+1⁄2 lengths despite meeting trouble in running, Delp reprimanded Franklin in public over his ride: "You idiot! You nearly killed that horse!". Franklin defended himself by claiming that the other riders had colluded to stop Spectacular Bid obtaining a clear run.
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Spectacular Bid
Spectacular Bid (foaled February 17, 1976 – June 9, 2003) was a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who won the 1979 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes. He holds the world record for the fastest 10 furlongs on dirt, and also broke several track records. (A furlong is 1⁄8 mi or 0.20 km.) He won 26 of his 30 races and earned a then-record $2,781,607. He also won Eclipse Awards in each of his three racing seasons.
Spectacular Bid was the leading American two-year-old of 1978, winning the Champagne Stakes and the Laurel Futurity. As a three-year-old, he won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, giving him twelve consecutive victories. Spectacular Bid then tried to become the third consecutive Triple Crown winner, but he only came third in the Belmont Stakes after hurting his foot before the race. He recovered from the injury to win the Marlboro Cup and confirm his status as the best American colt of his generation. He was named American Champion Three-Year-Old Male Horse for 1979. In 1980 as a four-year-old, Spectacular Bid was undefeated in nine races, and was named American Horse of the Year.
Spectacular Bid was bred at Buck Pond Farm near Lexington, Kentucky by Madelyn Jason and her mother, Mrs. William Gilmore. He was a very dark gray (described as "steel-gray" and "battleship-colored") during his racing career although, like all grays, his coat lightened as he aged, and he eventually took on a "flea-bitten gray" appearance.
His sire was Bold Bidder, stakes winner of 13 races who also sired the 1974 Kentucky Derby winner, Cannonade. His grandsire was Bold Ruler, a U.S. Racing Hall of Fame inductee and an eight-time Leading sire in North America. His dam was the gray mare Spectacular by Promised Land, who, as a descendant of the broodmare Fly By Night, was a member of the same branch of Thoroughbred Family 2-d which also produced the Kentucky Derby winners Northern Dancer and Cannonade. Spectacular Bid was inbred 3x3 to the stallion To Market, meaning that this horse appears twice in the third generation of his pedigree. As of 2012 he remains one of the two most inbred Kentucky Derby winners in the last 50 years (Big Brown was similarly inbred to Northern Dancer).
As a yearling, Spectacular Bid was sold at auction for US$37,000 (equivalent to $197,000 in 2025) at the 1977 Keeneland September yearling sale to Harry and Teresa Meyerhoff of Hawksworth Farm, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The colt was sent into training with Grover G. "Bud" Delp, who remained his trainer throughout his career.
Spectacular Bid began his racing career on June 30, 1978, at Pimlico Race Course, where he came within 2⁄5 of a second of the track record for 5+1⁄2 furlongs. Three weeks later at his next start at Pimlico, an allowance race, he equalled the track record of 1:04.2. He notched stakes victories in the Grade III World's Playground Stakes, the Grade I Champagne Stakes, the Young America Stakes, the Grade I Laurel Futurity (in which he set a track record, a rarity for a two-year-old in a route race, running 1+1⁄16 mi or 1.7 km in 1:41.6), and the Heritage Stakes. He also finished second in the Dover Stakes and had his only out-of-the-money finish in the Tyro Stakes. Spectacular Bid's regular jockey was the teenager Ronnie Franklin.
By the end of his first year of racing, Spectacular Bid had won seven races in nine starts, set one track record and tied another, won US$384,484 and been unanimously voted the Eclipse champion two-year-old colt for the year.
Spectacular Bid's second year of racing began where his first left off, as he reeled off five wins in rapid succession: the Hutcheson Stakes, the Fountain of Youth, the Florida Derby (all at Gulfstream Park), the Flamingo Stakes (at Hialeah), and the Blue Grass Stakes (at Keeneland Race Course). After the Florida Derby, which Spectacular Bid won by 4+1⁄2 lengths despite meeting trouble in running, Delp reprimanded Franklin in public over his ride: "You idiot! You nearly killed that horse!". Franklin defended himself by claiming that the other riders had colluded to stop Spectacular Bid obtaining a clear run.