Unsung champion

NEW YORK – Whirlaway won the 1941 Triple Crown, helped to raise nearly $5 million for the American war effort and ended his career as the first thoroughbred with more than $500,000 in earnings.

Still, he remains largely obscure outside racing circles, an overlooked champion whose accomplishments have faded with time.

Now famed sports documentarian Bud Greenspan is hoping to focus some attention on the horse with “Bud Greenspan Presents: Whirlaway!” a one-hour show that will air today on ESPN Classic and again on Saturday, the day of the Preakness Stakes.

“I think you’ll find nine out of 10 people (will say) Whirlaway who?” Greenspan said. “I don’t think Whirlaway was remembered. I don’t think he had a chance to be forgotten.”

Greenspan had almost forgotten the horse himself until the book “Here Comes Whirlaway!” by Fred C. Broadhead came across his desk. It was then that Greenspan recalled the golden chestnut thoroughbred with the long tail who was beloved by the public for his ability to come from behind and possessed blazing speed. Former New York Times sports columnist Red Smith once wrote of the colt “when he turned on the heat, you could hear a frying sound.”

Seated in an office in midtown Manhattan filled with memorabilia and Emmys for his well-known series on the Olympics, the 76-year-old Greenspan, his ever-present glasses perched atop his head, said he was immediately fascinated by the possibility of doing a documentary on Whirlaway. However, he didn’t want it to seem that the project was being done in the wake of “Seabiscuit,” the best-selling book and popular movie based on the career of another great champion whose achievements had largely been forgotten.

So Greenspan began to research. He found out enough to convince him that Whirlaway’s story could stand on its own.

Racing at a time when the shadow of World War II hung over the country, Whirlaway’s penchant for comebacks and his amazing durability captured the public’s affection.

“He came along at a period, like Seabiscuit and later Secretariat, where they really represented something beyond themselves,” said horse racing writer William Nack, who appears in the documentary.

The first of eight Kentucky Derby winners from Calumet Farm, Whirlaway was owned by Warren Wright and trained by Ben A. Jones, whom Nack calls “the Babe Ruth of his profession.” The documentary touches on the horse’s unorthodox style – he liked to run far on the outside – and the ways Jones tried to control him. First, he fashioned a blinder to put over Whirlaway’s right eye and then he stood with a pony 10 feet from the rail and ordered jockey Eddie Arcaro to bring Whirlaway around a turn and get inside of the pony.

The strategy certainly worked, first in the Derby and then in the Preakness, where Whirlaway won convincingly despite being 10 lengths behind early in the race. Greenspan’s documentary shows the race footage from Preakness in its entirety, a fascinating piece of film in which Whirlaway doesn’t appear in the picture until approximately halfway through the race and wins in a record time that stood for 21 years.

After winning the Belmont, Whirlaway was a national hero. Once the United States became involved in World War II, the horse was vital in raising money for the troops, mainly through the sale of war bonds. In 1942, he ran in 22 races at 12 different tracks, was seen by about a half-million people and raised approximately $5 million.

On the track he showed amazing consistency. He raced 42 times as a 3- and 4-year-old and never once finished out of the money. He retired after being injured during his 5-year-old season, was later sold to a French horse owner and was buried near Normandy after his death in 1953.

“This horse was something special,” Greenspan said, “with a lot of dramatic situations attached to it which, if you were a fiction writer, would get you thrown out of the room.”