Whirlaway Racehorse

Few intimate details are known about the life of Whirlaway. The horse who won the Triple Crown in 1941 was something of an enigma. Yet, those who had the privilege to see him compete would often talk about the experience for many years afterward. Some contemporary commentary questioned the strength of his three-year-old rivals, but that opinion should be separated from Whirlaway’s recorded Triple Crown results.

A Colt of Habit

Whirlaway was bred and owned by Calumet Farm in Kentucky. To this day the racehorses which are bred in Kentucky all enjoy a special kind of status. Kentucky’s breeding history gives the region a prominent place in racing, but a state of birth does not establish that an individual horse is superior to one bred elsewhere. Naturally, expectations were high for Whirlaway. Calumet Farm had never had produced a Kentucky Derby winner.

The colt’s birth date of April 2, 1938 was beneficial. It meant that if Whirlaway made it to the Kentucky Derby he would be competing as an actual three-year-old. Horses born late in the year would not even be three when the Derby was contested because Northern Hemisphere racing age is generally counted from January 1, rather than each horse’s actual birthday.

Whirlaway was assigned to trainer Ben A. Jones. The son of the trainer, Jimmy Jones, remarked that the colt was a creature of habit from the very start. In order to get him to train, things had to be just so. The colt did not like change. This became useful when Jones started creating habits that would benefit Whirlaway in his racing career.

There is no question that the strange personality of the horse made him a difficult subject. Even so, Jones persisted in his efforts to get the horse ready for a racing career. In 1940 it was time to see if Calumet could get that elusive Kentucky Derby winner.

Whirlaway at Two

One of the premier races for two-year-old racehorses has always been the Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga. This race features young horses that can factor into the Kentucky Derby the following year. It is one of the first indicators that a horse might have what it takes to be a champion.

Whirlaway won the Hopeful Stakes and also the Breeders’ Futurity Stakes and Saratoga Special Stakes. The trio of wins was enough to convince Jones and Calumet that the colt could hold his own in the Triple Crown series. Some racing pundits, however, were not so quick to concur. Many writers dismissed the achievements of Whirlaway because they believed he was born in a year that produced weak horses. These writers did not believe that Whirlaway was beating horses of significance.

Yet there were others who simply believed that Whirlaway’s dominance only exposed the weakness of other horses and not his own. The colt was posting regular workouts that were blazing fast. It could have been that he was simply that much better than the rest.

Whirlaway and the Triple Crown

As the Kentucky Derby drew close, Ben Jones was concerned about one of those habits Whirlaway was fond of creating. The horse had started to drift out to the middle of the racetrack as he closed toward the finish line. In a race like the Kentucky Derby with many horses this had the potential to create big problems. Drifting out and making contact with another horse could cause Whirlaway to be disqualified from the race.

Jones used blinkers to address Whirlaway’s tendency to bear out. The National Museum of Racing describes a full-cup blinker over the colt’s right eye. Eddie Arcaro rode him in the classics, and the equipment story helps explain the training challenge. It should not be read as a universal prescription: the appropriate equipment depends on the individual horse, and a change does not guarantee a better performance.

On race day the colt looked like the star he was, winning the race by eight lengths which was a record. His performance was enough to send other horses and trainers running for the hills. The Preakness turned out to be a rout and when Whirlaway worked a time of 2:02.40 in preparation for the Belmont Stakes, the competition had virtually disappeared. Those who stepped up to challenge Whirlaway in the Belmont Stakes were just inferior to the colt. He won the race, and the Triple Crown, with ease.

This didn’t set well with some racing writers. Conquering the Triple Crown was not supposed to be an easy feat and Whirlaway made it look like a walk in the park. Instead of focusing on the fact that there just weren’t horses able to compete against him, the press began to say that Whirlaway himself was weak and only made it so far because all horses of the era were inferior.

Whirlaway’s Training Challenges and the Art of Managing Difficult Horses

Whirlaway’s fame as a racehorse is inseparable from his reputation as one of the most difficult horses to train in American racing history. His tendency to bear out dramatically through turns — a habit so extreme that it sometimes carried him toward the outside rail — required innovative solutions from trainer Ben Jones, who eventually fitted him with a one-eyed blinker that forced him to focus on the track ahead rather than the outside rail. This creative problem-solving, and the patience required to develop a productive training programme around a horse with such pronounced behavioral challenges, is a testament to Jones’s exceptional skill.

The story of difficult horses that become champions is a recurring theme in racing history, from Whirlaway through to more recent examples, and it offers several lessons for bettors who evaluate horses with unusual behavioral traits or equipment. A horse fitted with blinkers for the first time may be a trainer’s attempt to address a focus problem that has been limiting performance — if the correction works, the horse may improve dramatically. A horse that has been gelded often shows improved tractability that translates to better competitive focus. And a horse that has been worked with unusual patience by a skilled trainer may emerge with ability that previous handlers failed to unlock. For more on great American champions, our articles on the 12 greatest race horses of all time and Count Fleet race horse cover Whirlaway’s era. And our guide to how to bet blinkers on and off in horseracing covers the equipment change angle.

Whirlaway After the Triple Crown

Whirlaway had more to do once he conquered the Triple Crown. In fact, he became the most heavily raced Triple Crown winner. Whirlaway competed in 60 events, winning 32 of them. He finished second  15 times and third 9 times in a racing career that ran from 1940 through 1943, ending in his five-year-old season. He earned over $500,000 in a time when purses were very small compared to today.

The horse was sent to stud at Calumet farm in 1944. There were only a few notable winners sired by Whirlaway. He wound up on a breeding farm in France and died there in 1953.

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Whirlaway’s racing record at a glance

Read the Museum’s career record with the dates attached. Historical times and margins describe those races; they do not establish how a horse would perform against a modern field.