1979 Travers Stakes - General Assembly : CBS Broadcast
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ต.ค. 2024
- Next to the Daily Racing Form listing of five of the seven starters in last Saturday's Travers Stakes at Saratoga was an asterisk indicating that those horses could handle a muddy track. The other two had no mud mark. When rain drenched the track, making the going difficult and tiring, bettors gave those marks and those non-marks considerable thought. They could have saved themselves the effort. One of the two without a mark was General Assembly, an enigmatic critter who went out and won the 110th Travers by 15 splashy lengths.
The General has led a puzzling racing life, up one day and down the next. Racing fans adore him after one race and deride him after the next. Until last week's Travers he was known primarily as "Secretariat's best son," but that has meant very little because Secretariat has been anything but the sire he was expected to be when he was sent to stud after his stunning two years as a runner. Well, what General Assembly did in the Travers was stunning and more. He ran over a track rated "sloppy" in 2:00 for the 1� miles to set not only a stakes record but a track record as well, and Saratoga is the oldest track in the U.S., having opened its iron gates 116 years ago.
The field the General left in his wake was the best group of 3-year-olds assembled since the Kentucky Derby. Not since Secretariat himself won the 1973 Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths has there been so overwhelming a triumph in a race of such high significance. But a question remains, one as simple as an old racing adage: Is General Assembly just a horse for a course?
The horse obviously thrives at Saratoga. He has run four races there and won them all. Elsewhere he has been victorious only twice in 11 starts. This spring General Assembly ran in every leg of the Triple Crown, finishing second, fifth and seventh, respectively, and in the Belmont he was but a blur in the distance behind Coastal.
Moments after the Travers, LeRoy Jolley, the General's trainer, had a self-aggrandizing flight of fancy. "There has been some talk about making the Saratoga meeting longer," he said. "As far as General Assembly is concerned, they should make it a year-round meeting." Forget the absence of a mud mark. The General's performances show that he likes an off track. In 1978 he came to prominence by winning the six-furlong Saratoga Special in 1:09, the quickest time for that race in 73 years. The track that day was listed as only "good." General Assembly's second-place finish behind Spectacular Bid in the Derby was over a wet but fast track.
sportsillustrat...
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Outstanding Performance!!
Spectacular Bid was very lucky to dodge General Assembly on this day. What a performance!
Privileged to be there at Saratoga and watch one of Big Red's great offspring General Assembly win the Travers.
THE ONLY BIG RED IS MAN' O' WAR!!!
Another horse I wish had raced at four. What a monster run, and he still owns the record!
This was posted "7 years" ago...presumably 2016, then. If so, just weeks/months too early.
But General Assembly's record stood for a very long time.
Great race! Such an underrated racehorse. General Assembly was one of Secretariat's best runners. He looks a lot like his sire.
And the connections of Spectacular Bid managed to dodge General Assembly in this race - or else it would have been 9 of 10!
General Assembly looked like his daddy and made him proud...
@@mariabykofsky4502 He was a bum at stud! As all SEC'S sons were !! Sired Nothing!! 😣😣😣
He ended up in Germany. He sired 31 sws. He was a prolific sire by number of foals He was put down at 29 ys - 2005. It's on Wikipedia.🤔@@captainamericaamerica8090
IMO you are being hypercritical of 'Big Red'. He has impacted the breed through his daughters. Storm Cat, Gone West & AP Indy are descended through Secretariat mares.🤔🤔@@captainamericaamerica8090
I truly believe that if General Assembly and Risen Star had raced as four year olds, Secretariat's stature as a sire would have been enhanced somewhat. Not that Secretariat was a failure at stud, for one thing being the leading broodmare sire in the early '90's. General Assembly's last four races in '79 were two seven furlong races in 1:21 flat, a solid second to Spectacular Bid in the Marlboro and this record performance here. I'm not suggesting that he would have knocked off the Bid in 1980, but I believe the gap was closing. Risen Star had the incredible Belmont win and won 8 of 11 races before having to retire due to injury. It's not out of the question that he could have had a monster career.
General Assembly gets short changed because he was second FOUR TIMES in Grade 1 races to Spectacular Bid. he would have been champion two year old were it not for Spectacular Bid and he twice beat older horses who were champions- something Risen Star never did. GA also came up lame after the Preakness and his connections all agreed that he never should have run in the Belmont- it almost ruined him for the year.
WHO'S THAT?? YOU'RE WRONG. THEY WERE BOTH TOTAL DUDS' AT STUD! THEY SIRED BUMS. AS ALL SEC'S SON DID.
Lasix changed the game.
These were The days of True Horse Racing.
General Assembly sure ran like his daddy in this race!
One of the true greats of the game
Mr. Prospector turned out to be the best sire from the 1973 crop of three year-olds.
General Assembly also won the Vosburgh in what turned out to be a fine fall campaign.
Yes- he destroyed that field in what today would be a Breeders Cup Sprint field and then he was robbed of champion sprinter honors.
2min over a sloppy track when he was only 47.3 at the half wow
general assmbley was still. big red proud
Would have loved to see him race as a four year old. Not saying that he could have knocked off Spectacular Bid as a four year old, but I think the gap would have closed. Great effort here, then second place in Marlboro Cup, and then great win in Vosburgh beating excellent older horses. May have been maturing late. Could have potentially set up something special in 1980 if raced successfully on east coast, and then matching up against Bid later in the year.
The Bid's 4yo campaign is considered the greatest in history. And General Assembly never got close to him in 79. The Bid is a completely different league.
@@david1044 The bid was a total Bum at stud. A failure!! As was ALL OF SEC'S SONS TOO. THE REAL BIG RED WAS ONLY MAN' O'WAR! WHO'S STILL STRONG SIRED' AT STUD.
@@captainamericaamerica8090 So what.....He has a Twin on his dam side. Probably why he went for only $37,000 at auction. But as a runner, which we were discussing here. Very few are on par...Swaps, Dr Fager, Noor...The Bid. That's the top of any Pyramid. But to be honest, the Bid did produce some very nice fillies. And I thought the real Big Red was Phar Lap
@@david1044 PHAR LAP, WAS A DARK BROWN ALMOST BLACK, SO NO. AND THE FILLY LINES CEASE FAST. SPEC BID WAS A TOTAL FAILURE AS A SIRE OF SIRES. SO WAS SEC.
@@david1044 (re Bid's 4-year-old campaign) -- well, definitely rivaled by Dr. Fager, and his 4 championship titles at 4.
Private Account was a prolific sire by number of foals. He won the Jim Dandy at 3 & both the Widener (G1) & Gulfstream H (G1) at 4.🤔🤔
General Assembly holds the 1 1/4 mile track record at Saratoga, of 2:00 flat. Secretariat won the Kentucky Derby at Churchhill Downs, in 159 2/5 seconds. They were both wonderful horses, but Secretariat was the greatest horse to ever set foot on a race track.
Secretariat's performance in the Derby was a great one but not even close to General Assembly's effort here...
I mean, yeah. General Assembly was Secretariat's son, so
He probably would've kept the record longer if they didn't run in the mud since Arrogate shattered the record by more then half a second 36 years later. Still an impressive race in its own right and as of 2019 the second fastest travers time.
Arrogate since lowered it to 1:59 1/5 but at the time the original comment was posted it was the track record.
Huge fan of Secretariat here. I’ll just mention that Big Red was blessed with a Fast track at the Kentucky Derby. In comparison, that makes one appreciate even more the sensational achievement here of a horse breaking a speed record amidst miserable Muddy conditions. Very cool that the horse in question was one of Big Red’s foals 🏆❤️
Of course now, the Saratoga meet is 40 days over eight weeks.
He always looked great until he matches up with Spectacular Bid. But no shame in that. The Bid was probably the best horse since Dr. Fager...now that would have been a race.
Yeah I was there. Bet against. Ow!
A TOTAL DUD AT STUD. TYPICAL SON OF SEC.
WOW, set a track record in deep slop AND he had no mark as a mudder. LOL Mystery. Deep slop didn't bother horses back in those days. LOL
I noticed something odd about this race. It says the track was fast? Look at the water and mud splashing, lol. Anyone who knows anything at all about horse races, knows that there is no way this should be labeled a "fast track", more like "sloppy" at best.
It was listed as sloppy, but could have been called "wet fast," a term that Sports Eye first used in the early 1980's and DRF eventually began using in later years.
That was a weak field. Davona one of the best did not ran.
No pace plus rail bias equals big race
my brother beat him at gulfstream78 on coup d chance
Paul Souter? Excellent, underrated pilot. JL Levesque had a fine stable in the 1970s.
Yeah- GA lost by a head in his first start of the season and Cordero blamed himself- not the horse.
The interesting thing about that race was when it was over Cordero blamed himself for restraining General assembly so hard he stopped running- Cordero would later be fined for hitting him 17 times with the whip- despite all that- GA made up a ton of ground. but right after that Cordero went on and on and on attacking Bud Delp who had accused Cordero of trying to hurt Spectacular Bid in the Florida Derby by cutting him off with his mount.; Cordero blamed Ronnie Franklin and predicted that Franklin would ruin Spectacular Bid with his poor riding decisions.
As for Coup de Chance, too bad he didn't stay in Florida in sprint races where he ran his best. he went up to Canada and was badly beaten in the Queen's Plate Trial and the Queens Plate.
@@NYCYankInTexas
I can't stand Angel Cordero and his abusive ways towards race horses...