Remembering Ruffian
It was 30 years ago today that the undefeated Ruffian met the 1975 Kentucky Derby winner Foolish Pleasure in a match race billed as a “battle of the sexes.” Ruffian was the perfect filly: “Raced 10 times. Won 10 times. Led at every call of every race. All those 1’s made her past performance chart look like a picket fence” (Philadelphia Inquirer). Foolish Pleasure was a pretty good colt. Like much from the 1970s, all I know of Ruffian comes from photographs, fuzzy television footage, and other people’s stories. ESPN Classic aired a “SportsCenter Flashback” episode on Ruffian this afternoon that filled in the gaps (ESPN), with interviews from her connections and film from the match race, including the scenes where Ruffian breaks down (previous documentaries about the race have blurred the images). The moment that really got me was when announcer Dave Johnson calls Foolish Pleasure taking the lead and then cries, “Ruffian has broken down.” His voice glides from astonishment to grief in a second. It’s absolutely heartbreaking.
Related: For Christy Cassady, a horse-crazy 16-year-old in 1975, “Ruffian symbolized something significant for a teenage girl trying to find her way in the male-dominated world of athletics. Ruffian didn’t just win, she won big, taking the lead from the start and never looking back against the best fillies in the country” (Lexington Herald-Leader).
