It is rarely favorable when one’s employer refers to them as an idiot.
“He is trainable,” remarked the esteemed trainer Ben A. Jones about Whirlaway in the spring of 1941, “but his capacity for instruction is limited. ”
Aggravated by the colt’s propensity to sharply veer outward on the final turn, Jones fashioned the “single-eye blinker” which covered Whirlaway’s right eye. Executing a audacious trial with new jockey Eddie Arcaro mounted, Jones was positioned on his stable pony situated 10 feet from the inside rail at the entrance to the homestretch. Arcaro was directed to guide the fiery chestnut colt through the narrow gap.
“I could observe that senior gentleman simply seated on his pony,” Arcaro stated. “I was charging towards him at maximum speed, and I was utterly terrified that we would collide, resulting in both our deaths. However, B.A. [Jones] remained motionless, and Whirlaway passed through there with utmost grace. It was then I understood we possessed an excellent prospect for the Derby.”
Unfazed by his eccentric conduct, the wagering public backed Whirlaway as the nearly 3-to-1 favorite in the 1941 Kentucky Derby. He lagged behind by 14 lengths along the backstretch. With his specially designed headgear and his fresh partner in control, Whirlaway surged down the stretch, crossing the finish line eight lengths ahead of Staretor, recording a time of 2:01 2/5, a benchmark that endured for 21 years. His concluding quarter-mile (23 3/5 seconds) was only two-fifths of a second slower than Secretariat’s remarkable run in 1973.
A legend emerged.
Fleet-footed yet volatile, Whirlaway was Jones’ personal protégé. The instructor dedicated countless hours to his young horse, attending to him, schooling him, working him, and soothing him. Ultimately, the striking chestnut rewarded Jones’ meticulous efforts by becoming horse racing’s fifth Triple Crown victor and Horse of the Year in 1941. Whirlaway claimed the Horse of the Year title again the subsequent season.
“That ranked among the most exceptional training feats I have ever witnessed,” noted Jimmy Jones, the trainer’s offspring. “He was a peculiar equine in that he possessed a very obstinate temperament, but he learned. He would respond positively to established routines, and that truly accounted for the horse’s success.”
The image of the small colt with the remarkably elongated and thick tail — trailing like a banner when he was accelerating — gave rise to his well-known epithet, “Mr. Longtail.” More often than not, Mr. Longtail’s extraordinary races appeared on the front pages of the nation’s sports sections, frequently above Ted Williams, who batted .406 that year, and Joe DiMaggio, who achieved a 56-game hitting streak.
At the age of 5, Whirlaway retired with a record of 32 triumphs, 15 second-place finishes, and nine third-place finishes from 60 starts, accumulating a prize fund of $561,161, making him the highest-earning Thoroughbred of all time. He spent a significant portion of his 4-year-old season competing for war bonds, racing 22 times and generating $5 million. This further enhanced Whirlaway’s stature as a national icon.
Owned and bred by Warren Wright’s celebrated Calumet Farm, Whirlaway’s ancestry curiously foreshadowed his erratic conduct. He was from the inaugural American-sired progeny of Blenheim II, the 1930 English Epsom Derby champion. In that particular event, Blenheim II veered to his right at the start and continued racing wide before unleashing a devastating burst of acceleration in the deep stretch to pull clear. Whirlaway’s un-raced dam, Dustwhirl, was extremely high-strung and the daughter of the highly esteemed sire Sweep, who was also the maternal grandfather of War Admiral, the 1937 Triple Crown winner.
As a two-year-old, Whirlaway demonstrated glimpses of brilliance, securing seven wins, including four in stakes competitions, but he also suffered defeat on nine occasions. He performed poorly in the Pimlico Futurity, swinging wide on both turns and being outpaced by five lengths to finish third.
The commencement of his three-year-old campaign proved equally inconsistent, with Whirlaway winning two allowance races and losing a pair at Hialeah Park in Florida. The colt’s vexing tendencies resurfaced in the Blue Grass Stakes when he veered sharply outward, leading to a 6-length loss to his primary competitor, Our Boots. The headstrong colt executed a similar maneuver in the Derby Trial, nullifying his blistering acceleration on the far turn by drifting to the outermost part of the track, ending up second by three-quarters of a length.
Jones had witnessed enough. The accomplished horseman cleverly conceived an adjustment to Whirlaway’s blinkers the day before the 67th Kentucky Derby. With his pocketknife, Jones trimmed away the cup on his left side, leaving the right eye covered, reasoning that this would curb his tendency to drift outward. Another element of the strategy was to secure future Hall of Famer Arcaro as the jockey.
Equipped with the one-eyed blinker, when Arcaro urged the colt to accelerate around the far turn, Whirlaway bolted forward. He galloped home to an 8-length triumph. This marked the first of eight Derby winners for Calumet Farm. A week later, Whirlaway exited the starting gate in the Preakness Stakes, trailing the second-to-last horse by six lengths as they proceeded up the backstretch. When Arcaro shook the reins, the colt encircled the entire field by the quarter pole and, easing his pace, he claimed victory by 5 1/2 lengths.
“Not even a gale could stop us,” exclaimed a jubilant Arcaro on his journey to the winner’s enclosure. “I don’t think I have ever passed so many horses with such speed. It felt as if I had been propelled from a firearm. What an exceptional horse! What an exceptional horse!”
That dazzling burst of speed frightened away all but three contenders in the Belmont Stakes, recognized as the “Test of the Champion.” The other riders established a lethargic initial tempo, but Arcaro was not deceived. Upon reaching the half-mile marker, Arcaro declared to his competitors, “to hell with this, gentlemen, I’m departing.”
Whirlaway took control of the race and continued his relentless run to become Calumet Farm’s first of two Triple Crown victors, the other being Citation in 1948.
“His performance was so dominant he effortlessly surpassed his rivals,” wrote Bryan Field in the New York Times. “The chestnut colt from the Calumet Farm galloped through the stretch with such ease that his ears were alertly raised, and he also bore that magnificent Triple Crown tilted gracefully on his handsome forelock.”
Whirlaway proceeded to win the Travers Stakes — the sole Triple Crown winner to achieve this. He concluded the year with 13 victories from 20 starts, alongside five second-place finishes and two third-place finishes. At age 4, racing officials burdened him with heavy weight, but Whirlaway consistently placed in his starts, winning twelve out of 22 races, with eight seconds and two thirds.
Whirlaway sustained a tendon injury late in 1942, and when he finished fifth in the Equipoise Mile at Arlington Park in June of 1943, that marked the conclusion of a 48-race sequence of in-the-money finishes. Across a four-year career, Whirlaway competed 60 times, at 17 tracks, earning $561,161.
Aftermath
Whirlaway served as a breeding stallion at Claiborne Farm, but his principal legacy was not as a sire. He fathered 18 stakes winners, including Scattered, who claimed the 1948 Coaching Club American Oaks. His daughter Whirling Girl produced a Bull Lea filly named Girlea, who in turn produced Lady Golconda, the dam of three-time Horse of the Year, Forego.
In 1950, Whirlaway was leased for three years to Marcel Boussac, a French textile magnate who arranged for the horse’s transportation to stand at Haras Fresnay-le-Buffard in Normandy and subsequently negotiated an outright acquisition of the stallion. On April 6, 1953, at the age of 15, Whirlaway suddenly passed away from a rupture in his nerve tissue moments after he was bred to a mare. He was interred on the French farm near Normandy, not far from that renowned wartime site. His remains were later repatriated to Kentucky, and he is now buried at Calumet. Whirlaway was inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame in 1959.
