"I want it to be what the World Series is to baseball, what the Rose Bowl is to football." Thus chirped 25-year-old Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt in the fall of 1937, when he invited four of the best race horses of that year to compete in an entry-free, post-season race at Pimlico.
Seasoned turfmen smiled tolerantly. They knew Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt was rich (rumor put his fortune at $20,000,000), was passionately fond of thoroughbreds, and had just bought a sizable interest in the old down-at-heels Pimlico race track outside Baltimore. But the prize he offered...
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