By B. Jason Brooks
Sixty years ago, Ogden Phipps’s homebred Buckpasser capped off the New York portion of his extraordinary 3-year-old campaign with a victory in the two-mile Jockey Club Gold Cup at Aqueduct, a significant demonstration of his stamina.
Despite having missed three months of training during the 1966 Triple Crown season due to a quarter crack in his right front hoof, he entered the Gold Cup having won 11 straight races, including the Flamingo Stakes in March, Arlington Classic in June, Chicagoan Stakes and Brooklyn Handicap in July, American Derby and Travers Stakes in August, and Woodward Stakes against older horses in October. (See his complete Daily Racing Form past performances on the National Racing Museum and Hall of Fame’s website here.)
With Braulio Baeza aboard for trainer Eddie Neloy, Buckpasser faced six rivals in the October 29 Jockey Club Gold Cup, with a wind-and-dust storm contributing to a slow result. Racing closer to the pace than usual, Buckpasser caught the leader Niarkos in the final quarter-mile and drew away to prevail by 1¾ length in 3:26⅕.
The official chart described him as drawing away “without need of urging” and winning “with complete authority.” G.F.T. Ryall wrote in The New Yorker that Buckpasser finished “with his ears pricked forward—a sign that he was enjoying himself.” Ryall added, “I don’t remember a more appropriate result than that of the Gold Cup, or, to judge from the applause as Buckpasser went into the winner’s circle, a more popular one this season.”
Buckpasser subsequently traveled to California and won the Malibu Stakes, closing out his 3-year-old season with 13 wins from 14 starts and earning Horse of the Year honors.
The New York victory was the fourth Jockey Club Gold Cup win for the Phipps family. Glady Mills Phipps’s Wheatley Stable colts Diavolo won in 1929 and Dark Secret in 1933 and 1934. After Ogden Phipps’ winning with Buckpasser in 1966, the black and cherry silks returned to the Gold Cup winners’ circle aboard Phipps’s Easy Goer in 1989 and Miner’s Mark in 1993.
B. Jason Brooks is a Thoroughbred racing and pedigree researcher, writer, and social media manager residing in Saratoga Springs, New York. He can be followed on X at @bjbrooksNY.
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