Affirmed: A Look Back
By Frank Mitchell

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Looking at the record books or poring over his sire record,
it is hard to praise Affirmed too highly. Victor in 22 of 29 starts, 14 of them
Grade 1 races, and a winner of nearly $2.4 million, two titles as Horse of the
Year, and the Triple Crown, Affirmed accomplished almost everything worth
dreaming about for a racehorse.

Inclined to wonder at the horse’s ability, John Williams, who managed
Affirmed ’s early stud career and raised some of his best offspring, said he
"believed Affirmed could have won the Arc de Triomphe if he’d been in it."
Williams even asked owner-breeder Louis Wolfson, "I wonder what this horse could
have done in the Arc?" Wolfson replied, "He’s done pretty well on the dirt,
John."

Although never tried on turf, Affirmed got many of his best performers on the
turf. His best offspring, champion Flawlessly, was outstanding on turf. She won
nine Grade 1 races, earned more than $2.5 million, and earned consecutive titles
as champion turf mare.

Partly due to his progeny’s apparent preference for turf racing, "Affirmed
was an underrated sire, I thought," Williams said. "He made a significant mark
on the breed and will continue to as a broodmare sire."

For instance, Bint Pasha and Trusted Partner, two of Affirmed ’s champion
daughters who raced in Europe, have produced stakes winners there, and La
Affirmed , a winning half-sister to champion Outstandingly, has produced four
stakes winners. All are group or graded winners and include the promising young
stallion Bernstein, as well as the fine young broodmare Caress.

Female family

But before the laurels of his racing career and long before his recognition
as an influential sire, Affirmed had to make his way in the racing world. Bred
in Florida by the Harbor View Farm of Louis and Patrice Wolfson, Affirmed was
the seventh foal of Won’t Tell You, a useful daughter of the good broodmare sire
Crafty Admiral.

But at the time of Affirmed ’s birth, Won’t Tell You was a disappointment.
She had been mated to good stallions like Chieftain, Cornish Prince, Swaps, and
even Raise a Native, but the mare had not produced a stakes winner. Even though
all of Won’t Tell You’s five starters prior to Affirmed had won and a couple had
been good winners, the mare appeared to be following the modestly successful
trend of her own dam and granddam, who between them had produced only one stakes
winner and no top-class horses.

Then Affirmed changed all that. A champion each year he raced, he made his
own pedigree, in much the way that Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew had done.
Although Slew’s immediate family was a bit trendier than Affirmed ’s, each was a
light year ahead of his immediate female family and caused breeders to look back
for taproot mares. Slew traced back to the great Myrtlewood, and Affirmed ’s
fourth dam was the fine producing mare Native Gal.

A daughter of the great broodmare sire Sir Gallahad III and out of the Fair
Play mare Native Wit, Native Gal produced not one but two high-class racers. Her
first foal was the good stakes winner Billings (by English Derby winner Mahmoud
and thus a full brother to Affirmed ’s third dam Native Valor), and her ninth
foal was the top mare Royal Native (by Royal Charger).

Champion of her age and sex at 3 and 4 in 1959 and 1960, Royal Native won 11
stakes, including the Spinster, Monmouth Oaks, Top Flight, and Arlington Matron.
Interestingly, both Royal Native and Affirmed were foaled after their dams had a
barren year.

And whereas Won’t Tell You had not produced a stakes winner prior to Affirmed
, of the mare’s last eight foals, four earned black type. In addition to
Affirmed , his half-sisters Love You Dear (by Bold Native) and Won’t She Tell
(by Banner Sport) were good stakes winners, and his full brother Silent Fox was
a good winner and ran third in the Grade 1 Strub Stakes.

Rise of Exclusive Native

Although Won’t She Tell was half the equation in producing Affirmed , the
horse’s sire, Exclusive Native, may have been the most important half.

By the landmark stallion Raise a Native and out of the excellent broodmare
Exclusive, by classic winner Shut Out, Exclusive Native was among the first crop
sired by Raise a Native, and once at stud, Exclusive Native was the son who
first showed that the brilliant red son of Native Dancer was a sire of sires to
be reckoned with.

Exclusive Native was a stakes winner at 2 and 3, taking the Sanford and the
Arlington Classic. Although soundness problems limited his activity at 3,
Exclusive Native had shown the speed and good maturity to allow him a chance at
stud.

John Williams, who oversaw the stud careers of Raise a Native, Exclusive
Native, and the early years of Affirmed , said that "Exclusive Native was a good
sire who started out with inexpensive mares at Leslie Combs’s place, and he was
only 18 years old when he died."

Exclusive Native hit the limelight initially through the exploits of his son
Our Native, who won the Flamingo and Monmouth Invitational in 1973. In between
those winning races, the colt had run a pair of solid thirds in the Kentucky
Derby and Preakness to Secretariat and Sham.

Those performances were enough to hustle up a little richer book for his
sire, and by the time Affirmed arrived in 1975, Exclusive Native was
well-regarded among knowledgeable Kentucky breeders. But siring a Triple Crown
winner made the chestnut son of Raise a Native both the leading sire in the
nation and an international star.

Siring Kentucky Derby winner Genuine Risk only two years later Affirmed
Exclusive Native’s status as a classic sire of the first magnitude. In addition
to these stars, Exclusive Native sired such horses as Valdez (Swaps, San
Pasqual), Life’s Hope (Jersey Derby), Hatim (San Antonio), Premiership (El
Conejo), Native Courier (Bernard Baruch, Seneca), and Commemorate (King’s
Bishop, second in the inaugural Breeders’ Cup Sprint).

Even though his son Commemorate lost the Sprint by a nose in that first
Breeders’ Cup, Exclusive Native earned even greater recognition, as his daughter
Outstandingly took home the prize in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies after
the disqualification of Fran’s Valentine. Bred by Harbor View like Affirmed and
Exclusive Native, Outstandingly was born in 1982, the year before her sire died.
She subsequently won the Hollywood Starlet and was named champion 2-year-old
filly of 1984.

Affirmed at the
races

But first and last, Exclusive Native was the sire of Affirmed . Affirmed was
his sire’s first great racer, and he proved to be Exclusive Native’s very best.
In addition to championships, honors, earnings records, and great athletic
ability, Affirmed was tested on the racetrack by the greatest rivalry in modern
racing. From the early days of their juvenile season, Alydar and Affirmed were
locked in competition.

By Raise a Native and a half-brother to champion Our Mims, Alydar was so
highly regarded by Calumet trainer John Veitch that the colt debuted in the
Youthful Stakes in mid-June of 1977. The big chestnut was favored but finished
fifth, beaten five lengths. The winner was Affirmed , who had won a maiden
special three weeks earlier and brought his sleek head and neck across the wire
first.

In their next meeting, Alydar defeated Affirmed by three and a half lengths
in the Great American Stakes. Affirmed jetted across the continent to win the
Hollywood Juvenile Championship and back to Saratoga to win the Sanford before
the dueling chestnuts met again.

In the meantime, Alydar had powered home the winner in the Tremont and
Sapling, and the two mightiest juveniles of the year went at each other again in
the Grade 1 Hopeful. In both the Hopeful and the following month’s Futurity
Stakes at Belmont, Alydar simply could not shake his opponent, losing to
Affirmed by a half-length at Saratoga and a nose at Belmont.

When they met again in the Champagne and Alydar won with a good rush late in
the stretch, many observers decided that Alydar had greater stamina, as
suggested by Affirmed ’s diminishing margins of victory as the distances
lengthened from the six and a half furlongs of the Hopeful to the Futurity’s
seven and then the mile Champagne.

This, of course, was wrong.

Affirmed was no sprinter, and in fact, he had no distance limitations for
American racing. In the Laurel Futurity, he and Alydar met for the sixth time,
and the 2-year-old championship was on the line. Although Alydar carried the
battle to his rival early, getting a head in front at the three-quarters,
Affirmed won by a neck and earned his first championship.

The next year, the racing world was enthralled by the possibility of seeing
the two grand descendants of Native Dancer battle for the Triple Crown. Few
observers were more pleased than Alfred Vanderbilt, who bred and raced the great
gray, and he made a point of educating writers and columnists on the colts’
classic-winning ancestor.

Based in California, Affirmed won all his preps for the Triple Crown with
ease. Racing in the East, Alydar was even more impressive. In his final prep for
the Kentucky Derby, Alydar thrashed what appeared to be rivals by 13 lengths in
the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland, and he started favorite in the Derby.

As it turned out, the Derby was Alydar’s least effective race in the triple.
He was far back early and showed no sign of being able to catch the flying
Affirmed until the final eighth, when Alydar closed well to finish only a length
and a half behind his rival.

To win the Triple Crown, Affirmed then had to survive two of the most
determined racing battles of any horse’s career. Alydar and Affirmed battled the
length of Pimlico’s stretch, and only a neck separated them at the wire, but
again it was Affirmed ’s neck.

In the Belmont, Alydar went to his rival shortly after the half, and from the
three-quarter pole home, the pair were locked together. Alydar would gain a bit
more ground, then Affirmed would come back. Always maintaining his advantage,
Affirmed put his head under the wire first, and the Triple Crown was his.

Jockey Steve Cauthen said after the Belmont that Affirmed "was at his best
for the Kentucky Derby, and by the time the Belmont rolled around, he was
beginning to feel some of the effects of the hard campaign. He seemed to be
tiring as we swung into the stretch, but then he saw Alydar right alongside, and
he took another deep breath, switched leads, and seemed to race with fresh
determination."

No Triple Crown winner had had to work harder for his honors, but then either
horse would have made a worthy winner. To judge their superiority, in the
Belmont the third horse was 13 lengths behind after the top pair had raced 12
furlongs in 2:26 4/5, the third-fastest Belmont at that time.

The titans met only once more, in the Travers, and it was a most
unsatisfactory conclusion to their rivalry. A bit of misguided jockeyship caused
Affirmed to foul Alydar, and Alydar won the race on disqualification. Although
both raced at 4, they never met again.

Alydar was found to have broken a coffin bone subsequent to the Travers, and
when he came back at 4, he was not the same horse and won only one stakes.

Affirmed , likewise, went into a losing streak that fall and winter. Frankly,
Seattle Slew had his number and outran the Harbor View colt in the Marlboro Cup.
Exceller beat them both in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, when Affirmed ’s saddle
slipped, and the two Triple Crown winners raced headlong through a half in :45
1/5 and six furlongs in 1:09 2/5.

Perhaps due to the ridiculous exertions of that race, Affirmed didn’t come to
his best form at 4 until the Strub Stakes at Santa Anita in early February 1979.
He won the Strub by 10 lengths, never lost again, put the young upstart
Spectacular Bid in his place (second), and retired to stud at Spendthrift Farm
with a record syndication of $16 million.

Affirmed at
stud

Although he had many successes as a sire, Affirmed did not have the stud
career envisioned for him when he retired. Many expected him to follow in the
path of his sire and grandsire, getting speedy 2-year-olds and classic horses in
America. In this regard, Affirmed wasn’t able to deliver what was expected.

His offspring, rather than being quick and early, showed significantly more
stamina than early maturity and speed, and they even showed their trainers a
strong preference for racing on turf, where the style of racing allowed them to
get into a good stride and finish.

In addition to the difference between breeders’ expectations and the type and
aptitude of his offspring, Affirmed was, in a sense, a victim of the peculiar
circumstances that descended on the commercial breeding business in Kentucky and
internationally. The first two farms where the horse stood went out of business,
which was no help to a stallion who profited from being mated with judicious
care, and the stallion’s reputation plummeted as a sire of sales horses when the
breeding business went into a deep depression.

Through all the ups and downs, however, the Wolfsons’ faith in their champion
never wavered, sending him good mares year after year, and they were rewarded
with Affirmed ’s best racer, the champion turf mare Flawlessly. A mare of great
individuality and character, Flawlessly was a multiple champion in her sphere,
and she could hardly have come at a better time in Affirmed ’s stud career.

Champion in 1992 and 1993, Flawlessly earned her first title the year after
Affirmed moved from Calumet to stand at Jonabell Farm. The Triple Crown winner
stood the last decade of his life at Jonabell, and they were good years.

Gone were the expectations that he would sire juvenile marvels or very
high-priced sales yearlings. Instead, Affirmed became a mainstay for home
breeders who had patience and liked to race sound horses with some versatility
in distance and surface. Among the best horses he sired from this period of his
career were Grade 1 winners Quiet Resolve, Mossflower, and Affirmed Success.

Affirmed was put down at age 26 at Jonabell on Jan. 12, 2001, but the
greatness of his racing career and the thrills that his offspring and their
offspring have brought to the sport will last long years from
now.