Genuine Risk, feminism's finest filly. (Photo: Heinz Kluetmeier/SI)

[by Amy Bass]

I have never understood why in the long list of American feminists -- Gloria Steinem, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan (and so on, and so forth -- no one ever includes Regret or Genuine Risk.  Granted, they weren't aggressively feminist.  They didn't picket the White House, they didn't burn their bras (but then again, they never wore bras, so they didn't really have a chance), and they didn't petition their Congressmen to vote for the ERA.  But for me, anyway, they are important pieces to understanding gender equality in American history.

I am not kidding when I say that Genuine Risk was an important part of my political development.  When I was ten years old, I was stunned by the thought of a filly being in the Kentucky Derby.  I loved the Derby, was obsessed with it, just like many other girls my age who were fanatical about horses.  I knew, from the dog-eared coffee table book about the Derby that I lugged around for a good part of my adolescence, that Regret was the only filly to have won the great race.  But that was way back in 1915, and didn't mean much to my young modern self.

So I became infatuated with the chestnut filly, hoping beyond hope that she would represent girls well on the first Saturday in May in 1980.  And she did.  She won it.  And her stretch run is something that remains burned in my memory: I can still see Genuine Risk, her jockey's green and white silks rippling in the wind, flying across the finish line at Churchill Downs.  And to prove she wasn't a fluke, she took second in both the Preakness and the Belmont, not quite a Triple Crown, but not that shabby, either.

And now, at age 30, she is the oldest living Derby champion, spending her days in Virginia at Newstead Farm with the Firestone family, who purchased her as a yearling and continue to keep her in their family despite the fact that her days spent as a mother never produced a champion.

The day before this year's Belmont Stakes, I thought about Genuine Risk for the first time in a long time while I was reading the New York Post 's sports section.  Trainer Todd Pletcher  announced that he would be sending Rags to Riches, his “superfilly” (a term I find offensive, actually, as if an ordinary filly couldn't cut it), to the post to join the boys in the longest leg of the Triple Crown series.  That a filly was running the grueling mile and a half race was interesting, to be sure, but what I really found fascinating was the reaction of the other trainers and jockeys to Pletcher's announcement:  they seemed genuinely afraid that she was in.

When, I thought to myself, was the last time that a bunch of boys – horses or otherwise – were afraid of a girl in a sporting competition?

The next morning, I told my husband that in honor of the recent birth of our daughter, we should throw twenty bucks on Rags to Riches.  We aren't, however, betting people, so we didn't.

Should've.  Would've.  Could've.  Because she did it.  And it was, in a word, awesome.

She stumbled at the start, and then took over the race at the top of the stretch, out-dueling Curlin as she nudged her head in front over the finish line, only the third filly to win the race in its history, and the first in over a century.  It was a special day for Pletcher, considered by many to be the most successful trainer in the country, breaking his 0-for-28 record in Triple Crown races, and it was a good day for the Post 's sports department, because it turns out that there was good reason for all those boys to be afraid of this girl.

So maybe, for a while, at least, no one will accuse a filly of “running like a girl.”  Because sometimes, it turns out, running like a girl is a good thing.

June 11, 2007

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