Bold Venture (USA)
St. Germans (GB) x Possible (USA), by Ultimus (USA)
Family 6-a
Used by permission of Quarter Horse Record (Susan Larkin).
Even though Bold Venture overcame being bounced around in close quarters at the start of the 1936 Kentucky Derby to win the race, many people thought of him as a lucky winner because of the misfortunes suffered by more fancied runners. Granville (the eventual Horse of the Year) lost his rider in the rodeo; favored Brevity had been knocked to his knees and just missed catching Bold Venture by a head; and Santa Anita Derby winner He Did had the whip snatched from jockey Charley Kurtsinger's hand by a spectator in the infield.
Bold Venture's detractors changed their tunes after the Preakness Stakes, when Granville took the lead and Bold Venture, who had again gotten off to a tough start, ran him down in the stretch to win by a nose. Unfortunately, that was it for Bold Venture's racetrack glory as he bowed a tendon shortly after the Preakness and did not race again. He proved subfertile as a stallion but nonetheless became the only Kentucky Derby winner to sire two similar winners.
11 starts, 6 wins, 2 seconds, 0 thirds, US$68,300
Won Kentucky Derby (USA, 10FD, Churchill Downs)
Won Preakness Stakes (USA, 9.5FD, Pimlico)
Rated atop the 3-year-old male division of 1936 by The Blood-Horse, though the official divisional championship (along with Horse of the Year honors) went to Granville in all three polls then extant.
A chestnut horse, Bold Venture was short (15.1-1/2 hands) but powerfully built. He was extremely tenacious when set down for a drive.
As a stallion
The Jockey Club credits Bold Venture with siring 103 winners (57.9%) and 12 stakes winners (6.7%) from 178 named foals. Unfortunately, while the stallion transmitted his own muscular build, he also tended to transmit rather weak bones, a tendency that Robert Kleberg attributed to the horse's maternal grandsire Ultimus.
Notable progeny
Assault (USA), Middleground (USA)
Foaled in Kentucky, Bold Venture was bred and owned by Morton L. Schwartz, who bid the colt back in for US$7,100 from his own 1935 dispersal sale because he felt that Bold Venture was worth substantially more than the bids being offered. (To make the sale legitimate, he got another horseman to place the bid for him, then bought the colt back from his friend after the auction was concluded.) Bold Venture was trained by Max Hirsch.
Bold Venture entered stud at Mereworth Farm in 1937, later moving to John Hay Whitney's Mare's Nest Farm, but was not popular with breeders at either location. Robert Kleberg of the King Ranch bought Bold Venture for US$40,000 in December 1939, and Bold Venture stood at the King Ranch from 1941 onward.
Bold Venture is inbred 5x5 to two-time Ascot Gold Cup winner Isonomy. He is a half brother to stakes-placed Brown Elf (by Brown Prince II), dam of the minor stakes winner Cacodemon (by Mad Hatter) and second dam of 1960 Mexican champion 3-year-old filly Soberana. Bold Venture is also a half brother to Tactful (by Upset), dam of the minor stakes winner Rise-to-Follow (by Gino).
Bold Venture's dam Possible is out of Lida Flush (by Royal Flush III), who produced nothing else of importance but was a half sister to Claude (by Lissak). Like the later Black Gold, Claude won four Derbies during his 3-year-old season, in his case the California, Tennessee, St. Louis and Canadian races of that name. Lida Flush and Claude were out of the Lisbon mare Lida H., whose dam Luella (by Wanderer) was in turn produced from the Jerome Edger mare Lute Edger. The next dam in Bold Venture's tail-female line, the Lexington mare Lute, also produced the good stakes winner Virginius (by Virgil).
While he was being shipped to Saratoga as a juvenile, a fire broke out in the horse car carrying Bold Venture, killing two other horses. According to Brownie Leach's The Kentucky Derby Diamond Jubilee, a groom saved Bold Venture's life by holding his head out an opening so that the colt wouldn't suffocate.
At 20.50 to 1, Bold Venture was the longest shot to win the Kentucky Derby since Exterminator in 1918.
Bold Venture's Kentucky Derby victory made his jockey, Ira Hanford, the first rider to win the race while still an apprentice. In a neat touch, Hanford's apprentice contract belonged to Mary Hirsch, daughter of Max Hirsch and the first woman to be granted a trainer's license by The Jockey Club, and Ms. Hirsch loaned Hanford's riding services to her father for the Derby while she remained in New York to take care of the rest of her father's horses.
Bold Venture's Preakness Stakes was the first one decided by a photo finish camera.
Because Ira Hanford was serving a 15-day suspension for rough riding in the Kentucky Derby, George Woolf replaced him in Bold Venture's saddle for the Preakness Stakes. The change made Bold Venture the only Derby/Preakness winner to win the two Classics under different riders.
Bold Venture's son Depth Charge, a half brother to 1943 Triple Crown winner Count Fleet, had only a modest racing career but became a top sire of racing Quarter Horses.
The Bold Venture Stakes is a sprint stakes for horses aged 3 and up at Woodbine. It is currently a Grade III race and is carded for 6½ furlongs on the main track.