Spectacular Bid

Spectacular Bid (foaled February 17, 1976 – June 9, 2003) was a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who won the 1979 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes. He holds the world record for the fastest 10 furlongs on dirt, and also broke several track records. (A furlong is .) He won 26 of his 30 races and earned a then-record $2,781,607. He also won Eclipse Awards in each of his three racing seasons. Spectacular Bid was the leading American two-year-old of 1978, winning the Champagne Stakes and the Laurel Futurity. As a three-year-old, he won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, giving him twelve consecutive victories. Spectacular Bid then tried to become the third consecutive Triple Crown winner, but he only came third in the Belmont Stakes after hurting his foot before the race. He recovered from the injury to win the Marlboro Cup and confirm his status as the best American colt of his generation. In 1980 as a four-year-old, Spectacular Bid was undefeated in nine races, and was named American Horse of the Year. Background Spectacular Bid was bred at Buck Pond Farm near Lexington, Kentucky by Madelyn Jason and her mother, Mrs. William Gilmore. He was a very dark gray (described as "steel-gray" and "battleship-colored") during his racing career although, like all grays, his coat lightened as he aged, and he eventually took on a "flea-bitten gray" appearance. His sire was Bold Bidder, stakes winner of 13 races who also sired the 1974 Kentucky Derby winner, Cannonade. His grandsire was Bold Ruler, a U.S. Racing Hall of Fame inductee and an eight-time Leading sire in North America. His dam was the gray mare Spectacular by Promised Land, who, as a descendant of the broodmare Fly By Night, was a member of the same branch of Thoroughbred Family 2-d which also produced the Kentucky Derby winners Northern Dancer and Cannonade. Spectacular Bid was inbred 3x3 to the stallion To Market, meaning that this horse appears twice in the third generation of his pedigree. As of 2012 he remains one of the two most inbred Kentucky Derby winners in the last 50 years (Big Brown was similarly inbred to Northern Dancer).