Sham
The greatest racehorse you've never heard of
The Derby in 1:59⅘. The announcer’s voice cracked like he’d witnessed something biblical. Records that stand to this day yet he remains almost a shadow. But sometimes the shadow is the heart of a great story. Sometimes the story is greatness. And greatness was named Sham.
Born April 9, 1970, at Claiborne Farm in Kentucky, Sham was the son of a stallion named Pretense. History would reveal greatness and great irony in the family naming convention. There was nothing pretend about this horse. He was a dark bay colt with a chest like a barrel.
His three-year-old season opened having already shown he was something different. At Santa Anita that winter, he ran through the competition like it wasn’t there. Four wins in five starts. In the Santa Anita Derby, he went wire-to-wire in 1:47⅖. That remains a record that has never been broken, in 50-plus years of trying.
He arrived at Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby as one of the most highly regarded horses in the country. He left having run a mile and a quarter in 1:59⅘. In the entire history of the Kentucky Derby, only two horses have ever broken two minutes. One was Sham. He ripped out two teeth on the starting gate before the race even began. Bleeding from the first jump, he ran a time that would stand against every other race since 1875. Simply remarkable.
At the Preakness two weeks later, Sham ran 1:54⅖. A time so fast it wouldn’t be equaled for another 12 years. These are the times of a horse who ran at the outermost edge of what a thoroughbred body is capable of producing and simply met a singular moment in racing history.
But history is unforgiving. In the Belmont, Sham finished last of five. What history has revealed is that Sham likely entered that race with a broken bone. In the weeks that followed the Belmont, veterinarians would repair a hairline fracture in his front right cannon bone. He likely ran a mile and a half on a fractured leg and finished the race, but never ran again. Greatness.
What came next was the legacy. Sham was retired to stud and sired 347 winners from 625 named foals. He lived to 23. He died of a heart attack on April 3, 1993 and the autopsy told one last story.
Sham’s heart weighed 18 pounds. The average thoroughbred heart weighs around 8 or 9. His heart was more than twice the size it should have been, a physical monument to what the animal was trying to do every time he ran. Eighteen pounds.
But Sham remains the second-best three-year-old ever, behind a horse that most consider the greatest.
He ran the second-fastest Kentucky Derby and one of the fastest Preakness Stakes in history and did it on a fractured leg with missing teeth.
Sham ran 1:59⅘ at Churchill Downs with blood in his mouth and a crowd of 134,000 people looking at the horse next to him. The second fastest ever. Secretariat finished in 1:59⅖. His 18-pound heart was remarkable. Secretariat’s was 25.
The 1973 Triple Crown season remains the single most remarkable series ever run. Secretariat’s records have stood for over 50 years. So, quietly, has Sham’s Santa Anita Derby record. Greatness is elusive when measured with fame or memory. History remembers who crossed the line first. But a sham is hardly who finished second.