50 Lengths? Mountaineer Marathon Turns Into Historic Rout
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Published 2014-09-02
The starter allowance with a purse of $27,000 featured a field of five going — wait for it — 18 furlongs (2 1/4 miles). That’s three passes in front of the grandstand.
The field stayed fairly compact for the first oh, 8 to 10 furlongs, but on the backstretch during the last lap, eventual winner Feodor, a 5-year-old trained by Pavel Vashchenko, began to widen from the pack. By the time he rounded the far turn (Berry: “Whatever turn this is, I can’t count that high”), Feodor was 20 lengths in front. At the wire the margin was, by Berry’s wild guess, 50.
He was dead on, according to the Equibase chart, which put it at 49 3/4. The 2nd-place finisher, Keniko, was 33 lengths clear of third place.
Berry said it was probably the largest margin of victory in Mountaineer history, at least.
“This is the biggest win I’ve seen at Mountaineer. It might be the biggest win I’ve seen anywhere. It might be the biggest win anybody’s ever seen anywhere!”
The winning rider was Charle Oliveros, and the final time was 3:58, or about half the length of the song, Stairway to Heaven. Despite the Secretariat-in-the-Belmont type margin, It was only the fourth win from 26 starts for Feodor, a son of Mineshaft out of the Trempolino mare, Nogalus.
All Comments (21)
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Great call! “I don’t know what turn we’re in now”? “I CAN’T COUNT THAT HIGH” to funny!
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Looks like a scene from Secretariat 🤣
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I saw this live on HRTV yesterday. Just a great call by Peter Berry!
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The 2nd place would've won in a romp if the winner wasn't there. talk about impressive of the winner!
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Commentator was spot on. If you look this horse up on Equibase, you can find this race and it says in the form card that he won by 49 & 3/4 lengths 😂
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Feodor is coming out of retirement and will race at Arlington Park 6/17/2017
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Back in 1990 at Garden State I won about $900 on a race where my trifecta had the winner six lengths in front of the place horse, who was another six in front of the show horse, who was about fifteen ahead of everyone else. Also once had two 30-1 shots in a p3 that were each paying $500 for 1. One of them won by six and the other was second by six. Fun times. Races like this are great for bettors.
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Commentator absolute legend
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There have actually been some harness horses that have gone a mile in 1:46 and change.
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This distance is hardly run anymore, but 70 years ago, horses had more stamina and endurance. They were called "Stayers". Feodor is a stayer. I looked it up. 3:58 is a pretty good time for this distance. His jockey could have just galloped him in around the last far turn, the he race raced him, and Feodor raced!!!!!! What a horse. The record at 2-1/2 miles is 4:14 by Miss Grillo in 1948 at Pimlico,
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When the 2nd place horse made the turn for home it looked drunk. The 3rd 4th and 5th place finishers didn't have blinders on, they had blindfolds on.
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It's a damn shame that North American racing doesn't have graded stakes races at this distance.
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Great win. Great call.
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Great win but 2 mile races cause these finishes.Used to run 3 mile 70 yards at old River Downs in the 70s.Racing has become either 6 furlongs or 1 mile,think of how many stars are never found by not being creative with distances,short or long.Mountaineer is creative on their card.They also race all summer 2 furlong races.
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In the early '70s, Finger Lakes used to run a series of marathon races, one every two weeks. They'd increase in distance as the meet went on. I think they got to 4 1/16 or 4 1/8 miles before the plug was pulled on the idea.
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He actually won by 49 3/4 lengths. The following year, he won a race by 46 1/2 lengths.
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Back in the 30s doc Stubbs put on some darn good horse races after he raided the cookie jar.I remember one day he put on a marathon over 16 and 3/4 miles for a purse of 20 shenanigans and a glass of full cream milk straight from the cows teat.Those were the days.
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Holy Cow!! o_0 And acts like there's something still in the tank!
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Interesting but still, it is a 2-1/4 race so assuming horses run the same rate all along, the lead will keep gaining on the 2nd. It means less to be 50lengths in front in a long race than in a mile.
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In the 80's in Philly/Jersey, there was a horse named Duxun Limited that would dominate the marathon races. He won 15 of 105 lifetime starts. I'm sure most of them were 2+ miles, on the dirt or grass.
