Dr. Fager

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Dr. Fager, a thoroughbred racehorse, ran what many consider the greatest single season of any horse in the history of the sport. "The Doctor" was the only horse who ever held four titles in one year. That year was 1968, and he was voted the Eclipse Award for Horse of the Year, champion handicap horse, champion sprinter, and co-champion grass horse.

A bay colt out of Rough'n Tumble, and bred by his owner, the Tartan Stable of William L. McKnight (chairman of the board of 3Ms Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co.), Dr. Fager was born in 1964. Trained by hall-of-famer John Nerud, he was named for the Boston brain surgeon Dr. Charles Fager, who saved Nerud's life with two operations after a serious fall from his pony.

Dr. Fager raced 22 times, winning 18, with two places and one show. There were only three horses who ever finished in front of the doctor: Champion juvenile Successor (the doc was still green and unruly); Horse of the Year Damascus; and Horse of the Year Buckpasser. His lifetime earnings were $1,002,642.

Nerud admitted that his colt was arrogant, headstrong, conceited, rank, and unwilling to be rated, yet this remarkable animal held the fastest record for 1 mile in the world: 1:32 1/5, achieved on August 24, 1968 when he ran in the Washington Park Handicap at Arlington Park. On that day, he carried 134 pounds. The list of stakes and handicaps he won include the Gotham, the Withers, the Jersey Derby, the AP Classic, the Hawthorne Gold Cup, the Vosburgh, the Roseben, the Californian, the Suburban, the Brooklyn, the Whitney, the United Nations and for the second time, the Vosburgh. During the three years he performed,he proved to be one of the strongest handicap horses of that era. His remarkable record is recorded in "Champions, The Lives, Times, and Past Performances of the 20th Century's Greatest Thoroughbreds" by the editors and writers of the Daily Racing Form.

In The Blood-Horse magazine's list of the top 100 U.S. thoroughbred champions of the 20th Century, Dr. Fager comes sixth. In 1971, only three years after he left the track, he was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, New York.

To this day Dr.Fager holds the record for a mile on the dirt.

He went to stud at Tartan Farm near Ocala, Florida, where he stood for eight years before his premature death at age 12 on August 5, 1976. Named leading sire in 1971, Dr. Fager's offspring include Dearly Precious, Tree of Knowledge, and L'Alezane. Death was attributed to a colon obstruction. He was buried at Tartan Farm, now known as Winding Oaks Farm.

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