The 1930 Triple Crown Winner- A Photographic Essay

Gallant Fox, pictured here with jockey Earl Sande and trainer James “Sunny Jim” Fitzsimmons (pictured in the fedora) after winning the Kentucky Derby in 1930. The “Fox of Belair” captured not only the Kentucky Derby, but the Preakness and Belmont Stakes to become the second horse in history at the time to sweep all three races.
(Photo courtesy of The Blood-Horse)


The story of horse racing’s 1930 Triple Crown winner, Gallant Fox, really begins at the Belair Stud. Owner William Woodward, Sr. bred the champion and brought the horse to his Bowie, MD farm from Kentucky when Gallant Fox was 6 months old. Belair has a long and storied history of producing notable racehorses.
(Photo, courtesy of the author, was taken at the Belair Stable Museum, Bowie, MD.)



Gallant Fox went to the track carrying the Belair’s colors of white jacket, red polka dots, red cap. Pictured is a set of actual “silks” worn by one of Belair’s jockeys.
(Photo, courtesy of the author, was taken at the Belair Stable Museum, Bowie, MD.)



Gallant Fox was stabled in the south stable at Belair, seen here.
(Photo, courtesy of the author, was taken at the Belair Stable Museum, Bowie, MD.)


Inside the very stall in which Gallant Fox was stabled, a plaque now hangs commemorating the champion’s accomplishments. It reads “Gallant Fox by *Sir Gallahad III- Marguerite. Bay colt foaled March 23, 1927 was raised in this box and the adjacent paddocks. Winner of the Flash, Junior Champion, Wood Memorial, Preakness, Kentucky Derby, the Dwyer, the Classic, Saratoga Cup, Lawrence Realization, Jockey Club Gold Cup, the Belmont Stakes. A total of $340,415 in Stakes and Cups making him the biggest winner of all times of the world. But seriously speaking, the Fox of Belair, is the greatest and dearest of Thoroughbreds rare. He’s a Champion for sure, the head of the Clan. As kindly and great as great-hearted man.”

(Photo, courtesy of the author, was taken at the Belair Stable Museum, Bowie, MD.)

Part II.

The experience of finding photos for this essay was not difficult simply because of the subject matter I chose to display. I am currently developing the website for the Belair Stable Museum for the class project. Because the Museum is open, I was able to go through and take not only these photos, but other pictures depicting the history of the Belair Stable. In addition, the curator for the City of Bowie has digitized close to 1000 images of Belair, ranging from its Thoroughbred racehorses to general farm life. According to the curator, use of the photos on an educational website should fall under “fair use”-hence no fees or copyright issues. And because the Museum’s exhibits are in the public domain, they are permitted to be photographed. My only concern with this photo essay involved the black and white photo from The Blood-Horse magazine, the weekly national report of Thoroughbred racing. Many of the photographs in past issues are credited to photographer Charles Christian Cook, who largely concentrated on Eastern, Midwestern, and Southern racing from 1901-51. The Keeneland Library in Lexington, Kentucky, the repository for most horse racing photographic and print media, generally attributes Cook photographs to Keeneland-Cook, but there is an inconsistency as to whether all of the Cook photographs are copyrighted material. Because I will have access to the City of Bowie’s collection of photographs of Gallant Fox, I believe that I will avoid copyright issues on my website. For this assignment, however, I obtained a copy of the black and white Blood-Horse photograph from the Bowie Public Library’s file collection on Belair Stable. This particular photograph did not credit a photographer, though I assume it is a Cook, and did not appear to be copyrighted. I took a gamble that I was not breaking copyright by posting this photo to my blog.

I conducted a general Google Image search for “Gallant Fox.” Several of the more popular images of him are displayed in the top five hits. However, none of the sites give credit for the photos nor display any copyright information. Photographs of Gallant Fox are at least 78 years old, so perhaps the statute of limitation on many of them has long since expired.