Ruffian
Burning From the Start
During two short seasons at the track, Ruffian was hailed as the greatest thoroughbred filly of all time. Unbeaten in her first ten starts, she shattered one record after another, dazzling crowds with both her beauty and her brilliant speed. Then tragedy struck on the afternoon of July 6, 1975. Ruffian broke down–on the lead–in the middle of a match race at Belmont Park. Later that night she had to be destroyed.
Ruffian: Burning from the Start is the story of this exceptional filly, a horse so dominating, so powerful, that writer Walter Farley once suggested she was more like the fictional legend, the Black Stallion, than any colt he had ever seen. Beginning with her earliest days in Kentucky, the…
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April 30, 2002Jane Schwartz is the author of the novel Caught and the sports biography Ruffian: Burning from the Start. She has written for many publications, including The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, The Blood-Horse, and Daily Racing Form, where her column “Free Rein” appeared. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.