1946 Champ Assault Defied Injury
Clubfooted Comet Bested the Rest, Overcame Lord Boswell in Classics
Crippled by a surveyor's stake as a yearling, Assault showed tenacity on the track, surprising his trainer, Max Hirsch, on the way to a Triple Crown title.
Connections and Stats: 1946
Awards and Stud Career: Assault
There were no early expectations for 1946's Triple Crown champion, Assault.
Adversity is dealt with individually. Some do all right with it; others fade away under its tonnage. The crippled Assault attacked it like a champion.
Kentucky Derby
Maine Chance Farm sent an army to the 1946, May 4 Kentucky Derby, including Lord Boswell, Knockdown, and Perfect Bahram, all of whom were favored to do well. A slow track, however, was to Assault's liking. After a victorious Wood Memorial, he had failed to fire in the Derby Trial, and was not thought to be a great threat in the Kentucky Derby.
Spy Song got off to pace the Derby, while Assault and jockey Warren Mehrtens took the rail express. Knockdown joined the lead with Spy Song in the pre-stretch struggle. Assault cruised near the leaders, then came his characteristic explosion as he winged by the two pace setters just beyond the top of the stretch. By the time he reached midstretch, the race was over.
Assault steadily drew away, winning by eight lengths. The cripple's smooth cruise commanded attention once again.
Preakness Stakes
As was normal for the time, the three Triple Crown races took place in less than a month, rather than today's six weeks swing. So a week after his Derby victory, Assault was on post parade for the second jewel of the crown, the Preakness Stakes at Maryland's Pimlico Race Course.
The colt's steady detractors got a boost when Assault sprinted into a bad start in the ten horse field. Assault was bothered by the close pack and didn't hit cruise gear as he had in the Derby. Perhaps that circumstance, combined with the shorter distance of the Preakness, entreated Mehrtens to ask early.
As the far turn loomed ahead, Mehrtens pushed Assault into high motor. Assault leaped at the leaders and exploded into a four length lead, then hung in with true grit through the lane, lungs bursting above an empty tank. His lead melted as Lord Boswell came on hard, but Assault prevailed by a neck.
Belmont Stakes
A much longer Belmont Stakes faced Assault on June 1. Lord Boswell was favored to reach the extra distance. Mehrtens and Assault gathered heads and hearts to overcome Assault's opening stumble and the unfavorable odds.
They raced steadily and coolly, reaching the leader, Natchez, with an eighth of a mile left. Assault's explosion was on cue. Gritty and determined, he propelled away by three lengths to the winner's circle.
Yes, it's true. From "club foot" to "Clubfooted Comet" went the tenacious Assault.
