Assault Battled Injury and Opinion
1946 TC Champ, Crippled but Swift vs. Stymie, Armed; Proved Sterile
Triple Crown Spotlight Series: Assault
TC Champions: Rankings
Assault's career began despite the nickname "club foot". He had stomped on a surveyor's stake as a youngster, wounding his right front hoof. The injury left him with a lifelong limp, yet when he ran he exhibited no sign of trouble. As his racing prowess gradually overrode his peculiar walking stride, his nickname changed to "the clubfooted comet".
Assault had personality. He enjoyed exaggerating his limping walk, dumping his exercise rider, and running wildly and riderlessly through the track stable areas. His trainer, Max Hirsch, spent days questioning the colt's worth prior to 1946.
Assault Out of Igual and By Equipoise
Assault's dam, Igual, was sired by Equipoise, a stalwart bloodline stallion. Bold Venture sired Assault and Middleground, who together won a total of five of six triple crown classics. Assault won all three of his triple crown races in 1946 to become the crown's seventh champion. Middleground captured the 1950 Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes.
Assault represented King Ranch in Texas. In 1934, King Ranch purchased Chicaro to breed to the ranch's quarter horses. American and European cross breeding was instituted to develop faster thoroughbreds with great stamina. Bold Venture, himself winner of the 1936 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, was added to the breeding adventure and fathered Assault seven years later.
First Texas-bred TC Champ, Mehrtens Best
The first Texas-bred Triple Crown champion, Assault proved sterile when retired in 1948. A return to racing garnered nine more wins, raising his lifetime earnings to $675,470. He left the track behind for good in 1950. Rewarded for his efforts on the turf, he was given green pastures and occasionally romped with quarter horse mares. Although not a breeding stallion, Assault is recorded as the sire of several quarter horse foals.
At the age of 28, Assault died in 1971, having left his own special impact on the thoroughbred scene.
Eddie Acraro, who piloted Whirlaway to the 1941Triple Crown and later, Citation to the 1948 title, rode Assault a number of times late in the liver chestnut's career. Arcaro referred to Assault as a "fun" mount. The jockey said there was always an explosion waiting to happen.
Warren Mehrtens, Assault's Triple Crown jockey, said Assault was all heart, and better than all the thoroughbreds around him. Voted Horse of the Year for 1946, Assault also copped the Champion Three-Year-Old Colt trophy.
Before the end of 1946, Mehrtens and Hirsch agreed to disagree on Assault's schedule and preferences for the future. Arcaro got the ride from then on.
Match Race Lost
In a match race at Belmont with Armed, eventual 1947 Horse of the Year, Assault entered having displayed lameness five days earlier. Not at his best, Assault finished eight lengths behind Citation's stablemate. It was a typical low day for Assault. His high days were majestic enough to earn worthy praise as the nation's seventh classic champion.
Stymie, ($918.485), Armed ($817,475), and Assault finished 1-2-3 in all time purse earnings of their time.
