Champions come in all shapes and sizes, and nothing could validate this fact more than a comparison between Cicada and Personal Ensign. Where Cicada had been subjected to an incredibly demanding campaign for three of her four years on the track, Personal Ensign had been exposed as often and handled as delicately as the Crown Jewels. And the contrast didn’t end there; Cicada’s diminutive frame endured the task of yeomen, while Personal Ensign was tall and elegant, but fragile. The only similarity was that they were both bay, brilliant on the racecourse, and were the product of two of the pre-eminent studs in the country.
Personal Ensign was bred and owned by Ogden Phipps, and foaled in 1984 at
Claiborne Farm, Ky. She was by Private Account, which was by
Damascus out of 2-year-old filly champion, Numbered Account. The dam of Personal Ensign was Grecian Banner, by Hoist The Flag. I had trained both the sire and the dam as 2-year-olds, and both, for different reasons, were late starters. The second dam on the female side, Dorine*, was an imported multiple-stakes winner from
Argentina, and had produced stakes-winning sprinter, Our Hero, which I also had the good fortune to train.
Claude “Shug” McGaughey deserves great credit for nursing Personal Ensign through infirmity to eternity, having her delicately tip-toe through three seasons of racing with only 13 lifetime starts, and retiring her at 4, undefeated with an Eclipse Award as champion older female.
Racing only twice at 2 in 1986, Personal Ensign showed her potential in winning both starts, including the most coveted Frizette Stakes at Belmont. Due to unsoundness, it was many months before she was able return to an abbreviated season in 1987, but she was nevertheless victorious in all of her four starts. By taking the Rare Perfume Stakes and the Beldame, she came close to taking the 3-year-old filly championship from Sacahuista.
Again, injury interrupted her career but she finally returned to the races in May 1988 and won the Shuvee Stakes. From that victory on, she raced once a month for the next six months, winning everything with ease. Aside from victories in the Hempstead Handicap, the Molly Pitcher, the Maskette, and the Beldame for the second time against her own sex, she won the Whitney Handicap against males at
Saratoga. As a tribute to Personal Ensign, perhaps, but also because of the condition of the track that was a sea of mud, there were only three runners in the Whitney, her only opponents being Gulch and King’s Swan, which finished in a procession behind her in that order.
On Nov. 4, 1988, she ran her final race in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff Championship at Churchill Downs, a race that was almost certainly her finest performance. Going off as a prohibitive favorite, Personal Ensign had to face the second-choice D. Wayne Lukas entry of Classic Crown and Winning Colors, the latter having won the Kentucky Derby that year, which virtually guaranteed her the 3-year-old filly championship.
The Breeders’ Cup Distaff, regarded by many as the best race of the year, was indeed memorable. Winning Colors took over command immediately and settled into a two-length lead, going easily on a slow pace. Personal Ensign, in tight quarters initially, dropped back to sixth for the first quarter of a mile. Starting down the backstretch and around the far turn, she started to pick up horses, and turned into the home stretch two lengths behind Goodbye Halo and some four lengths behind Winning Colors. Through the long stretch, it appeared that Winning Colors could never be caught, but Personal Ensign, passing and brushing with Goodbye Halo at the eighth pole, was steadily gaining. With 100 yards left to go, it still seemed impossible to catch Winning Colors. In the final three strides, the two great fillies were together, noses apart. There was plenty of sentiment for either of the two champions, but it was the impartial photo-finish camera that gave the race and the winner’s share of the glory to Personal Ensign.
She never ran again; she didn’t have to. She was recognized as the best filly of her generation in the country and earned an Eclipse Award for best older filly or mare. She was retired to Claiborne Farm at the end of 1988 and inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1993.
I make no apology for being partial to any of the five fillies that I have selected here, nor for the five colts which appeared in the January-February issue of The Backstretch. But it is the prerogative of horsemen to disagree, and I am the first to admit that many horses that I have seen, and even more that I have not, could justifiably be included among my titanic 10 of the turf.
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