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The best horse in the world will run his last race this November. The occasion will be the Washington, D.C., Laurel International which every year invites the best thoroughbreds in the world do their best at a mile and a half on the turf.
This year is something special. Nijinsky. named after the great dancer of the Czar's Royal Ballet, may be the best horse to run in the twentieth century. Like his namesake. Nijinsky has already established himself as one of the immortals of his time. Only the undefeated European horse Ribot and the unbelievable American star Man 'O War can be considered in Nijinsky's class.
Nary a Loss
Nijinsky has raced exclusively in England and Ireland and he has never lost. For his tenth victory, a race against all the best older horses in England. Nijinsky sauntered by his foes with remarkable ease while the best rider in Europe, Lester Piggot, pulled hard on the reins.
Among the horses he beat was Karabas, winner of last year's Laurel International, and had Piggot been urging Nijinsky instead of restraining him, there is no telling how large the margin of victory might have been-ten lengths. fifteen lengths, twenty?
Nijinsky was bred in Canada by E. P. Taylor and sold to Charles Engelhard for a paltry $81,000. Considering the $150,000 paid for the full brother to Majestic Prince at last weeks' Keeneland yearling sales, Nijinsky was a bargain at any price.
HORSE FEATURE
Englchard, one of the richest men in the world, the undisputed platinum and diamond king of the earth, owner of all the big South African diamond mines that made Cecil Rhodes so happy, races horses on three continents-America, Europe, and Africa.
Statuesque
A short, powerfully-built man, he bulges with fat and money. But his fat, instead of making him look slovenly, molds his face and body into a statue of a Rodin here, overwhelming and powerful in its grotesque beauty. He walks slowly and carries a cane andsends his daughters to Foxcroft and last week set a record for a buyer at Keeneland by spending $986,000 for 14 yearling horses.
Charles Englehard is a shrewd man among the shrewd, but a jolly man with a heartening laugh and sparkling dark brown eyes which mirror the clever mind behind, and when Nijinsky wins the Laurel International for his thirteenth victory in thirteen starts and retires, Englehard will have a lot to smile about, because he will have raced the greatest horse in the world, the greatest horse that any of us will probably ever see in our lifetime.
Great horses, like a great wine, a great painting, or a great beauty, are irreplaceable and ephemeral, but they are unique, and the thrill of owning a Nijinsky can never be repeated.
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