Girl Power!

So Rags to Riches won the Belmont Stakes, the first filly to win the 1 1/2 mile endurance race since 1905. She edged out Preakness winner Curlin by a head to win the race.

So now I wonder how long it will take people to propose a match race between Rags to Riches and Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense. The Derby winner is supposedly retiring, but I doubt that would stop any speculation.

Matches used to be a pretty popular event in horse racing, with such classics as Seabiscuit and War Admiral (The Match of the Century). The event fell out of favor after the fateful match race on July 6, 1975 at Belmont Park.

The race featured the filly Ruffian, who won her first 10 races and was dubbed "Queen of the Fillies," and Foolish Pleasure, the Kentucky Derby winner. The "Battle of thew Sexes" tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs had taken place two years earlier, and this horse race would be dubbed "the equine battle of the Sexes."

Ruffian led by a nose after the first quarter-mile and soon extended her lead to about half a length. But then tragedy struck. Both of Ruffian's sesamoid bones in her right foreleg snapped. Her jockey, Jacinto Vasquez, tried to pull her up, but she ran on for another 50 yards, apparently unwilling to give up the race.

She was treated in surgery for 12 hours, but when the anesthesia wore off, she thrashed around, destroyed the cast and broke her other leg. She was euthanized soon after, and was buried in the infield at Belmont Park, where she got to watch another filly win the Belmont 32 years later.