Armed with Calumet
The 1946 Suburban Handicap
Calumet Farm stands high among Thoroughbred racing’s all-time owners. Eight Kentucky Derby wins. Two Triple Crowns. Eleven homebreds elected to the Hall of Fame. But only once did Calumet win New York’s historic Suburban Handicap. They did it in 1946 with assistant trainer Horace A. “Jimmy” Jones and a surprising horse: a late-blooming 5-year-old gelding named Armed.
“You know when Armed was a 2-year-old I never thought he would make it,” head trainer Ben Jones mused after the son of Bull Lea-Armful, by Chance Shot closed his 1945 campaign by winning the Pimlico Special from big earner First Fiddle and champion Stymie. “He was one of those scrawny, undeveloped little fellows; so I sent him back to Calumet Farm to grow . . . During his year’s lay-off he was gelded, and the farm foreman used him for a saddle pony. When he came back to train, he had grown into a nice, medium-sized horse. All through this year I have watched him develop into one of the fastest horses I ever trained.”
