On Saturday, six fillies and mares went into the Woodbine starting gate for the Canadian Stakes Presented by the Japan Racing Association (CAN-G2). Six was apparently the lucky number for Proctor Street, who was making her sixth start of the year. After falling short of victory five times, she finally got both her first win of the season and her first graded stakes win, catching Eponine by a neck after trailing the early pace. The victory boosted her lifetime record to six wins and five placings from 14 starts and increased her bankroll to US$667,800.
Bred and owned by Patricia Moseley, Proctor Street is a fourth-generation descendant of Drumtop, a mare that never won a championship but probably should have. The best race mare sired by the great Round Table, she was much in her sire’s mold: not overly big but tough, determined, and willing to take on all comers at any distance she was asked to tackle and over any kind of footing.
Although she was a winner on dirt as a youngster, Drumtop found her stride when transferred to the turf. At first, though, she remained properly feminine. She defeated fellow 3-year-old fillies in the Princeton Handicap at Garden State and took on older females to win the New York Handicap at Aqueduct. She also set a course record for 8.5 furlongs at Belmont, though her time was surpassed before the end of the season. At year’s end, the Daily Racing Form’s Free Handicap rated her at 16 pounds below the champion turf horse, the 5-year-old horse Hawaii.
American female turf horses were not given their own championship division until 1979, and the prize money was better in open company. Drumtop set out to grab her share in 1970. Facing males more often than she did females, she opened up the season against her fellow distaffers in the first division of the Columbiana Handicap at Hialeah and then was second in the Hialeah Turf Cup Handicap in open company, losing to front-running Vent du Nord by a length and a half.
Taken out to California, Drumtop was not quite able to run down Sallina in the Santa Barbara Handicap, and throughout her career, she would demonstrate that the harder California courses did not really suit her. On returning East to courses that were more to her liking, she showed her heels to the boys in the Edgemere Handicap at Aqueduct. It took her eight more tries to capture another stakes race, but seven of those eight races were against the upper echelon of the male turf runners, and she was never worse than fourth. She finally closed out her season in the Canadian International Championship Stakes, turning back stiff challenges from Jungle Cove and Frenetico to capture the 13-furlong event. Her efforts earned her a season-ending rating of 123 pounds, 9 points below Fort Marcy (who shared the Horse of the Year title with the star 3-year-old, Personality) but tied for sixth in the division. She took home US$190,708 for the year, good money in a year in which only 14 horses exceeded US$200,000 in earnings. She was also the top-rated turf horse on the Canadian Free Handicap, though she was ineligible for a year-end championship in Canada as she had not made the requisite three starts in that country.
Drumtop had reached full maturity in 1971, and she celebrated that status by playing the Amazon warrior to the hilt. After opening her season with a win in the Palm Beach Handicap and a surprise fourth in the Bougainvillea Handicap, she finished her run through the Hialeah turf division with a head victory in the Hialeah Turf Cup Handicap in course record time of 2:26-4/5 over The Pruner; favored Fort Marcy was another 1¾ lengths back in third in the 12-furlong event. A second trip out to California netted her placings in the San Luis Rey Handicap and the Century Handicap, and then it was back to the East, where she threw a Garden State course record of 1:59-4/5 for 10 furlongs at her victims in the Camden Handicap. A second edition of the Edgemere Handicap was the next trophy for her collection, and she handed Fort Marcy another defeat in the Bowling Green Handicap, setting her third course record of the season as she ran the 12 furlongs in 2:25-2/5.
Unfortunately, Drumtop’s victory may have been pyrrhic. The Belmont course was unusually hard for the event, and the mare was clearly not her usual self when she finished fourth in her next outing, the Ford Pinto Turf Invitational Handicap at Hollywood Park. Her season and her career ended in the Kelly-Olympic Handicap at Atlantic City on September 4, in which she bowed a tendon. The injury forced Drumtop to miss the prestigious fall events of the division, and the 3-year-old colt Run the Gantlet took advantage of her absence to win the United Nations Invitational Handicap, the Man o’ War Stakes, and the Washington, D. C., International Invitational Stakes. He had already won the Kelly-Olympic (though no one considered that a true measure of his abilities versus Drumtop’s), and his late-season victories tipped voting in the divisional championship in his favor. Drumtop got a consolation prize in the form of a 126-pound rating on the Free Handicap, best in the division and 2 pounds above Run the Gantlet. She closed out her career with 44 starts, 17 wins, 9 seconds, and 3 thirds, having banked US$493,738.
Drumtop belonged to the famous family of Rough Shod II, and her dam, Zonah (Nasrullah x Gambetta, by My Babu), was closely related to three-time American champion Gamely (Bold Ruler [by Nasrullah] x Gambetta). In addition, Zonah produced Drumtop’s full brother Take Your Place, winner of the 1975 Observer Gold Cup (ENG-G1). With such credentials, Drumtop was expected to become an excellent broodmare. She did not quite live up to those expectations although she produced three stakes winners: Topsider (by Northern Dancer), who defied his dam’s genetics to become a dirt sprinter; 1983 Prix Berteux (FR-G3) winner Brogan (by Nijinsky II), who was the runner-up in that year’s Derby Italiano (ITY-G3); and minor stakes winner War of Words (by Arts and Letters).
Topsider became a good stallion, and Drumtop has a continuing female line of descent through her winning Mr. Prospector daughter, Aliata, dam of multiple Puerto Rican stakes winner Storm Allied (by Stormy Atlantic). Aliata’s stakes-placed Storm Cat son Storm Boot became a useful sire of speed. Storm Boot’s stakes-placed half sister Archstone (by Arch) produced multiple Grade 2 winner Proctor’s Ledge (by Ghostzapper), and Proctor’s Ledge produced Proctor Street (a daughter of Street Sense) as her second foal. And Drumtop has another legacy, as her heroics (which many horsemen thought should have earned her an official title) brought recognition to female turf runners and perhaps played a role in the 1979 creation of an Eclipse Award exclusively for fillies and mares on grass. There are far worse ways to be remembered.
Bred and owned by Patricia Moseley, Proctor Street is a fourth-generation descendant of Drumtop, a mare that never won a championship but probably should have. The best race mare sired by the great Round Table, she was much in her sire’s mold: not overly big but tough, determined, and willing to take on all comers at any distance she was asked to tackle and over any kind of footing.
Although she was a winner on dirt as a youngster, Drumtop found her stride when transferred to the turf. At first, though, she remained properly feminine. She defeated fellow 3-year-old fillies in the Princeton Handicap at Garden State and took on older females to win the New York Handicap at Aqueduct. She also set a course record for 8.5 furlongs at Belmont, though her time was surpassed before the end of the season. At year’s end, the Daily Racing Form’s Free Handicap rated her at 16 pounds below the champion turf horse, the 5-year-old horse Hawaii.
American female turf horses were not given their own championship division until 1979, and the prize money was better in open company. Drumtop set out to grab her share in 1970. Facing males more often than she did females, she opened up the season against her fellow distaffers in the first division of the Columbiana Handicap at Hialeah and then was second in the Hialeah Turf Cup Handicap in open company, losing to front-running Vent du Nord by a length and a half.
Taken out to California, Drumtop was not quite able to run down Sallina in the Santa Barbara Handicap, and throughout her career, she would demonstrate that the harder California courses did not really suit her. On returning East to courses that were more to her liking, she showed her heels to the boys in the Edgemere Handicap at Aqueduct. It took her eight more tries to capture another stakes race, but seven of those eight races were against the upper echelon of the male turf runners, and she was never worse than fourth. She finally closed out her season in the Canadian International Championship Stakes, turning back stiff challenges from Jungle Cove and Frenetico to capture the 13-furlong event. Her efforts earned her a season-ending rating of 123 pounds, 9 points below Fort Marcy (who shared the Horse of the Year title with the star 3-year-old, Personality) but tied for sixth in the division. She took home US$190,708 for the year, good money in a year in which only 14 horses exceeded US$200,000 in earnings. She was also the top-rated turf horse on the Canadian Free Handicap, though she was ineligible for a year-end championship in Canada as she had not made the requisite three starts in that country.
Drumtop had reached full maturity in 1971, and she celebrated that status by playing the Amazon warrior to the hilt. After opening her season with a win in the Palm Beach Handicap and a surprise fourth in the Bougainvillea Handicap, she finished her run through the Hialeah turf division with a head victory in the Hialeah Turf Cup Handicap in course record time of 2:26-4/5 over The Pruner; favored Fort Marcy was another 1¾ lengths back in third in the 12-furlong event. A second trip out to California netted her placings in the San Luis Rey Handicap and the Century Handicap, and then it was back to the East, where she threw a Garden State course record of 1:59-4/5 for 10 furlongs at her victims in the Camden Handicap. A second edition of the Edgemere Handicap was the next trophy for her collection, and she handed Fort Marcy another defeat in the Bowling Green Handicap, setting her third course record of the season as she ran the 12 furlongs in 2:25-2/5.
Unfortunately, Drumtop’s victory may have been pyrrhic. The Belmont course was unusually hard for the event, and the mare was clearly not her usual self when she finished fourth in her next outing, the Ford Pinto Turf Invitational Handicap at Hollywood Park. Her season and her career ended in the Kelly-Olympic Handicap at Atlantic City on September 4, in which she bowed a tendon. The injury forced Drumtop to miss the prestigious fall events of the division, and the 3-year-old colt Run the Gantlet took advantage of her absence to win the United Nations Invitational Handicap, the Man o’ War Stakes, and the Washington, D. C., International Invitational Stakes. He had already won the Kelly-Olympic (though no one considered that a true measure of his abilities versus Drumtop’s), and his late-season victories tipped voting in the divisional championship in his favor. Drumtop got a consolation prize in the form of a 126-pound rating on the Free Handicap, best in the division and 2 pounds above Run the Gantlet. She closed out her career with 44 starts, 17 wins, 9 seconds, and 3 thirds, having banked US$493,738.
Drumtop belonged to the famous family of Rough Shod II, and her dam, Zonah (Nasrullah x Gambetta, by My Babu), was closely related to three-time American champion Gamely (Bold Ruler [by Nasrullah] x Gambetta). In addition, Zonah produced Drumtop’s full brother Take Your Place, winner of the 1975 Observer Gold Cup (ENG-G1). With such credentials, Drumtop was expected to become an excellent broodmare. She did not quite live up to those expectations although she produced three stakes winners: Topsider (by Northern Dancer), who defied his dam’s genetics to become a dirt sprinter; 1983 Prix Berteux (FR-G3) winner Brogan (by Nijinsky II), who was the runner-up in that year’s Derby Italiano (ITY-G3); and minor stakes winner War of Words (by Arts and Letters).
Topsider became a good stallion, and Drumtop has a continuing female line of descent through her winning Mr. Prospector daughter, Aliata, dam of multiple Puerto Rican stakes winner Storm Allied (by Stormy Atlantic). Aliata’s stakes-placed Storm Cat son Storm Boot became a useful sire of speed. Storm Boot’s stakes-placed half sister Archstone (by Arch) produced multiple Grade 2 winner Proctor’s Ledge (by Ghostzapper), and Proctor’s Ledge produced Proctor Street (a daughter of Street Sense) as her second foal. And Drumtop has another legacy, as her heroics (which many horsemen thought should have earned her an official title) brought recognition to female turf runners and perhaps played a role in the 1979 creation of an Eclipse Award exclusively for fillies and mares on grass. There are far worse ways to be remembered.
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