windsong's legacy
Bred by Windsong Stable of York, Pennsylvania, Triple Crown winner and 2004 Trotter of the Year Windsong’s Legacy was foaled on April 20, 2001 in Hanover, Pennsylvania. His dam, Yankee Windsong, died soon after giving birth. Trained and driven by Trond Smedshammer, Windsong’s Legacy had a lifetime summary of 17-10-2-4.
Windsong’s Legacy was purchased as a yearling by Ted Gewertz, Pat Spinelli and Smedshammer’s American Viking Stable from Windsong Stable for $27,000. After the colt raced in several qualifiers as a three-year-old, Smedshammer sold his share and Norwegian Ann Brannvoll joined Gewertz and Spinelli on the registration papers.
Windsong’s Legacy’s freshman 2003 season did not begin until a late-August start at The Red Mile, with his first career victory coming in early October. The two-year-old finished the season with a 5-1-0-3 record and earnings of $30,838.
Windsong’s Legacy recorded his first important win of the 2004 season in the Goodtime Stakes at Woodbine in Toronto on the night of the North America Cup, earning more than twice as much that night as in all his previous races combined. After his next victory in the Stanley Dancer Trot, Windsong’s Legacy became a contender to win the Hambletonian. On Aug. 7, Windsong’s Legacy scored a one-length victory in the $1 million Hambletonian final, defeating Cantab Hall, the previous year’s Two-Year-Old Trotter of the Year, in 1:54.1. Three weeks later in the $391,200 Yonkers Trot, contested that year over the one-mile Hawthorne oval in Chicago, Windsong’s Legacy was a winner again, in a track record time of 1:53.1. With his victory in the lucrative Canadian Trotting Classic in September he would become the favorite to win the Kentucky Futurity and trotting’s Triple Crown. A supplemental entry, Windsong’s Legacy won the contest in straight heats, overcoming the 11 post position in the first, followed by an easy three-length victory in 1:53 over Justice Hall in the second.
Windsong’s Legacy became the first Trotting Triple Crown winner since Super Bowl accomplished the feat more than three decades earlier in 1972. He finished the year with a record of 12-9-2-1 and earnings of $1,713,806. Windsong’s Legacy was named 2004 Dan Patch Trotter of the Year and Three-Year-Old Colt Trotter of the Year, as well as the O’Brien Three-Year-Old Trotting Colt of the Year in Canada. He found himself atop the list of all-time single-season moneywinning trotters – a title Prakas, the sire of his dam Yankee Windsong, had held from 1985 through 1996.
Windsong’s Legacy was purchased by Perretti Farms of Cream Ridge, New Jersey on December 31, 2004. From just 255 foals, Windsong’s Legacy sired three millionaires: 2010 Canadian Trotting Classic winner and Trotter of the Year, world champion Lucky Chucky 3,1:50.4 ($2,099,973), two-time Breeders Crown winner, world champion and 2012 Horse of the Year Chapter Seven 4,1:50.1 ($1,954,966) and Windsong Soprano 3,1:52.4 ($1,231,325).
Tragically, Windsong’s Legacy died suddenly from severe pulmonary bleeding on March 1, 2008. He was only seven years old.