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Damascus was a thoroughbred race horse sired by Sword Dancer out of Kerala foaled at the Jonabell Farm in Lexington, Kentucky. Though he finished third in the 1967 Kentucky Derby, he won so many of the other big races—the Preakness Stakes, the Belmont Stakes*, the Jockey Club Gold Cup*, the Wood Memorial, the Travers Stakes, the Dwyer Stakes, the Woodward Stakes*—that he was 1967's Horse of the Year. During the same year, top horses Dr. Fager and Buckpasser were also competing. In Blood-Horse magazine's top 100 U.S. thoroughbred champions of the 20th Century, Buckpasser ranks 14th and Dr. Fager ranks 6th. In a race many consider the "Race of the Century," Damascus won the 1967 Woodward by 10 lengths over both of these horses after his connections, as well as those of Buckpasser, used stablemates to set a blistering pace, thus weakening Dr. Fager. Damascus himself ranks number 16 in the Blood Horse listing. In 1967, he was Horse of the Year and champion three-year-old colt, and he shared the champion handicap male honors with Buckpasser.
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