BackTrack: Old Hat Tops Males in 1965 Fayette Stakes

Keeneland's fall meeting started on a high note with Claiborne Farm's unbeaten Moccasin winning an allowance race after getting away slowly, and Stanley Conrad's Old Hat defeating a good field of males in the Fayette Handicap. 

Old Hat, a 6-year-old mare, in her last start had won the Sept. 18 Michigan Mile and One-Eighth Handicap from colts and geldings, including Roman Brother, the latter thereafter winning the Woodward Stakes by 10 lengths. 

Favored Old Hat set the early pace in the Fayette, dropped back to fifth on the backstretch, then swung outside in the stretch and was up in time to nip Lt. Stevens. Third and fourth, both beaten by less than a length, were 38-1 Big Brigade and 63-1 Peter Pumpkin, while Gallant Romeo finished unplaced for the first time since May.

Several days after the Fayette, it was announced that Affectionately, a rival for handicap mare honors, would be pointed for a meeting with Old Hat in the Oct. 21 Spinster Stakes at Keeneland. Old Hat is third behind Cicada and Affectionately among all-time distaff money-earners, her total standing less than $4,000 short of $500,000 after the Fayette. (Bewitch is fourth, while Tosmah, still active, is fifth.)

Old Hat now has won six stakes this year in a campaign interrupted in midsummer by a tendon injury. Prior to her Michigan triumph, she scored in the Columbiana Handicap, Black Helen Handicap, Suwannee River Handicap, and Matron Handicap. She is out of former claimer Fine Feathers, which now is owned by Mr. and Mrs. T.N. Lavery of Virginia. Old Hat's second dam, Rare Susan, was a half sister to stakes winner Gov. Chandler.

Old Hat's sire, Boston Doge, also sire of 1965 stakes-placed Boston Sailor and of earlier stakes winner Olicia, stands at T. Owen Campbell's Elmhurst Farm near Lexington. He had an Average Earnings Index of 2.30 with 76 year-starters through 1964.