Black Helen (KY)

Biography

A diminutive filly who stood barely 15 hands and weighed only about 900 pounds during her racing days, Black Helen was proof good things can come in small packages.

Foaled in 1932 at owner E. R. Bradley’s Idle Hour Stock Farm in Kentucky, Black Helen was sired by Black Toney out of La Troienne, making her a full sister to the great Hall of Famer Bimelech. Trained by Bill Hurley, Black Helen arrived at the races in 1934 and won her first seven starts as a 2-year-old before suffering back-to-back defeats to close her juvenile campaign.

As a 3-year-old in 1935, Black Helen won her first four starts, including a five-length victory in the Florida Derby (later renamed the Flamingo Stakes) at Hialeah Park. Later that year, Black Helen won the Coaching Club American Oaks, American Derby (only the second filly to do so), and Maryland Handicap.

Black Helen finished her career with a record of 15-0-2 from 22 starts and earnings of $61,800.

After her racing career, Black Helen failed to produce a stakes winner among her 12 named foals, but one of her daughters, Be Like Mom, produced Hall of Fame steeplechaser Oedipus and standout filly But Why Not. When Bradley died in 1946, Black Helen passed into the ownership of Ogden Phipps. She died Aug. 17, 1957, at Claiborne Farm near Paris, Kentucky, at the age of 25.