The kings of the Belmont

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — In the rich history of the Belmont Stakes — the oldest of the American Triple Crown races — nobody has distinguished themselves in the legendary event quite like James Rowe and James McLaughlin, two Hall of Famers from the way back days of the sport.

Among the greatest in their respective disciplines, trainer Rowe (eight Belmont victories as a trainer, two as a jockey) and jockey McLaughlin (six Belmont wins) still rank atop the leaderboard of the historic contest generations after their glory days.

Rowe, a native of Richmond, Va., was one of America’s finest jockeys before transitioning to the training game. He was only 14 when he rode the first of his consecutive Belmont winners, Joe Daniels, in 1871. Rowe piloted Springbok to win the Belmont the following year, but his days in the saddle were numbered because of a growth spurt that necessitated a new career.

Jumping ahead a decade, Rowe had established himself as one of the top trainers in the sport. One of the elite riders in the game during the 1880s was McLaughlin, a brash 21-year-old from Hartford, Conn. McLaughlin won his first Belmont in 1882 aboard Forester and was just getting started. The budding talent partnered with Rowe to win the next two Belmonts with George Kinney (1883) and Panique (1884), both owned by the powerful Dwyer Brothers Stable. The race was held at Jerome Park during these days.

In the mid-1880s, Rowe had a dispute with the Dwyers and quit as their trainer. McLaughlin, meanwhile, continued to prosper for the stable and its new trainer, Frank McCabe. McLaughlin ran his incredible record in the Belmont to six wins in seven years with his second three-peat in the event, achieved with Inspector B. (1886), Hanover (1887), and Sir Dixon (1888). Only one other rider, Hall of Famer Eddie Arcaro, has won six Belmonts. Arcaro’s Belmont wins, however, were spread out over a 14-year span in contrast to McLaughlin’s unprecedented run of six in seven years.

McLaughlin also happened to win the Travers Stakes four times in the 1880s, a mark that stood until surpassed by Javier Castellano in 2015. After retiring from the saddle in 1892, McLaughlin had some success as a trainer and spent time as a racetrack official. He died in 1927 at the age of 65. The legendary rider stood alone in the Belmont record books with six wins until Arcaro matched him in 1955, almost 70 years after McLaughlin won his sixth edition of the race.

Splitting with a prominent stable like the Dwyer Brothers would have been a major detriment to the careers of most trainers, but the best was still to come for Rowe. Seventeen years after winning the 1884 Belmont, Rowe became a dominant trainer in the new century. In the Belmont, he scored victories in 1901 (Commando), 1904 (Delhi), 1907 (Peter Pan), 1908 (Colin), 1910 (Sweep), and 1913 (Prince Eugene) to give him eight wins in the event as a trainer and 10 overall, spanning 42 years. He also won the race at three tracks — Jerome Park (1871, 1872, 1883, 1884), Morris Park (1901, 1904), and Belmont Park (1907, 1908, 1910, 1913).

Rowe wasn’t having problems connecting with prominent owners after moving on from the Dwyers. His first five Belmont wins in the 20th century were for James R. Keene and the sixth was for Harry Payne Whitney, both members of the Hall of Fame as Pillars of the Turf.

The year after he won his tenth and final Belmont, Rowe scored one of the most monumental victories in the history of the Kentucky Derby with Whitney’s legendary Regret, who became the first filly to win the Run for the Roses in 1914. Rowe continued to have success at the top of the sport well into the 1920s. He died while in Saratoga during the 1929 racing season at the age of 72. Almost a century later, Rowe’s records of champions trained (34), Hall of Famers trained (10), and combined Belmont wins (10) remain gold standards.

Rowe and McLaughlin were inaugural inductees of the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame in 1955, their remarkable success in the Belmont Stakes serving as a central narrative in their respective legacies.