Peanuts (horse)

As a two-year-old, Peanuts' best effort in a stakes race was a third-place finish in the Oakdale Handicap run on a muddy surface at New York's Aqueduct Racetrack.[3]

While Peanuts did not qualify for the 1925 Kentucky Derby, he won five of New York's top level events including the first of two consecutive editions of the Edgemere Handicap in which he was ridden by Harry Richards.

Peanuts won three more important New York races in 1926 including the Empire City Handicap. In winning the Edgemere Handicap at Aqueduct Racetrack for the second time, Peanuts was ridden by Harold Thurber to a new world record time for a mile and one-eighth on dirt with a clocking of 1:48.60.[4] Then, in November at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Peanuts won the Bowie Handicap against a very strong field. He defeated ten other starters including the future U.S. Racing Hall of Fame inductee Princess Doreen, that year's Preakness Stakes winner Display as well as that year's American Champion Three-Year-Old Filly Edith Cavell. In the Brooklyn Handicap, Peanuts finished second by a nose to Single Foot,[5] and had another runner-up result in the Brookdale, Thanksgiving, and Merchants and Citizens Handicaps.

In his final year of racing at age five, Peanuts won three more big New York races. He earned victory in the Brookdale Handicap, his second Empire City Handicap, and the most important of 1927, the Brooklyn Handicap. In this mile and one-eighth race, Chance Play took the lead and ran the opening mile in track record time leaving Peanuts two lengths behind. Chance Play increased his lead to five lengths by the time he reached the top of the stretch. Hand ridden by Harold Thurber as they headed for the finish, yard-by-yard Peanuts closed the gap and won by a head. Other star runners behind the two included Display, who would be that year's American Horse of the Year, as well as the 1926 American Horse of the Year and future Hall of Fame inductee, Crusader, plus two other National Champions, Pompey and Black Maria. [6]