Kincsem, the unbeatable racing horse, was born on March 17, 1874. Ernő Blaskovich corrected those journalists who called Kincsem undefeated even after his thirty-third victory. That’s what his owner said “My horse is not undefeated, but unbeatable”.
He had a very good insight into his horse’s performance, because in the next more than twenty races they couldn’t catch him, they could only see his hooves from behind forever. In four years, he ran fifty-four times on Europe’s most famous racecourses, then crossing the Channel and fighting the English, and won every time. In the history of thoroughbred breeding, no thoroughbred has achieved such a feat.
On October 21, 1879, at the Rákos track (the first official Hungarian race track), he won his last race “by choice” in the 2,400-meter Mare Prize. In the next day’s press, one of the speakers wrote about Kincsem’s last competition: “This was the last, fifty-fourth run and fifty-fourth victory of the horse that never was and never will be!”
In the early autumn of 1875, he arrived at the wooded Göd on the banks of the Danube to the stables and training camp built by Róbert Hesp, who settled in Hungary from England. This is where his preparation for his long, four-year racing career began. Among his victories, the turf world mentions his victory in the Goodwood Cup, when he took it upon himself to compete with the best English racehorses of the time in the homeland of horse racing. This was the big victory at which his breeder, Ernő Blaskovich, was also present. On the Goodwood track, the Hungarians who were out at that time erupted into a huge ovation: Count Batthyány, Count Festetics and Count Harkányi, in whose jacket and top hat Blaskovich had lent him, went up to the hall of honor at the request of the Duke of Richmond, who congratulated the owner of this excellent racehorse.
My treasure still attracts attention with its world-famous performance
This racehorse was bred by Hungarian people and achieved its success by being raised in Hungarian training, but its success goes to its English-to-Hungarian trainer, Róbert Hesp, and to its English jockey, Michael Madden. Master Hesp’s descendants still play a serious professional role in our horse racing, thereby raising the standard of our racing.
My fellow student, Zoltán Fráter, who became a lexicon editor after finishing school, at the suggestion of the writer of these lines, included Kincsem in the two-volume Academic Kislexikon published in 1989 – as the only non-person. This practice was later used by other lexicon editors. It makes me happy.
In Gödö, the statue erected in the yard of the Kincsem stable will be wreathed on March 16 at 4 p.m.
This year, the biggest race in the annual program of Hungarian horse racing is the International Treasure Award, which will be held at the end of September. A prominent role is given to the competition, in which several foreign countries have already indicated their participation. In the days surrounding the anniversary, we will remember the yellow mare at several points and in Kincsem Park we will lay a wreath on Kincsem’s statue, a great work of art by Béla Tóth.
György Száraz, president of the Hungarian Horse Association
Our cover photo was taken on April 27, 2017, at the inauguration of the Kincsem statue, showing Zsuzsa Szabó, the director of the József Attila Cultural Center in Göd, Bence Tuzson, a member of the Göd parliament, and József Markó, the mayor of Göd at the time. Photo: KesziPress
