Black Helen was an American Thoroughbred race horse bred and born in the spring of 1932 at Colonel E. R. Bradley's Idle Hour Stock Farm in Lexington, Kentucky. Black Helen was the result of a mating between Bradley's best stallion, Black Toney, and the legendary "blue hen" mare La Troienne. This made her a full sister to Bimelech, the great Hall of Famer ranked number 84 in the Blood-Horse magazine List of Top 100 Racehorses of the 20th Century.
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Black Helen was an American Thoroughbred race horse bred and born in the spring of 1932 at Colonel E. R. Bradley's Idle Hour Stock Farm in Lexington, Kentucky. Black Helen was the result of a mating between Bradley's best stallion, Black Toney, and the legendary "blue hen" mare La Troienne. This made her a full sister to Bimelech, the great Hall of Famer ranked number 84 in the Blood-Horse magazine List of Top 100 Racehorses of the 20th Century.
Black Helen was small, weighing only 900 pounds when fully grown and standing barely fifteen hands. Since she was the second foal of La Troienne, whose first foal had been destroyed due to severe physical problems, and because she was so small, Black Helen was not nominated to enter any of her year’s important two-year-old stakes. Bradley assigned her to the farm's second string trainer, Bill Hurley. With his guidance, the little filly won her first seven starts.
In her three-year-old season, she was a sensation. Her performance in an...
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