Man o' War retains such a renown even now (2012) that many Americans who don't follow horse-racing mistakenly assume he won the Triple Crown. In fact, owner
Sam Riddle didn't enter him in the 1920 Kentucky Derby, publicly claiming that a horse shouldn't be asked to run one and a quarter miles in the spring of his 3-year-old season - even though just five weeks later Riddle ran Man o' War in (and won) the Belmont Stakes, then run at one and three-eighths miles (a mere 220 yards longer).