winning by a nose. The correspondent for the "Spirit of the Times" wrote, "Simms made one last and desperate rally with Ben Brush, displaying as vigorous a piece of riding as was ever seen, and gradually but surely gaining on the other Ben, he finally beat him out by a nose in a terrific and hair-raising finish, which elicited a wild and spontaneous shout from the grandstand." When Simms saw how deeply his spurs had cut his mount, and that his sides were covered in blood, he cried with shame. (Col. Clark, the guiding force behind the development of Churchill and then serving as the track's presiding judge, credited Simms with the victory. "It was a great race—one of the greatest I ever saw," Clark said. "There was no doubt in the world about the finish. Simms simply lifted Brush a foot or so in front at the last jump.") Ben Brush finished his season with four wins and almost $27,000 in earnings. 1897: Four-Year-Old Season In the view of many, Ben Brush's 1897 campaign, as Palmer put it, "perhaps put the stamp of greatness on him more unmistakably than did his performances at two and three." During this last racing season, Ben Brush met Ornament, the American Champion Three-Year-Old Colt and 1897's American Horse of the Year, giving Ornament nine pounds and winning by three lengths. He beat the 1895 Preakness Stakes and Belmont winner Belmar; 1896 Belmont winner Hastings, the grandsire of Man o' War; 1897 Champion Three-Year-Old Ornament, the winner of 20 of 33 lifetime starts; and the high-class Clifford, who twice defeated Henry of Navarre and Domino in 1894–95. Stud career Ben Brush was a success at stud, so much so that he became one of the building blocks of the American Thoroughbred. Although his direct male line no longer exists, he continues to influence the breed. Ben Brush appears in the pedigrees of 48 of the last 50 Derby winners, including every Derby winner from 1972 onward. The leading sire of 1909, he produced Delhi, the 1904 Belmont Stakes winner and Champion Three Year Old Colt; Pebbles, the Juvenile Champion of 1914; Broomstick, who won the 1904 Travers Stakes, set a new American record for a mile and a quarter in the Brighton Handicap, and then led the sire's list from 1913 until 1915 (siring Regret, the first filly to win the Kentucky Derby) as