Deputed Testamony, 1983 Preakness winner, dies at 32

Jim McCue/Maryland Jockey Club

Deputed Testamony, shown after winning the 1983 Preakness, was the oldest living winner of a Triple Crown race when he died at 32.

Deputed Testamony, the 1983 Preakness winner who had been the oldest living Triple Crown race winner, died Tuesday morning at Bonita Farm in Maryland, the Baltimore Sun reported. He was 32.

Deputed Testamony had been pensioned at the Darlington, Md., farm since 2004. Bonita Farm and Francis Sears bred and raced the son of Traffic Cop, and the farm’s J. William Boniface trained him. Nicknamed D.T. by the Boniface family, Deputed Testamony was the son of a claiming mare who earned $1,797 in a four-race career. He became easily the best runner for both his dam (who also produced the stakes-placed filly Pillar Point) and his sire, who stood at Bonita.

In addition scoring a popular 14-1 victory for his Maryland connections in the Preakness, he also won the Haskell and Governor’s Cup handicaps and the Federico Tesio and Keystone stakes in 1983. In 1982, he won the Play the Palace Stakes, setting a Meadowlands one-mile track record of 1:36.20. He was runner-up in the 1982 Maryland Juvenile Championship Stakes and Smarten Stakes. He also set a track record at Pimlico in his final race, the 1 1/16-mile City of Baltimore Handicap in 1984, which he won by a neck in 1:40.80. He exited that race with an injury and retired to Bonita with a career record showing wins in 11 of his 20 starts for earnings of $674,329.

At stud, Deputed Testamony got such runners as graded winners Under Oath, Testafly, and Gold Fleece; multiple stakes winners Churchbell Chimes, Donald’s Pride, and Winsox; and Maryland Million Classic winners Testing and Reputed Testamony. From 20 crops to race, his progeny earned more than $18.5 million.

Hansel, the 1991 Preakness and Belmont winner who resides at Lazy Lane Farm in Virginia, is at 24 now the oldest living winner of a Triple Crown race.