Genuine Risk, the oldest living Kentucky Derby winner and one of only three fillies to win the event, died on August 18, 2008, in her paddock at Newstead Farm, Upperville, VA. She was 31 and had been owned by the family of Bertram and Diana Firestone since she was a yearling, when purchased by Matthew Firestone for $32,000 at the 1978 Fasig-Tipton Summer Sale.

Her death came several months after that of Winning Colors, the last filly to win the Kentucky Derby (1988). Genuine Risk, sired by Exclusive Native out of Virtuous, by Gallant Man, was just the second female since Regret, in 1915, to win the Run for the Roses. Trained by LeRoy Jolley and ridden by Jacinto Vasquez, she went on to place second in the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes.

The first Kentucky Derby winner to be bred to a Kentucky Derby winner, Genuine Risk delivered a stillborn colt by Secretariat; she produced only two live foals during her life, colts by Rahy (1993) and Chief Honcho (1996), neither of which raced.

Genuine Risk, who earned $646,587 and won or placed in all of her 15 career starts, was elected to the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame in 1986. Click here to watch her 1980 Kentucky Derby win, when she won by a length at odds of 13 to 1.