39 American Champion racehorses

Alcibiades (1927–1957) was an American Thoroughbred racemare that won the Kentucky Oaks and was later a good broodmare.

Africander was an American Thoroughbred Champion racehorse.

Alsab (1939–1963) was an American Hall of Fame Thoroughbred racehorse.

Artful (1902–1927) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse.

Billy Kelly was an American Thoroughbred racehorse who was the champion two-year-old in 1918 when he won 14 of 17 starts. Favored for the 1919 Kentucky Derby, he lost to his stablemate, the then lightly regarded Sir Barton, but Billy Kelly would beat Sir Barton in 8 of 12 head to head races. Billy Kelly would go on to win 39 races from 69 starts. He was elected to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2015.

Bimelech was a champion Thoroughbred racehorse who won two Triple Crown races and was a Champion at both age two and three. He was ranked #84 among U.S. racehorses of the 20th century. After retiring to stud, he sired 30 stakes winners and his daughters produced 50 stakes winners.

Chance Play was an American Champion Thoroughbred racehorse and Champion sire. In a career which lasted from 1925 to 1928 he ran in thirty-nine races and won sixteen of them. Although he was successful in his early career over sprint distances, he did not reach his peak until the age of four in 1927, when he was arguably the best horse in the United States, winning several major races including the two-mile Jockey Club Gold Cup.

Colin was a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who was undefeated in 15 starts. In 1907, he swept the major two-year-old stakes races including the Belmont Futurity and Champagne Stakes and was the consensus Horse of the Year. His three-year-old campaign was cut short by injury but he was still Horse of the Year based on his three wins including the Belmont Stakes. As a sire, he suffered from fertility problems but still sired multiple stakes winners.

Commando (1898–1905) was an American Hall of Fame Champion Thoroughbred racehorse.

Delhi (1901–1925) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse that won the 1904 Belmont Stakes. He was the top money-winner of 1904 and was consequently named the co-historical American Champion Three-Year-Old Male Horse with Ort Wells. The following year, he was also the historical American Champion Older Male Horse, co-champion once again with Ort Wells. While Delhi did have limited success in the stud, he is not considered to be an influential sire.

El Rio Rey was an undefeated American Thoroughbred racehorse. He was regarded as the American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt of 1889. He was bred and raced by Theodore Winters in whose honor the city of Winters, California was named.

Épinard (1920–1942) was a French Thoroughbred racehorse and sire.

Falsetto (1876–1904) was an American Thoroughbred Champion racehorse and outstanding sire. Bred and raced by J. W. Hunt Reynolds of Lexington, Kentucky, his dam was Farfaletta and his sire was General Abe Buford's very good runner, Enquirer.

Gold Heels was an American Thoroughbred Champion racehorse who, in a two-year period, set one new stakes record and four track records, including a world record.

Hawaii (1964–1990) was a South African bred Thoroughbred racehorse who was a Champion at age two and three in South Africa after which he was sent to race in the United States by owner Charles W. Engelhard, Jr. where he was voted the 1969 American Champion Turf Horse honors, upstaging Fort Marcy who was American Grass Champion or co Champion in 1967, 1968 and 1970. Among his wins in the United States was a track record setting performance in the mile-and-a-half Man o' War Stakes on turf at Belmont Park. In South Africa he remains the only racehorse to have won all three Guineas staged in Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg. The Hawaii Stakes run over 7 furlongs every first Saturday of March at Turffontein racecourse in South Africa is named after him.

Hindoo (1878–1901) was an outstanding American Thoroughbred race horse who won 30 of his 35 starts, including the Kentucky Derby, the Travers Stakes, and the Clark Handicap. He later sired Preakness Stakes winner Buddhist and Belmont Stakes winner and Leading sire in North America Hanover.

Irish Lad (1900–1925) was an American Thoroughbred Champion racehorse and a world record holder.

Jean Bereaud was an American Thoroughbred Champion racehorse best known for winning an 1899 American Classic Race, the Belmont Stakes.

Kingston (1884–1912) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse. He won 89 races, the most in the history of the sport of thoroughbred racing. Of his 138 starts, he was out of the money only on four occasions. He was later inducted into the United States Racing Hall of Fame.

Man o' War was an American Thoroughbred who is widely considered one of the greatest racehorses of all time. Several sports publications, including The Blood-Horse, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, and the (AP) Associated Press, voted Man o' War as the outstanding horse of the 20th century. During his racing career, just after World War I, Man o' War won 20 of 21 races and $249,465 in purses. He was the unofficial 1920 American horse of the year and was honored with Babe Ruth as the outstanding athlete of the year by The New York Times. He was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1957. On March 29, 2017, the museum opened a special exhibit in his honor, "Man o' War at 100".

Milkmaid was an American two-time Champion Thoroughbred racehorse. She was bred by J. Hal Woodford at his farm in Bourbon County, Kentucky. Woodford had bred and raced the 1907 Kentucky Derby winner, Pink Star. Out of the mare, Nell Olin, her sire was the British import, Peep o' Day, a son of the great Ayrshire who won the 1888 2,000 Guineas Stakes and Epsom Derby then just missed winning the British Triple Crown when he ran second in the St. Leger Stakes.

Nashua was an American-born thoroughbred racehorse, best remembered for a 1955 match race against Swaps, the horse that had defeated him in the Kentucky Derby.

Native Dancer, nicknamed the Gray Ghost, was one of the most celebrated and accomplished Thoroughbred racehorses in American history and was the first horse made famous through the medium of television. He was a champion in each of his three years of racing, and was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1963. In the Blood-Horse magazine List of the Top 100 Racehorses of the 20th Century, he was ranked seventh.

Old Rosebud was an American Thoroughbred racehorse whose pedigree traced to the influential sire Eclipse, and through Eclipse to the founding stallion, the Darley Arabian. In the list of the top 100 U.S. thoroughbred champions of the 20th Century by Blood-Horse magazine, Old Rosebud ranks 88th. Despite a successful racing career, Old Rosebud was plagued by ailments throughout his life, culminating in a fatal injury at a claiming race when he was 11 years old.

Omar Khayyam (1914–1938) was a British-born Thoroughbred racehorse who was sold as a yearling to an American racing partnership and who became the first foreign-bred horse to win the Kentucky Derby. He was named for the famous Persian mathematician, poet, and astronomer, Omar Khayyam.

Parole (1873–1903) was a Thoroughbred race horse bred by Pierre Lorillard, a scion of the tobacco family. Lorillard and his brother George were both horsemen and competed throughout their careers. Pierre founded the Rancocas Stable in New Jersey named after the New Jersey town where he owned a country manor.

Peter Pan (1904–1933) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse and sire, bred and raced by prominent horseman, James R. Keene. As winner of the Belmont Stakes, the Brooklyn Derby and the Brighton Handicap, he was later inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. His progeny included many famous American racehorses, including several winners of the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes.

Regret was a famous American thoroughbred racemare and the first of three female horses to ever win the Kentucky Derby.

Roamer (1911–1920) was an American thoroughbred racehorse. In the Blood-Horse magazine's list of the top 100 U.S. thoroughbred champions of the 20th Century, the gelding Roamer was ranked #99.

Shannon (1941–1955), named Shannon II in America, was an outstanding Australian Thoroughbred racehorse who was inducted into the Hall of Fame. He created new racecourse records in Australia before he was sold to an American buyer who exported him to California in 1948. There Shannon equalled the world record of 1:473⁄5 for the nine furlongs in winning the Forty Niner Handicap Stakes, then one week later equalled the world record of 1:594⁄5 for a mile and a quarter. Shannon was named the 1948 American Champion Older Male Horse. At stud in America he proved to be a good sire.

Sir Barton was a chestnut Thoroughbred race horse who in 1919 became the first winner of what would come to be known as the American Triple Crown.

Sir Martin (1906–1930) was a Thoroughbred racehorse that was foaled in 1906 in Lexington, Kentucky at Hamburg Place, the stud farm of noted turfman and horse trainer John E. Madden. Sir Martin was a half brother to the first Triple Crown winner Sir Barton, and he raced in the United States, Great Britain and France. Sir Martin was the betting favorite for the 1909 Epsom Derby, but stumbled and threw his jockey at the Tattenham Corner turn, allowing King Edward VII's horse Minoru to win.

Spendthrift was a successful American Thoroughbred racehorse and an outstanding sire.

Sun Briar was a Thoroughbred racehorse retrospectively named the American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt of 1917 and the American Champion Older Male Horse of 1919 by writers from The Blood-Horse magazine. He was a son of Sundridge, the 1911 Champion sire in Great Britain who also sired Epsom Derby winner Sunstar. Sun Briar was out of the mare Sweet Briar, the daughter of St. Frusquin, a multiple winner of top-level races including the 1896 British Classic and the 2,000 Guineas Stakes. St. Frusquin was also a leading sire in Great Britain and Ireland in 1903 and the Leading broodmare sire in Great Britain & Ireland in 1924.

Tanya (1902–1929) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse bred and raised in Kentucky. She was bred by William Collins Whitney and foaled at his Brookdale Farm in Lincroft, New Jersey. Sired by the outstanding English stallion Meddler, she was out of the mare Handspun.

Tom Fool was an American Thoroughbred racehorse, a winner of the American Horse of the Year award and a Hall of Fame inductee. He sired the outstanding racehorses Buckpasser and Tim Tam.

Tom Ochiltree (1872–1897), was an American Thoroughbred racehorse who won the 1875 Preakness Stakes and several other major stakes. In 1877, he lost in one of the most famous match races of the nineteenth century – a race that had been so anticipated that both houses of Congress were adjourned so members could attend. In 2016, Tom Ochiltree was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.

Wajima was an American Champion Thoroughbred racehorse.

Zev (1920–1943) was an American thoroughbred horse racing Champion and National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame inductee.