Woven Web gained fame as the mare that outran Shue Fly.
A chestnut Thoroughbred that ran under the name “Miss Princess” on AQHA-sanctioned tracks bested the three-time world champion racing American Quarter Horse in 1947. This set the scene for a three-season run as the world champion of the fastest horses on earth.
Woven Web was bred and owned by the King Ranch, which at the time was managed by Robert “Bob” Kleberg Jr. By Bold Venture (who in 1936 won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes and sired the King Ranch’s Triple Crown winner, Assault), Woven Web was foaled in 1943 out of the sprinting Livery mare Bruja. She was campaigned under the management of Ernest Lane at Odem, Texas, who leased Kleberg’s sprinters to run them on the Southwestern racing circuit.
Woven Web began her racing career in March 1945 at Mexico City. Racing at distances of a quarter-mile to 5 furlongs, Woven Web equaled the world record of :27.2 at 550 yards and won four of six starts while south of the Rio Grande. Taken back to the United States, the newly dubbed Miss Princess won each of 10 official races on AQRA tracks and set a world record of :22 flat that stood for 33 years as the track mark at Del Rio, Texas.
In a career dotted by one highlight after another, Woven Web is most remembered for the bright light of May 3, 1947, when she met Shue Fly at the Val Verde Fairgrounds in Del Rio in a quarter-mile match race for $15,000 a side, the largest stake since the formation of AQRA. Trained by Paul Simar and ridden by Pat Castile, Woven Web scored by daylight in :22.3, equaling what then was the world record held by Shue Fly.
AQRA crowned Miss Princess the world champion for the 1946-47 season and followed with the 1947 and 1948 years.
She was finally retired in mid-1948 when there was simply nothing left to prove, nothing more to conquer and nothing left to try her.
Taken back to the King Ranch, Woven Web produced three Thoroughbred foals. She was inducted into the Texas Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2005, and Los Alamitos Race Course each year pays tribute to her with the Miss Princess Handicap (G3).
Woven Web was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2016.
Biography updated as of March 2016.