First run on April 5, 1930, the race was originally named to honor James Rowe, a widely respected trainer and future U.S.
[1] However, his son James Jr., who had successfully followed in his father's footsteps, died from a heart attack in 1931 at age forty-two and the race name would be shortened to the "Rowe Memorial" to honor both men.
[2] He was bred and raced on the flat by Walter Salmon but who would sell the horse to Marion duPont Scott at the end of 1931.
Racing Hall of Fame inductee, through 2021 Battleship remains the only horse to have won both the American and English Grand Nationals.
[3] [4] Following the United States government's imposition of World War II rationing, the restrictions saw all four Maryland tracks having to run their 1944 spring meets at Baltimore's Pimlico Race Course.