In the Oct. 18, 1924, editions of the New York Herald Tribune, Grantland Rice authored one of the most famous opening paragraphs in sports writing history. Assessing Notre Dame’s 13-7 victory over a powerful Army team at the Polo Grounds, Rice paid tribute to the celebrated Fighting Irish backfield thusly: “Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden.”
A few days before Mexican superstar Canelo Alvarez’s emphatic points victory over defrocked WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto of Puerto Rico Saturday night at Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay, the Four Horsemen -- well, at least one of them (WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman) -- saddled up.