This Meadow Skipper story was written by DEAN A. HOFFMAN and first appeared in HOOFBEATS magazine in June
1982.
* * * * *
It was the night of
Tuesday, April 7, 1960, when the mare
Countess Vivian stretched out in a stall at Meadow Lands Farm and gave birth to
a horse who, in two decades, would come to dominate the entire breed.
Through that melding
of genes from his sire and dam, a process no one fully understands, this one
horse was endowed with superior speed, a relentless will to win, and a
procreative prowess unmatched in harness racing's modern era.
During the summer of
1960, he was involved in a transaction that saw him pass from the Hayes family
of Columbus, Ohio, to wealthy Pennsylvania horse aficionado Hugh A. Grant.
Christy Hayes passed
away in 1960 and his wife did not feel able to maintain the family's horses. So
the mare Countess Vivian, in foal to Adios and carrying a colt later named
Tarport Count, was sold to Grant along with her weanling colt by Dale Frost.
It was at the western
Pennsylvania farm of Delvin Glenn Miller, the Midas of Meadow Lands, that young
Meadow Skipper (named for the Hayes' only son Skip) was raised. Miller believes
in allowing his foals to "rough it" and his farm's rolling hills have
developed many strong and sturdy Standardbred legs.
The Dale Frost colt
ran with a colt by Rodney and the two would chase about on the hills and one
observer said, "It's a wonder they didn't develop short legs in front like
a bear from being raised on those hills."
In the fall of 1961,
the lanky youngster took the long truck ride south as part of the Miller Stable
contingent. Grant was not in the business as a commercial breeder and his stock
always took up residence in the Miller barn.
That fall at Ben White
Raceway in Orlando the line-up of talent included purple-pedigreed pups like
Meadow Russ, Blitzie Hanover, Tarport Rose and others. Of course, Meadow
Skipper was not without rank in this elite class as his three-quarter sister
Countess Adios had been a world champion free-legged marvel on the track.
But she was by Adios,
not Dale Frost, and that usually made a difference.
He took his lessons
with repose and responded well, but fell behind his classmates when sidelined
in February. But by the end of spring training he seemed capable of pacing as
much as most of them, but the way he went about it wasn't very encouraging.
"He was a lot
bigger than Dale Frost," said Miller. "He had good bone for a big
colt, but was kind of lanky."
The peerless horseman
could see some problems developing, too.
"He had
inherited Dale Frost's long sweeping gait and he just couldn't get in gear very
fast," Miller recalls. "He just didn't seem like one of those good
early speed colts."
Perhaps the most
perceptive winter training reports to appear in recent years were the
dispatches from Orlando written by Dr. Don McMahan. Annually, he selected the
top prospects after watching them all winter at Ben White. When McMahan put
together his 1962 "most likely to succeed list," Meadow Skipper's
name was nowhere to be found.
A
slow learner
Since he had been
bred by an Ohio couple, he was eligible to race through that state's extensive
fair circuit and thus he was named in few other juvenile stakes.
His first fling at
competition came on May 8, 1962, at Lexington's Red Mile where spring racing
was then a novelty.
He wound up fifth in
a 2:11 qualifier, an inauspicious start even by 1962 standards.
The next try was
worse. Dead last in 2:14.
The man who steered
him in those efforts was Bill Hilliard, later executive vice-president of the
United States Trotting Association, but then an assistant trainer for Delvin
Miller.
"He just
wouldn't go up to the gate," explains Hilliard. "He started way back
of the field, but showed me tremendous speed at times during the mile. But he
was ten lengths off the gate."
Things improved. He
was next second in 2:06.4 and then on May 30 he broke his maiden for driver
Paul Crilley after a 2:07.2 mile.
Crilley was another
Miller assistant and later worked for Billy Haughton as the groom of Laverne
Hanover. It was Crilley who shepherded the rookie Meadow Skipper through much
of his first season.
Shipped to Northfield
Park near Cleveland, Ohio, he started in the Great Lakes Pace, but was caught
in an accident and did not finish. It was his first look at a half-mile track
and one might be excused for believing that it portended a lifetime of bad luck
on the twice-a-rounds.
However, showing the
implacable disposition and the fighting spirit which characterized his career,
Meadow Skipper bounced back from the accident and merely won 10 of his next 11
starts.
Included in that
string were five straight at Northfield, the swiftest in 2:06.4. He then
dropped an elimination heat in the Scioto Downs Challenge Stake in Columbus,
but roared back to annex the final in 2:03.3.
The coverage in The
Horseman and Fair World of that event went as follows: "Meadow Skipper's
win in the final was particularly impressive in that he was sixth on the
outside at the half, and never saw the rail for the remainder of the race, but
still was able to collar Gene Hill for a nose win at the wire."
That race made it
obvious that Meadow Skipper, the lionhearted competitor, was developing a modus
operandi that he would use to earn over $428,000.
Fling
at the fairs
He spent the summer
of 1962 at the fairs in the Buckeye State, beginning with straight heat wins at
Mt. Vernon and Bucyrus. This was part of the Home Talent Stakes series and his
meanderings would take him to Urbana, Springfield, Greenville, and Columbus,
virtually qualifying him to write a tour book of central Ohio sights.
His first try against
Grand Circuit caliber colts came in September near Chicago over the mile track
at Washington Park. He wound up sixth as a chestnut Adios flyer named Olympic
Hanover grabbed the stake in 2:03.3. Ironically, Meadow Skipper would return to
this very track three years later to notch the final, and perhaps the finest,
win of his career.
On to Lexington in the
fall of 1962, he was third in an overnight over a track which was deep and
tiring. An off-bred Greentree Adios filly named Glad Rags won in 2:07.4.
Miller had sat behind
him in these last two starts and he recalls, "He showed me potential. He
couldn't leave enough to beat the top colts, but he kept learning. And he was
showing improvement, so I decided to send him to Hollywood Park in
California."
In three starts on
the west coast, Meadow Skipper was twice victorious and once second. His final
juvenile race earned him a 1:59.4 for catch-driver Joe Lighthill. In that era,
two-minute two-year-olds were still quite the rage.
A
brief vacation
Miller was encouraged
by the colt's sudden surge of speed in late season, but, as 1963 unfolded, few
pundits believed that the Dale Frost fellow could ruffle the feathers of tough
birds like Overtrick, Steady Beau, Country Don, Hondo Hanover, Sly Yankee and
others of that caliber.
"I just left him
out in California over the winter," explains Miller. "I had a very
good man named Foster Walker training for me and he wintered Meadow Skipper
there."
With scarcely four
months vacation to be let down after 27 starts at two, Meadow Skipper was back
slugging. He answered the opening bell at Santa Anita when the spring meet
opened on March 13. Most of the colts he would have to face later in the season
were still enjoying leisurely winter training miles.
On that March
afternoon over the beautiful California mile oval, he was third to stablemate
Meadow Russ in 2:03.
His next start was a
2:01.1 win for Joe O'Brien, who jiggled the colt through a 29 second final
fraction.
The Hall of Fame
horseman, who has held the reins on so many great horses, remembers his drive
that day behind Meadow Skipper.
"I was on the
bike going to the post parade when Foster Walker came running up behind and
said, 'This colt can't leave as fast as you can kick a barrel and he won't
trail.'
"Whaaattt?
Whataya mean he won't trail?" asked O'Brien.
"Well,"
said Walker. "If dirt hits him in the face, he'll make a break."
O'Brien, who thought
that he had sat behind every imaginable kind of horse since leaving his native
Prince Edward Island in the 1940's, said to himself, "That's a helluva
combination. If he won't leave, what else am I gonna do but trail?"
So he scored the big
brown colt down twice "All the time trying to wake this bird up. Laziest
darn colt you ever saw."
"We're going to
the gate and here's this colt about six lengths back. I tried driving him
without touching him with the whip. Then I'd holler at him and everything. He
didn't pay a bit of attention to me.
"Now we're
halfway to the start and he's still six lengths off the gate. I thought, 'By
gosh, I've got to do something.' So I took the lines in one hand, reached way
down under the shaft, and hit him as hard as I could around the stifles. The
whip might've curled and hit him in a tender spot.
"Before I got
straightened up and my hands back in the hand holds, Meadow Skipper had hit the
starting gate, bounced off, and hit it again. By this time I was on top at the
quarter in 29.4."
His third and final
Santa Anita start was a real laughter as he just jogged in the $10,000 Spring
Sophomore Pace for Eddie Wheeler. Ninth
at the quarter in 30.2, the big colt unwound on the backstretch and grabbed the
lead, tossed a 28.4 final fraction at the best three-year-olds on the grounds,
and won by better than a length.
He was now ready to
head East and engage better stock.
Killing
last quarters
On a rainy night in
mid-April, he was favored in the Hazel Park feature, but the sloppy going undid
him and he was second in 2:15.1.
A dry track was more
to his liking and his redemption effort in the Motor City was an impressive
conquest of seasoned campaigners like Next Knight and Pole Adios. Joe Lighthill
urged the colt to a 28.4 final panel to discourage any nonsense at the end.
Those withering
wind-up quarters after even the most brutal trips were becoming the trademark
of this iron horse and the weekly magazines were beginning to take notice.
Still, races like the Little Brown Jug were still five months away.
He was then third at
Hazel Park and shipped to Washington, D.C. where he wound up last in a race at
Rosecroft Raceway.
He had yet to face
the kind of horses he'd have to beat to deserve any real headlines and Miller dropped
him in against the likes of the doughty Country Don, Sly Yankee, and Uncle Alex
in a Brandywine race named the Caesar Rodney's Ride after a famous event in the
American War for Independence.
Brandywine then had a
half-mile track which always spelled trouble for this colt, and in the Caesar
Rodney's Ride he found that Lady Luck would snub him again as he suffered a
broken sulky wheel and finished last.
Skipper
mile In Commodore Trial
Back at Rosecroft, he
won on May 25 over a top field with Miller in the bike. He was now ready to
string together some impressive miles, the kind of footwork which makes
horsemen take notice. These races would change his ownership, and his life.
Another mile win at
Rosecroft in 2:02.1 made him a season's champion.
A trip to Detroit
enabled him to whip old foe Glad Rags in 2:08.2 in the mud.
Next on his agenda
was the rich Commodore Pace at Roosevelt Raceway where the final field would be
determined by trials.
On Tuesday evening,
June 11, Meadow Skipper beat some very well-credentialed pacers in his
Commodore Trial with a 2:013/5 mile which left Country Don, Timely Beauty,
Steady Beau, and three others in his jet stream.
It was his fourth
straight win and he did it like a good horse. In fact, one shrewd, veteran
horseman thought he did it like a great horse and he decided that here was a
colt he'd just love to get his hands on.
The next day the
phone rang at the Winthrop, Maine, summer home of Standardbred enthusiast
Norman Woolworth. It was Earle Avery, private trainer for Woolworth's Clearview
Stable.
"Say, I gotta
horse I want you to buy," said Avery.
Woolworth was
startled by Avery's directness. The wily old horseman from New Brunswick had
never taken this approach before. Actually, he had probably dissuaded Woolworth
from buying a hundred horses, finding various reasons why they weren't worth
the asking price. Woolworth's curiosity was piqued.
"Okay," he
responded to his trainer. "Just what horse did you have in mind?"
"Meadow
Skipper."
"Who's he?"
said Woolworth. "Never heard of him."
Avery filled his boss
in on the details and then added, "I think he's one of the greatest pacers
I've ever seen."
He acknowledged that
he didn't know if owner Hugh Grant would sell the colt, but that he would check
with Del Miller.
"Oh, Hugh will
sell any of his horses at the right price," said Woolworth. "He's
smart enough to take advantage of capital gains tax treatment whenever he
can."
"Not cheap."
Woolworth hung up and
went back to look up the vital statistics on this mystery horse, torn by the
fact that he'd never even heard of him, yet intrigued by Avery's glowing praise
and intense interest in the horse.
It took him some
effort to track down Hugh Grant, who was in Toronto for the Queen's Plate at
Woodbine. Woolworth called the tall, affable man from Pennsylvania and popped
the question.
"Yeah, I'll sell
him," answered Grant. 'But he isn't going to be cheap."
"Okay,"
gulped Woolworth.
"Let me think it
over and I'll call you back tomorrow," Grant told Woolworth.
In the intervening
hours, Grant checked with Miller who advised him not to take anything less than
$150,000.
Woolworth recalls the
anxiety he felt when Grant called him the next day.
"I think my
hands were shaking when I picked up the phone," laughs Woolworth as he
recalls the incident. "I steeled myself for the price and Hugh gave it to
me. He was right. It wasn't cheap. But I thought that this is the first horse
Mr. Avery had ever asked to buy, so I said yes."
The sale price for
Meadow Skipper has, according to Woolworth, been reported at varying amounts,
mostly incorrect. Woolworth himself is evasive on the question, but not for the
usual reasons.
"Hugh asked me
not to announce the purchase price," Woolworth said. "I didn't
announce it at the time of the sale and, even though Hugh has since passed
away, I feel I should continue to honor his request."
The price was
undoubtedly in the $150,000 range suggested by Miller and, regardless of the
specific dollar amount; it would be the best equine investment Norman Woolworth
ever made.
It is interesting to
note that after eighteen years, Woolworth will gladly give all the details of
Meadow Skipper's career, yet still honors the confidence requested by Hugh
Grant, who died two years ago. That speaks volumes for the class and character
of the man who was to enjoy so much success with Meadow Skipper.
Although the sale of
Meadow Skipper to Norman Woolworth's Clearview Stable had been sealed on the
eve of the $35,273 Commodore Pace, Hugh Grant had a favor to ask.
Could he race the
horse in his name in the rich Roosevelt race?
"That turned out
to be an expensive favor," laughs Woolworth. "He won it pretty
handily in 2:01 and a piece over Fly Fly Byrd and Country Don."
His maiden voyage for
Earle Avery, the horseman who put him upon a pedestal and worshiped him, was to
be in the Reynolds Memorial at Buffalo, where he was favored in the eight-horse
field. However, he was not a factor in that race as he was jostled in heavy
traffic and finished fourth.
Woolworth, an
experienced owner, knew it was too soon to push the panic button since such
things happen regularly in racing. He was, however, anxious for Avery's opinion
of the horse as viewed from the best seat in the house.
"Well, how'd you
like driving him?" asked Woolworth with anticipation.
"I didn't like
him at all," replied Avery, ever tactful.
"Whaaatt?!!"
barked Woolworth into the phone, knowing it was far too late to stop payment on
the six-figure check he'd written for Meadow Skipper.
Avery then delved
into the Great Hobble Controversy which is very much a part of Meadow Skipper's
story. It had started with Miller.
"When I got him
back when he raced in the East," said Miller, "I got to worrying
about him not being able to leave any and I really wanted to put leather
hobbles on him. I thought that might help. He'd been wearing plastic
hobbles."
Miller recalls
training the horse in leather hobbles several times and toyed with the idea of
hanging them on him for the Commodore, but simply "decided to let well
enough alone." "Besides," he adds, "leather hobbles will
stretch and I wanted to make sure that they were stretched out before I tried
them in a race."
However, when the
horse went into the Avery Stable, the leather hobbles went with him. Avery was
quick to drape them snugly around the colt's underpinnings and set sail. Tight
leather hobbles and Meadow Skipper were meant for each other.
"He would train
just fine in a loose hobble," recalls Woolworth. "But he'd jump if he
wore them loose in a race. Many of his colts do the same thing. I'm sure those
tight hobbles weren't easy on him. We didn't like it, but had no choice."
After the Buffalo
fiasco, he was twice third to the vaunted Overtrick in 1:59.3 and 1:59 in the
Battle of Saratoga. This was when the world record for sophomore pacers was
1:58.3.
Avery then advised
turning the colt out for a couple weeks in advance of the season's big stakes.
He came off the layoff to win the Scioto Downs Challenge Stake for the second
time and then followed that with impressive showings against aged horses at The
Meadows and Yonkers.
Then it was back to
the Midwest for two heats of the Director of Agriculture Pace at the Ohio State
Fair. In the first heat, he merely cruised outside for the mile as if that was
the way horses were supposed to win races. He not only won the race, but he set
a 1:59.4 track record in the process.
In the final, the
filly Glad Rags came roaring from behind to nip him at the wire.
Largest
purse in history
It was then back to
New York to prep for the rich Cane Pace and there the Dale Frost horse zinged
the Yonkers oval in 2:01 to head into the rich Cane in fine form.
The 1963 Cane was the
richest harness race in history—$163,187. Twelve speedballs were there to go
for the gold. Skipper had post seven with rival Overtrick in the second tier.
It turned out to be
one of the most unforgettable races in Yonkers Raceway's history.
Avery shooed his
horse away from the gate as fast as the lethargic leaver could pick 'em up and
put 'em down. He went three-wide into the first turn, trying to put space between
him and Overtrick.
The latter horse
wasn't helped any when Meadow Russ made a break in front of him, causing driver
John Patterson to take back sharply and then rekindle his Solicitor colt's
speed.
At the half-mile
pole, the two colts locked horns and scattered the field behind them. Meadow
Skipper on the rail. Overtrick pacing tenaciously on the rim. That was the way
it went.
In the stretch,
Overtrick surged for the lead, but this stubborn Skipper horse wasn't about to
quit. Quitting was not in his repertoire. At the wire he had a three-quarter
length margin on Overtrick in a stake record 1:58.4—only a tick off the world
record.
A brilliant race? Yes. A
credit to both colts? Of course. And,
significantly, it was Round 1 in what was shaping up as a major rivalry between
these extraordinarily gifted pacers.
The following week
was the Little Brown Jug and although Meadow Skipper had some heavy ties to
central Ohio, it was not his day. Overtrick was flawless in his record 1:57.1
and 1:57.3 miles.
"I kept looking
for Meadow Skipper during the Jug," says Patterson. "I expected him
to come charging at me, but he never got there."
Patterson says that
his colt must have found the steep Delaware turns to his liking because
Overtrick was a finely-honed pacing machine that afternoon and even Woolworth
admits that there was "no way" Meadow Skipper was going to beat him.
As it was, he was 2-3
with Country Don taking the place spot in the come-back heat. Typically, he had
been parked the entire mile in the first heat and was timed in 1:57.3. Once
again, his inability to get in on the turns left him handicapped.
"He could pace
the first quarter as fast as any horse," explains Woolworth. "But
what plagued him was that first sixteenth. He couldn't get untracked and get
good racing position."
World
record nose
Revenge, a standard
word in the vocabulary being used to describe the emerging Meadow
Skipper/Overtrick rivalry, was not far away. At Lexington the following week,
both were named into the $8,200 Poplar Hill Farm Pace with only Diamond Sam and
Hondo Hanover brazen enough to challenge them. Here's how one horseman saw the
opening round.
"Overtrick got
away first, then Lou Huber came out with Diamond Sam to take the lead. Right
back out comes Earle with Meadow Skipper, and when he got to the front, instead
of backing off, he went right on down the pike with him."
They whirled past the
half in 57.1, the three-quarters in 1:26.1. At the famed Red Mile tunnel, about
a sixteenth from the wire, both colts were dead even. But Meadow Skipper
refused to be beaten. He let Overtrick get to him, but not post him.
Only a proud nose
separated the pair at the wire in 1:55.1, a new record for three-year-olds, an
all-age race record at The Red Mile, and only a tick off Adios Harry's world
race mark.
The photo of the mile
shows Avery losing his whip, a circumstance which puzzled the driver since he
had his whip in hand after the mile.
"Earle couldn't
believe the photo," said Woolworth. "No one could. Yet the photo
caught his whip out of his hand. He must have lost it and caught it in the same
stroke and only the camera saw it."
In the closing heat,
the two loafed to the third station in 1:31.5 then boiled home in 26.2 with
Overtrick winning as Avery was unwilling to punish his colt since the trophy
was his by virtue of the faster win time.
From Lexington he was
shipped to Liberty Bell where he played second fiddle to Country Don and
Overtrick in races timed in 1:57.4 and 1:57.3.
John Patterson
reflected upon an incident that occurred that fall at Liberty Bell.
"One afternoon
we heard that there was a loose horse and it turned out to be Meadow Skipper.
He was out running through the barns," said Patterson. "Well, they
finally caught him and as the groom was leading him back to the stall I watched
him walk directly away from me. I noticed then what a powerful horse he was
without his harness on."
Chances
splintered In Messenger
Patterson and
Overtrick got an idea of just how powerful Meadow Skipper was once again in the
Messenger Stakes on November 2. At the three-quarter pole, Meadow Skipper
ranged alongside the Jug champ and Avery thought Overtrick was ready to throw
in the towel.
Coming off that turn,
hurting on a splint which compounded his half-mile track troubles and thus
served as his croix de Guerre for the remainder of his career, Meadow Skipper
broke. He recovered and fought back past Country Don, but Overtrick had too
much real estate on him. He finished second in his final 1963 start.
The splint affected
his left front leg and proved to be a curse when he leaned into the turns of a
half-mile track.
In eight memorable
months at the racing wars in 1963, the Dale Frost-Countess Vivian colt had
earned over $208,000 and the admiration of every horseman who saw him race.
John Patterson feared his presence in any race and summed up public opinion by
saying, "Meadow Skipper had speed and endurance ... it just seemed like he
could go forever."
The truest test of
any juvenile wonder is how successfully he can graduate into the free-for-all ranks.
Many youngsters fare sensationally against those of a like age, but are
helpless when pitted against war-toughened veterans.
Meadow Skipper made
that transition with style in 1964, although the results would have been far
more spectacular had his engagements taken place on larger tracks.
It was de rigueur for
a would-be free-for-aller to camp on the New York metropolitan circuit in the
mid 1960's and Meadow Skipper did just that. Beginning in April of that year
and ending in late fall, fully 17 of his 22 starts were to come on the tight
half-mile tracks at Yonkers and Roosevelt.
Avery prepped him for
the $104,381 Realization in early May, but once again Meadow Skipper was no
match for the slick-gaited Overtrick. The pattern of their duels had become all
too familiar to Woolworth.
"Overtrick could
get to the front and then back into the field," he says. "And
Overtrick would gain three lengths on each turn as Skipper just fumbled his way
around them."
Woolworth and Avery
knew that their only hope was to be willing to sit outside and grind away for
most of the mile.
"It made Earle
look bad, but there wasn't much else we could do," says Woolworth.
"We couldn't afford to tuck back in the pack too far, because they'd back
up and then come a helluva last quarter or half."
The highlight of his
half-mile track races came in September at Roosevelt and he dumped a field that
included Henry T. Adios, Cardigan Bay, Adios Ronnie, Thor Hanover, and Harold J
in 1:59.3.
It must be admitted,
however, that Meadow Skipper was only marginally competitive with this class of
horse on a half-mile track.
"It would have
been an entirely different story had The Meadowlands been open in those
days," says Woolworth. "He prospered on a mile track and he would
have been formidable at The Meadowlands."
Proof of the horse's
affinity for a mile track came in the fall of 1964 when he was flown to
Hollywood Park and won four of his five starts, including the American Pacing
Classic. All of the horses who had beaten him on the twice-around were racing
for second money behind him on the mile track.
"He wasn't
really a handy horse, either," concedes Woolworth. "Not like little
Muncy Hanover (another Clearview Stable star pacer) who you could just whip out
of a hole and go with. You had to drive Skipper more like a trotter. You had to
come out of the hole and get him set pacing before asking him for speed."
He finished his third
season at the races by pushing his life earnings to over $355,000 as he headed
for winter training at Pinehurst, N. Carolina.
The lazy horse
luxuriated in the slow pace of the off-season.
"We jogged
horses on trails through the woods down there and most horses would be back in
about a half-hour," remembers Woolworth. "Not Meadow Skipper.
Assistant trainer Weldon Carroll would jog him and you'd wait, wait, wait.
Maybe an hour. Maybe an hour and a half. Just when you thought he'd fallen down
or run into a tree, here would come Meadow Skipper plodding out of the
woods."
Although he admits
that the horse "wouldn't go a mile in seven minutes if he didn't have
to," Woolworth says that Meadow Skipper fully understood the difference
between work and play.
"He was a
perfect training horse when he had to be," he explains. "And when he
got in behind the gate on race night, he knew why he was there."
"Always
that splint"
As he reflects upon
it now, Woolworth probably believes he should have retired Skipper to stud
after his success in California, but the horse was kept in training for the
1965 season. "It was that splint. Always that splint," said
Woolworth. "It got right up into the tendon. The splint and his owner were
Meadow Skipper's two biggest problems. We shouldn't have raced him."
He won his very first
start at Yonkers in a $25,000 Free-For-All over Cold Front, Irvin Paul, Bengazi
Hanover, Cardigan Bay and others. It was a monster of a mile for April 8 and
Skipper, as usual, was parked the entire mile.
That race was a prep
for the prestigious International Pace, a $100,000 event since discontinued.
There the Skipper fell short a mere neck in a driving rainstorm as the
unheralded New Zealand horse Smoke Cloud N won the 1 1/2-mile contest.
He was up the track
in his next start at Yonkers and beginning to show obvious signs of lameness
when he was sent to the Midwest for the $46,400 Washington Park Pace. Woolworth
thinks it was his most courageous effort.
"Passed
the whole damn field"
"I kept hiding,
hoping no one would ask me if that was my horse," he admits. "I
didn't think they would let him race. He looked terrible."
The track had been
dead at Washington Park that spring, but a talent-laden crew featuring the
likes of Harry's Laura, Irvin Paul, Fly Fly Byrd, Cold Front, were all there.
Oh, and that Ohio-owned filly Glad Rags was in this race, too.
"I think he must
have been dead last coming into the stretch," said Woolworth. "Earle
pulled him out and he passed the whole damn field and won going away by four
lengths. Glad Rags got up to be second. It was unbelievable. He set the track
record at 1:57.4."
That effort was to be
his swan song as he was shelved for almost six months to mend his fragile
foreleg and when he started three times in California that fall, he was as game
as ever, but clearly it was time for him to give up racing.
He ended with
earnings of $428,057 and had vaulted from the relative obscurity of the Ohio
fair circuit to become one of the most fearsome pacers in the 1960's. In doing
so, he had to overcome the handicaps of a painful splint, an inability to
spring out of the starting gate, and an overall aversion to tight turns.
The people associated
with him in the Clearview Stable and the horsemen who had to race against him,
knew that his racing career had been limited by those severe drawbacks. But
they also knew that a horse with his relentless high speed, his burning desire
to win, and, above all, his endless courage would make a perfect stud horse.
It was off to Stoner
Creek Stud in the fall of 1965 for Meadow Skipper where he reigned for 16 years
before his death on January 28, 1982.
* * * *
*
Meadow Skipper p.3,1:55.1m ($428,057)
(Dale Frost – Countess
Vivian – King’s Counsel)
Meadow Skipper's Race Record
|
2-year-old
|
27
|
15
|
6
|
2
|
$ 24,007
|
3-year-old
|
30
|
13
|
8
|
6
|
$208,376
|
4-year-old
|
22
|
8
|
2
|
3
|
$123,237
|
5-year-old
|
7
|
2
|
1
|
1
|
$ 72,437
|
CAREER
|
86
|
38
|
17
|
12
|
$428,057
|
Meadow
Skipper’s Breeding Record
Foals: 1267 (623 colts-644 fillies)
Starters: 1034
Lifetime
Earnings: $66,640,712 (pace), $243,674
(trot)
Lifetime $1 million
winner: 7 (pace)
Lifetime $100,000
winners: 183 (pace), 1 (trot)
Richest
Performers: Ralph Hanover $1,828,871
(horse), Naughty But Nice $1,062,197(mare)
Record
Performers: 918 (pace), 6 (trot)
Sub-2:00: 455 (pace), 2 (trot)
Sub-1:55: 58 (pace)
Fastest
Performers: Trenton p.3,1:51.3m (horse), Don’t Dally p.3,1:51.3m (mare)
* * * * *
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