Saturday, July 27, 2013

The History of Harness Racing in Woodstock



Connell Park Raceway in Woodstock will be celebrating an anniversary of sorts this year when its hosts it’s only card of harness racing this Friday, August 2, 2013.

It will be the 45th year at the current location in Connell Park, which was named after one of Woodstock’s most famous citizens, Charles Connell, who was an MLA for Carleton County from 1846-1867 and in 1859, was appointed to the position of Postmaster General.


However, the picturesque track in Connell Park was not the first location for horse racing in Woodstock.

While many believe that Island Park (which was also known as the Parlor Track) was the original place - which was located in the heart of the Saint John River between Woodstock and Grafton - that is actually not the case.

In 1878, the Carleton County Agricultural Society purchased a small piece of property that constituted what was part of the site where the old Valley Railway Station would later stand - at the end of Broadway Street in Lower Woodstock - to hold the annual Exhibition.  (The agricultural exhibition had its origins on the grounds of the old Court House in Upper Woodstock beginning in 1852)

An additional 14 acres adjoining the future Valley Railway Station location was purchased and the foundation was laid for a harness racing track that was known as the Woodstock Trotting Park.

The old Woodstock Trotting Parks site is currently occupied by a lumber yard located on Phillips Drive (off of Charles Street) which ends where the homestretch would have began and leads onto the current Sentier NB Trail.  The homestretch was where the CN rail tracks were laid.  Town veterans used to say that each time the train came up the track; it would “steam right up the old homestretch.”

On July 1, 1881 the first real horse race took place.  There were three races that day and the final race was for Open trotters, best three out of five one-mile heats.  There were four horses from Woodstock entered and after two of the horses were disqualified for false starts, a horse named Bright trotted flawlessly, winning three straight heats in 2:40 – 2:40 ¼ - 2:41. 

While race meets were sporadic over the years, by 1904, the Exhibition finally established itself as an annual event with harness racing as a co-existing feature.


Over the next eight years the Carleton County Agricultural Society continued to hold its Exhibition and harness racing.  However, in 1912 they were forced to sell the property with the laying of the Valley Railway and the erection of the Valley Railway Station.  The track record would forever be held by Silk Patchen, who paced in 2:13 ¼ in 1909.

The Carleton County Agricultural Society then purchased 18 acres on Smiths Flats, located down the River Road in Woodstock.  A racetrack was surveyed and preparations were made to build a new Exhibition Park complete with new Exhibition buildings and a grandstand.  But with the onset of the First World War in 1914, efforts to complete the project were postponed and later cancelled, though local recreational horse racing continued to take place at that location through the war years.

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Island Park was a unique 70-acre island that had a long history of being a campground and a base for salmon fishing for the Maliseet peoples and later as fertile farm lands in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  

By 1905, it was in the hands of a local farmer by the name of Charles Rogers and he had built an approach from the main bridge to the island.  For the first time it was accessible by means other than the use of a boat.


In 1909, it was purchased by the Connell estate with the idea of forming it into a free public park for the citizens of Woodstock, complete with a grandstand, baseball diamond, picnic area and other recreational amenities including a miniature railway where you could ride the train at one time for just a nickel.


The Carleton County Agricultural Society ended up leasing the central part of the island for their Exhibitions and harness racing in 1918 for the perpetual annual cost of $1.

It was reported that it cost $50,000 to construct the track and all of the Exhibition buildings.    The late Henry DeWitt and Bob Hamilton built the racetrack that was reputed “…to be the best this side of Springfield, Mass.   The grandstand which is capable of seating two thousand people has been erected.  One of the features of this grandstand is the fact that from it the hoofs of every horse can be seen all the way round the track.

When Island Park first opened for harness racing on August 19, 1919, it was said that it was “the only racetrack in the Maritime Provinces with the regulation width of sixty-five feet in the homestretch.  It had been well named by the horsemen of the Province, the Parlor Track.”


During the first meet, the first race in Maritime harness racing history for a purse of $1,000 was held.  It was the beginning of an era when harness racing was thriving and driving clubs in Atlantic Canada and Maine boasted of “community-owned” horses.  Many of these cities spent significant amounts of money to import pacing stars to take a run at track records or rival community horses.  During that time driving clubs flourished and these “community-owned” horses were a civic boast.

The Woodstock Driving Club was the first to usher in this new era when they went to the United States and purchased  the champion three-year-old pacing stallion on a half-mile track, Oro Fino p.3,2:03 ¼.  The next year, on July 13, 1920, Oro Fino lowered the track record at Island Park to 2:11.  That record only lasted a year until Canadian Racing Hall of Fame horse, John R Braden, invaded the Maritimes from Presque Isle, Maine.

Hometown hero Earle Avery, who went on to have a Hall of Fame racing career of his own in the United States, got his official start in the sport at Island Park.  Twice he held the track record, the first being with Budwenger in 2:05 ¼ on July 31, 1936.  He then broke that record two years later on July 15, 1938 with Ray Henley in 2:05, a record that would stand for over 28 years.

The only time there was no horse racing was during the Second World War from 1939-1946 when soldiers of the Carleton York Regiment and the North Shore Regiment lived on the island.  In fact, many of the provincial agricultural fairs had their grounds taken over by the military including Fredericton.

Island Park continued to host harness racing up until 1967 when the island was completely submerged by the construction of the Mactaquac dam. 

The final track record of 2:04.4 was set on August 4, 1966 by Comte Richelieu, who was campaigned by the late Milton Downey of Saint John.  Comte Richelieu won the first of a two-heat $2,500 Maritime Invitational Pace over Borderview Roy (who won the second heat in 2:07.4), Starburn, Senators Sis, J Scotch Hal, Little Major, Borderview Bob Lee and Scotch Maplecroft.

Less than two years later Island Park was under water.

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Connell Park Raceway opened at its current location on July 25, 1968.  The following appeared in the weekly newspaper, The Bugle, shortly after the track held its first Old Home Week race meet.

The official opening of the new Connell Park was held on Thursday, August 1. If there is a single event that has brought big crowds to Old Home Week, its the grand and noble past-time of harness racing. This week the Monday and Thursday evening cards will have an added impact as they will be staged in the spanking new raceway. Sure there will be a nostalgic ache in a lot of hearts at the thought of the famed Parlor Track lying under a mantle of water down in the river. The Islands Parlor Track brought a lot of thrills to race-goers here and it served the community so well over so many years.”

The Woodstock Driving Club, which was established in 1914 (or thereabouts) by Dewitt and Hamilton, continues to be the force that still drives the sport in the Woodstock area. 
WOODSTOCK DRIVING CLUB at Island Park in 1920
Like its humble beginnings almost 100 years ago, the Driving Club is made up of volunteers headed by Andy Sutherland, nephew of the late Robert McCain, one of the founders of the Atlantic Sires Stakes program.

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For more blogs on New Brunswick harness racing go to thefrederictonscene.blogspot.ca

For more historical data, pictures and stories please LIKE Fredericton Raceway 125 on Facebook. 

Thursday, July 25, 2013

The Meadow Skipper Story






This Meadow Skipper story was written by DEAN A. HOFFMAN and first appeared in HOOFBEATS magazine in June 1982.

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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.

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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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