The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-04-23
HORSE RACING IN AMERICA
BY FREDERIC ]. HASKIN

many years. The war between the states
ended it all When Washington was
President there were crowds of thousands
of richly dressed people at the Charles
ton meetings. Respectable strangers from
abroad or from other states, were not
allowed to pay any entrance fee, ana
were Immediately made guests or the
club and given a ribbon to indicate that
for the wearer everything was free-a
pretty and generous hospitality which
would require a twentieth century bill
lionaire to foot the bills in these TWEEN
tieth century times
The first race horse to attract national
attention probably was Col William
Washingtons Shark. Being raced by the
nephew of the President, and having de-
veloped a wonderful speed Shark was
the idol of the Carolinas. He was the
first American horse to be honored with
a monument to mark his burial place
The marble slab sets forth his glorious
record on the turf and stands at the site
of the old GAINESVILLE race course at
Clarendon. near the seat of James b.
Richardson of South Carolina.
The first real racing around New York
began in 1919 A course had been laid
out in Washington City in 1902 and rae
ing began in the District of Columbia
only two years after government began
there. In 1923 the first of the great north
and south match races was run 1t was
the result of the defeat of Sir Charles
by American Eclipse at Washington in
the fall of 1922. Col. William R. John
son of Virginia. the Napoleon of the
turf" then challenged the New Workers
to a national race at New York. John c.
Stevens, a kinsman of Walter Livingston,
who was racing American Eclipse, ac-
cepted the gage. A purse of $4,000 side
was put up and the race was practically
Eclipse against the world''-the Long
Island horse thus proving a worthy sue
cessor to the great English Eclipse,
whose owner on wage placed Eclipse
first, the rest nowhere"
There were some six thousand people to
see the race, and the entire United States
was in fever of excitement concerning
its outcome, slowly as news went in
those early days. The southern favorte
was hurt on the long trip to New York.
Colonel johnson dlned too well on lob
sters and wine the night before, and
couldn't he at the track. The south CEN
tered its hopes on Sir Henry. He won the
first heat of four miles, Eclipse won the
second, and in the third the northern
horse led all the way The cynical John
Randolph of Roanoke turned away and
said: 1T was not Eclipse, but the lob
sters that beat Sir Henry So firmly
did the southerners believe that their de-
feat was only a little hard luck that
they tried to match another race for
twenty thousand dollars a side, but the
New Workers refused, because of the
gambling feature being so prominent.
In those days the long four-mile heat
races which required a horse to make
from eight to sixteen miles in a single
race, were the popular feature Aged
horses had the advantage then, and the
turf was a very different thing from
what it has been since the rise of the
sprinters The national course at Wash
ington was patronized by every President
from Jefferson to Van Buren,. Colonel
Tayloe of Mt. Airy was the head of the
institution. and Gabriel Duvall, justice
of the United States supreme court, was
also a member of the jockey club. An
drew Jackson, always a great turfman,
while President, entered a colt in the
name of his secretary, Major Donelson.
and was Infatuated when the purse was
won by Commodore Stockton's Langford.
The oldest course in the west was that
established at Lexington, In the heart of
the Blue Grass of Kentucky, in 1926, and
at which meetings were held regularly
until a few years ago. Not even the
civil war stopped the sport there, meet
ings being held twice each year except in
962, when Kirby Smiths army was en-
camped on the course at the time for the
fall meeting. The first great match race
in the west was at Louisville In 1899,
when Wagner, a Louisiana horse, defeated
Gray Eagle. There was an immense crowd
and the people of the whole state were
excited about 1t. Henry Clay was the
center of crowd of score of senator's.
governors and judges who came to see
the race. Not a Kenutckian bet a dollar
on Wagner, but the Louisiana horse won
the race. This great race was to be
repeated in that particular feature just
fifty years later, when Spokane beat
Proctor Knott in the Kentucky Derby, and
all Kentucky went dead broke
The great north-against-the-so race
of l842, when Fashion defeated the south
ern horse Boston; the Peyton stakes dun
in Nashville in ls43, richer than any
American stakes ever before run, and
equal to the English Derby and st. Leger,
in which ]. Kirkman's Peytona defeated
Wade Hamptons Herald; the famous per-
formances of Black Maria; these are but
a few of the great racing events of the
United States before the civil war, which
were run over and over again in tavern
conversations for twenty or thirty years.
(Tomorrow-Horse racing In America con-
tinued)