The bargain basement superstar

A $2,000 yearling at the Tattersalls Select Yearling Sale in September 2001, the price tag gave no indications of what was to come from Mr Muscleman.  The gentle giant overcome numerous problems enroute to stardom and left a lasting impression on every life he touched.

After going off-stride in his career debut, at Pocono on May 26, 2002, Mr Muscleman had impressed to finish second in his next start at Rosecroft Raceway – and the talk afterwards reached Noel Daley. “The story of how he ended up with us is fortuitous. Around 18 months prior, Adam Victor came into the game when he just walked into the paddock one night. His son was 12 and just got into horses as well. They originally bought overnight horses, but he’d come into a bit of money and took a shot at investing in young horses. Then somebody had told me about Mr Muscleman. Brittney Farms and a partner bred him and let him go through the auction. I wasn’t even at that sale, it was the first sale after 9/11, the sale was down and he was cheap. John Wagner stood at the ring and bought the cheap ones, and he had given him to an Amish guy, Syl King, to train. But while he was cheap, remember that he was a first day yearling. Anyway, I went there to check him out, so I drove him at the farm. Wagner wanted 150 thousand for him, but Adam liked him, so we made the deal.”

Daley, the 2024 US Trainer of the Year, had originally come to the US from his native Australia in 1989. He first worked for Pete Foley in California for six months. Daley then crossed the country and started working for Brett Pelling in August 1990. Eight years later he branched out on his own. Though Daley is now famous for his ability to develop great youngsters, that was not a focus when Mr Muscleman came into his life. “At that point I had only had overnight trotters. To be honest, I did everything wrong with him at 2, I raced him at half-mile tracks for example. Mr Muscleman wasn’t good because of us, but in spite of us.”

At 2, the giant trotter won two legs of the New Jersey Sire Stake, elimination and final of the Harold Dancer and wrapped up the year by winning the Walnut Hall Cup at the Red Mile. It was a relatively light schedule, something Daley attributes to the yearling price tag. “Since he was a 2k yearling he hadn’t been staked, and that was probably beneficial. Anyway, I remember he impressively won the last race of the season in a thunderstorm,” Daley points out.

“My all-time favorite horse”

With Daley as Mr Muscleman’s trainer, Ron Pierce became the gelding’s driver. Pierce’s face lights up when he talks about Mr Muscleman. “My all-time favorite horse,” Pierce immediately points out. “You only needed one finger to drive him and his gait … he didn’t have a fast gait, but a long gait. He had a long stride, and he could bounce over the track. Mr Muscleman could cover a lot of ground very easy, and trotted very easy for a long, tall and gangly colt. It never felt like he was going so fast.”

The big, lanky trotter was good, but not great, at two, and the Hall of Fame driver – like everybody else – didn’t see what was to come from.

“Noel liked him, and he put me on him. He plodded along, but he wasn’t that impressive: he crooked in the turns, he’d go one way in the turns and another in the straight. That said, he was fast, but I had no idea he would turn out to be a grand champion later. I liked him, but I wasn’t really that impressed with him then.”

Hambletonian disappointment

His fastest win at 2 was a 1:59 (1.14,0) victory at the Meadowlands. In a qualifier in May 2003, the fresh three-year-old demolished that when he came home in 1:55.1 (1.11,6), and in his seasonal debut he shaved a further one-fifth off that time when winning a leg in the New Jersey Sire Stake. After winning his Stanley Dancer Trot elimination and then finishing second, to Power To Charm, in the final, Mr Muscleman was one of the favorites ahead of the 2003 Hambletonian. The giant trotter failed to qualify for the final – a massive setback for everybody.

“When he came back at 3, he was smoother and better. I thought I was going to win the Hambletonian with him, but he got sick before the race. It was all very disappointing, but you have to give Noel a lot of credit, as he brought that colt along just right and he came back great. That and he had a great caretaker in PJ Fraley, who deserves credit, too,” Pierce points out. Daley was equally disappointed: “He flipped his palate, which shut off his air. We had no choice but to take him home and get him ready again. A few weeks later he went to Canada and stormed home second in his Canadian Trotting Classic elimination.” In the latter race, Mr Muscleman sat dead last with a quarter to go. While Amigo Hall won easily, Mr Muscleman finished like a rocket.

In the final, there was no stopping the son of Muscles Yankee and Meadowbranch Irene. Off to a better start than in his elimination, Mr Muscleman was sitting third when Pierce unleashed him approaching the half. Storming to the front, he managed to barely hold off a fast-closing Muscle King to win the first of four straight victories, the other being both heats of the Kentucky Futurity as well as the Transylvania Trot. Mr Muscleman’s ascent to stardom at 3 caught his owners somewhat off-guard though. “When he won the Canadian Trotting Classic, Adam forgot he was in it. He was at the movies. I called him and said Adam, you need to pay attention, your horse won a million-dollar race,” Daley chuckles.

For the rest of the season the gelding was almost unbeatable. At the end of the year, Mr Muscleman was supplemented to the Breeders’ Crown, which he won. “That was my first Breeders’ Crown, which made it pretty special. I still watch the replays,” Daley admits.

His seasonal earnings of $1,178,115 were, at the time, the highest by a three-year-old trotting gelding. The gelding was then selected as the Dan Patch 3-Year-Old Trotter of the Year.

An aged superstar

The giant came back even better at 4. After a slow start he won the Maple Leaf Trot and American-National to earn Older Trotter of the Year honors in both the US and Canada. In the Maple Leaf Trot, Mr Muscleman put on a clinic of both speed and strength when he worked over Revenue S enroute to a mightily impressive win in 1:53.2 (1.10,4).

Still, that race was just one of a huge list of big races won by Mr Muscleman, and he was even better at 5. That year, Swede Linda Albertsson started worked groom Mr Muscleman, a job she had from 2005 until 2008. “It was four years with very little time off, because Mr Muscleman needed attending to all the time. He was very big and fragile and went through three surgeries on his knees. Because of that he wasn’t trained very hard. Instead of walking him I would jump on top of him, and we rode from stable to stable for treats”, she laughs. “He had an incredible, larger-than-life personality. Muscleman was just special, and he knew what he wanted – he was absolutely no dummy. He was truly one of a kind.”

On the track, Mr Muscleman was perhaps better than ever. That year he amassed victories in the Arthur J Cutler Memorial Breeders Crown, Maple Leaf Trot, Titan Cup and the Trotting Classic Series at Woodbine. In the latter he also set his lifetime mark of 1:51.1s (1.09,1), which was also an all-age Canadian record. In this Trotting Classic win, Mr Muscleman also shattered the world record over 1 1/16th mile, coming home in 1:58.4 (1.09,3), wiping out Plesac’s 2:00 (1.10,2) from the record books.

His 2005 seasonal earnings of $1,364,220 were the most ever by an aged Standardbred gelding, and Mr Muscleman also became the first trotting gelding to earn $1 million in two non-consecutive seasons (Peace Corps was the first). Naturally, he was voted Older Trotter of the Year, but even more importantly he was voted 2005 Trotter of the Year.

The European journey

2006 proved a massive disappointment as the big kid’s poor feet and knees caught up with him. A suspensory injury caused the trotter to miss 12 full months of racing but made it back to the track in late September 2006. An impressive 1:52.1 (1.09,7) win at Woodbine turned out to be the only win in a short season which also included third place finishes in the Allerage Farm Open Trot and the Trotting Classic Series. “Mr Muscleman overcame a lot. He was always sore in his knees,” Daley points out.

After starting 2007 in fine fashion with a 1:52 (1.09,6) win in the Arthur J Cutler elimination, Daley chose to take the 17,1 hands (175 cms) giant across the Atlantic to take on Europe’s best in the Elitlopp and attempt to be the first American to win the legendary race since Moni Maker nine years prior. For Linda Andersson, going back to her native Sweden was a massive experience, but one cheeky comment to Swedish media didn’t quite go as planned. “I was asked by a journalist what I’d do if he won, and I jokingly replied that I’d ride around the track naked. Well, that sure got us some big headlines.” In some newspapers she was even referred to as “naken-Linda,” (naked-Linda) to which she just shakes her head in disbelief. “Every day there was something new written, and a lot of it was silly. In a way it may have been funny, but I felt like a stupid blonde.”

Daley actually trained two Elitlopp horses in 2007, as A Touch of Flair joined Mr Muscleman on the European journey. The duo was stabled at Solvalla, something which made Albertsson’s job a lot tougher.

“I was extremely happy I got to experience it, but with hindsight we probably should have been stabled at a farm and not at Solvalla itself – though Mr Muscleman thought it was great. He loved the attention and people popping in to say hi. It was impossible for me to get away though, people came running and wanted to talk as soon as they saw me. It’s fun with that much attention if you have the time for it, but then and there I just wanted to stick to the routines we had. I would also put in a lot of time on Mr Muscleman every day for stretches and massages, but it sure wasn’t easy those days at Solvalla.”

Albertsson and Daley also got to experience a common challenge for American trotters and trainers in Europe, which is to navigate a different set of rules than what they are used to back home.

“In Sweden you are not allowed to use burrs on headpoles, which is what we used in the US with Mr Muscleman. I remember we just had this “ah, we’ll figure it out”-attitude towards it all, but we were really fumbling a bit in the dark. In the elimination we used a headpole on the inside and a Murphy blind on the outside, but he drifted far right down the final stretch. He was also on himself in that race. He usually didn’t wear knee boots, but I had brought some tape just in case. That’s why we taped up his knees in the final. The thing is, though, that when he was hurting, Mr Muscleman never said anything. Never! As soon as he was behind the car it was ‘game on’ in his head. He didn’t have any weaknesses and gave it his all no matter what. Another thing that could have been an issue was our American sulky. On Saturday we were told it wasn’t approved, and that was something we hadn’t even thought about. But then suddenly it was okay to use, after all, and a few others even borrowed it on Sunday.”

Losing the draw, the American visitor got post 8 in his elimination and finished third to Citation and Red Chili Pirat. In the other elimination, French trotter L’Amiral Mauzon defeated the Swedish four-year-old fan favorite Going Kronos and the Norwegian star Thai Tanic.

Throwing caution to the wind

Because of the elimination result, Mr Muscleman ended up with post 6 in the final, effectively forcing Pierce’s hand. While American drivers are occasionally derided by the European public for apparently driving without a tactical plan, Pierce had a very clear plan as the trotters gathered behind the car.

“I raced him four or five years and never left the gate hard. However, In the Elitlopp, the way the race looked, it looked like if I didn’t control the race I couldn’t win it. He was well within himself in the elimination because there I drove him to get to the final. But in the final, for the first time ever, I used him hard as I wanted to get to the front. I knew that if Going Kronos got to the top I would be stuck on the outside, so I figured I should leave fast and leave him on the outside instead. That worked perfectly, and I had Going Kronos right where I wanted him. However, in the last turn that horse was getting tired and broke, which in turn opened things up earlier than I anticipated for the French horse on my back. [L’Amiral Mauzon] had post 1 in both the elimination and final and that suited him perfectly, and unfortunately, he beat us by a nose,” Pierce recalls.

While many would be very happy to finish second in the Elitlopp, it was a blow for the ultra-competitive Pierce. “I was devastated. We wanted to win that race so bad, and it was just bad racing luck. If Going Kronos hadn’t made a break and the French horse had stayed on my back a little longer, he wouldn’t have gotten by us.”

“Glad he didn’t win“

The 2007 Elitlopp was also known for the heated argument after the race. An irate Kolgjini had more than a few choice words for Pierce as he felt Mr Muscleman had interfered with Going Kronos going into the first turn.

“Pierce almost ran us over in the first turn. He went straight in, and I had to take my horse back to avoid being hit. I am very happy that the Frenchman won. I wish him the best; he’s a very nice guy. You can’t say that about Pierce, I’m glad he didn’t win,” Kolgjini uttered to Swedish media Kanal75.

Pierce, however, was having none of it: “There are napkins in the toilet if he wants to wipe his tears. I don’t give a damn if Kolgjini says I drove that way. He can whine all he wants. We’re in the horse racing business,” replied the American driver.

18 years later, Pierce just smiles at the whole thing. “To be honest, I don’t really remember the details anymore. However, I was a sore loser after that race, because if I had done a few things differently I would have won. I was mad at myself. I race the way I want to race my horse, and if I get beat then I’m not going to blame anybody. Seldomly, would I say anything to anybody else, so when somebody else complained I had to stick up for myself.”

The swansong

Unfortunately, Mr Muscleman injured his left knee in the Elitlopp final. He started in the Titan Cup elimination at the Meadowlands on Jun 22, 2007, winning in 1:55 (1.11,5), but the race proved his swansong. “We gave him one start after the Elitlopp, which he won, but his knees were no good anymore,” Daley adds. The big gelding appeared in two qualifiers in 2008 but was nowhere near his old level and the decision was made to retire him. He was official retired in a ceremony at the Meadowlands on Aug 22, 2009.

Eight days later the son of Muscles Yankee earned himself a ribbon in the ‘Ride and Drive’ class, for versatility in harness and under saddle, in the 2009 National Standardbred Horse Show at the New Jersey Horse Park in Allentown.

A forever home in Kentucky

At the same time, Daley was on a quest to find his retired superstar a forever home. He contacted the Kentucky Horse Park (KHP), who welcomed the champion with open arms. In an article at Equisearch, John Nicholson, executive director of the Kentucky Horse Park said, “The Kentucky Horse Park is considered ‘hallowed ground’ in the Standardbred world, as it was built on the former Walnut Hall Stud. This land has an abiding kinship with the breed, so Mr Muscleman will retire to pastures that have been the home of legendary horses like Rodney, Rambling Willie, Cam Fella, and currently Western Dreamer and Staying Together. The great Bret Hanover is buried here. Mr Muscleman is a welcome and worthy addition to that stellar line-up.”

With his move to the Kentucky Horse Park he was also, quite literally, returning to his roots. Mr Muscleman’s maternal great-grandam Blithe Rodney, hailing from the legendary maternal family of Minnehaha, was bred by none other than Walnut Hall Stud.

Mr Muscleman was the first trotter to retire to the KHP’s Hall of Champions and arrived there on Oct 16, 2009. Robert Willis is the manager for the Hall of Champions part of the Kentucky Horse Park. He has nothing but praise for Mr Muscleman: “He is a very stoic horse and an absolutely gentleman. I guess you could describe him as a gentle giant.”

The Kentucky Horse Park receives more than one million visitors annually. Many of these come to the Hall of Champions to meet and interact with retired standardbred, thoroughbred, quarter horse and steeplechase stars. Of the retired stars present in 2025, Mr Muscleman may just be the most popular, in large part due to his laid-back and friendly personality. “We have two shows daily from mid-March to November where the horses are announced, a video is shown, and they are brought out in an auction ring. Afterwards there is a meet and greet. Because of Mr Muscleman’s popularity he doesn’t miss many shows. Some of the other retirees are rotated because they get a bit sour and stuff, but not Muscleman. Hundreds of thousands of visitors can walk up to him without any problems. Muscleman is so friendly and can be approached by anybody – even people who has never been around horses. We direct people to him pre and post show (the daily presentations put on), and he’s a great ambassador to the sport. Remember that most people who come to the park doesn’t know much about the racehorses,” Willis explains.

At Kentucky Horse Park, Mr Muscleman also proved a champion in yet another area. As Willis explains, “Be A Bono, a champion quarter horse, was Mr Muscleman’s best friend. Both are pretty relaxed horses who arrived on the same day and got buddied up. Be A Bono fractured a hip and had stall rest, but since Muscleman was such a good buddy he would spend 24 hours in with him. 60 days went by and Be A Mono is all healed up. Mr Muscleman was just docile and helped promoted his healing. Unfortunately, Be a Bono then foundered in his other hip and couldn’t be saved. Our veterinarian couldn’t believe Bono made it that far, though, and he only did that because of Mr Muscleman. No question about it, he prolonged Be A Bono’s life.”

No wonder Mr Muscleman is one of the most popular four-legged ones at the Kentucky Horse Park, and Noel Daley makes sure to visit his old friend at least once a year. “I would say that Mr Muscleman is crucial to the park. He’s one of the premier outstanding horses here, and one the faces of the park. In addition, he makes my day easier and he’s a lot of fun,” Willis says with a smile.

While Mr Muscleman clearly gives a lot of joy to the Kentucky Horse Park, the trotting community should be grateful to the fantastic job performed by the employees for the horses: as of 25, the former superstar looks absolutely amazing. Willis’ concurs: “He’s wintered really well, and for somebody who is 25 and a retired Hall of Fame racehorse I don’t think he could look any better.”

Every race was a highlight

Ron Pierce has also retired from driving harness horses. Looking back at his illustrious career, the driver has nothing but great memories of Mr Muscleman. He is, however, struggling to pick out the one standout performance for a very simple reason: there were so many of them. “It’s hard to put one performance above another, you know. I sit back and I think about the horses I drove and the races I was in. I tend to remember the races I lost because of a mistake I made, more than the races I won. However, every time I raced with Mr Muscleman was a highlight. I love that horse – we all love that horse. All you had to do was just give him a chance and he would do the rest. I felt blessed, because he was such a classy horse.”

For Daley, who was a trainer associated with overnight pacers, Mr Muscleman changed everything – including making him known as a trotter trainer as well as a trainer of great young trotters: later he would develop standouts like Explosive Matter, Hambletonian winner Broad Bahn, Cedar Dove, Volume Eight and Sig Sauer – but none that in his heart really came close to the giant: “He took me from an overnight pacing trainer – Mr Muscleman was literally my second trotter. The time with him was a great ride, and it changed my life. He was my first great horse and is probably still my favorite horse.”

Albertsson, who worked so closely with the trotter for four seasons, echoes Pierce and Daley’s sentiments: “Mr Muscleman was everybody’s favorite horse. Everybody talked about him, and everybody loved him. To me he was the horse of a lifetime. This lifetime, the one before that and the next one, as well.”

Mr Muscleman was inducted into the Harness Racing Hall of Fame in 2017.

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