He was the milk horse who turned into a world champion, but was treated badly as he was a tough cookie. Because of the treatment...
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It’s a story full improbable twists, cruel treatment and bizarre facts. What ended up as Hambletonian’s possibly...
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Known as the “The Queen of the Turf”, she was the first to break the magic 2:30 barrier. A victim of bad and harsh...
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He is often thought of as a backwater stallion who fluked one great son despite being a lame horse not good enough to race...
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Maybe the best trotter ever bred in the Hoosier state, Cresceus went from being the best ever seen on the snow in Toledo to the...
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The first world champion bred in California, Occident came out nowhere in the early 1870s and tied Goldsmith Maid’s...
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She had a questionable pedigree, was difficult to handle, didn’t trot well and didn’t even start a single race. However suspect and hopeless the mare and her background appeared, Santos produced two of the best horses of her day and was a remarkable broodmare.
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The colt had talent, but had inherited his sire’s poor feet and was rushed too early to the races and as a result barely raced because of his lameness. Showing exceptional speed, his new owner decided to gamble on the six-year-old colt at stud. Virtually everybody thought it was a ridiculous folly of judgment. However, John Shults had the last laugh as Axworthy turned out to be one of the foundation sires of the standardbreds.
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Even though Hambletonian is universally regarded as the founding sire of the standardbred there have been others that looked to be great sires but now are largely forgotten. The most important of these is probably the Indiana bred Blue Bull, a pacer whose get were primarily trotters. Outperforming the legendary father of trotters, Hambletonian, back in the day, Blue Bull is almost completely forgotten and has now slipped into obscurity.
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Grey trotters have always caught the attention of the public, Greyhound naturally being a big reason. Of the thousands of stallions which were at stud before 1900, very few were successful sires of speed – and almost no grey ones. One exception, though, was Pilot Medium who sired Peter the Great. Pilot Medium’s grey coat is inherited from his damsire, Pilot Jr, who was a famous horse in his time and widely acknowledged as the best horse in “the Pilot family.”
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He had to wait until he was almost 40 before he had enough money to buy a horse, and ended up with broodmares others didn’t want. Then he was refused to breed these mares to the stallions of his choice and had to settle for an untested and relatively cheap debut stallion. Despite all this, Charlie W Williams bred an undefeated superstar of his time in Axtell, who in turn sired one of the sport’s foundation sires.
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