The terror

In the case of Nevele Pride, it is not only the horse that is legendary, but also his temperament. For every great race-related story, there is an even greater story about his temper. But whereas he might very well have been one of the meanest and most aggressive horses, he was also a fierce competitor who rarely lost and broke almost all the records – except against the mare who looked him in the eye.

The story starts with Thankful’s Major, which was Nevele Pride’s original name. He was bred by Edward C Quin at his Sunshine Farms near Blue Bell, Pennylvania. He also bred Thankful, a mare with a terrible temper known as “Little Evil”, who herself earned $31,104 and set a record of T2:03.2 (1.16,7). In what has become a well-known purchase, Stanley Dancer bought Thankful’s Major for $20,000 as a yearling. A fair amount, but Stanley Dancer was no stranger to expensive youngsters, having bought the first six-figure yearling back in 1958 when he shelled out $105 000 for Dancer Hanover. Despite common belief, Stanley Dancer did not have a owner lined up at that time. Later Dancer said that “I bought him with no owners in mind. I liked him, though, and figured I could get some owner to take him.” It did not take long for Dancer to find the vicious yearling some owners in the Nevele Acres Stable owned by Jules Slutsky and his brother Ben, though they insisted on renaming the colt Nevele Pride. The name “nevele” is of course 11 spelled backwards, and traces its name back to a waterfall on the Slutsky property named by 11 school teachers who formed the Nevele Fall School House.

In a Sun Sentinel article Pride Endures Time Passes, But Trotter’s Record Lives On, published August 4, 1988, Slutsky reveals a surprising fact. There were thoughts of laying Nevele Pride up as a 2-year-old. “He had some shin problems and we thought about it,” Slutsky said. “But after we began racing him, that’s when we all went to town.” And went to town they did. In his first race he broke and finished fourth, but then really got into gear and finished the year 26-2-0 in 29 starts. He also set a new world record when trotting the second heat of the Castleton Farm Stake, at DuQuoin, in 1:58.4 (1.13,8). The winningest 2-year-old trotter by then, Nevele Pride was voted 1967 Horse of the Year as the first 2-year-old ever.

“He said this colt wasn’t worth $5,000”

Not everybody had spotted the talent in the colt as a youngster, though. After Nevele Pride won the Hambletonian, breeder Edward Quin’s wife said: “People keep asking, why did we sell? My husband’s health has been bad for seven years and it reached the place where we couldn’t go to the races with our horses. My husband never did believe in racing horses as 2-year-olds, so we decided to send Thankful’s Major to the Harrisburg sales.

The colt was the first we ever bred which we didn’t go on with. We wanted $20,000 for him, but Harold Dancer, after coming out to see him, said we couldn’t get more than $15,000 for him. Billy Haughton, who had bought Thankful’s first cold by Star Pride (which turned out to be a pacer), said this colt wasn’t worth $5,000.

Then we got a call that Stanley Dancer wanted to see him. He came out to the farm and saw in the pasture and watched how he went. He said there were two or three things about the colt he didn’t care too much about but he would give us $20,000. So we sold him, for the most we ever got for a horse.”

“That’s the only time he’s hard to drive”

As Nevele Pride’s reputation grew, so did the public’s awareness of his rather nasty disposition. But surprisingly enough, Andy Murphy, his third groom, did not feel he was that bad. “He’s not mean,” Murphy said in an interview with Sports Illustrated. “When he knows he’s going to race – and he knows – he stays up, getting, well, maybe just a little mean. But if you think he looks mean now, just wait until after the race. He looks like he wants to kill somebody. Which he does. But that only lasts for 10 or 15 minutes and then he settles right down.” Stanley Dancer chipped in that “that’s the only time he’s hard to drive, going into the winner’s circle. You had better get that sulky unhooked in a hurry before he starts kicking. Then you have to keep an eye on him to see he doesn’t bite or kick the people around him. He’s a terror in that winner’s circle.”

Former Hoof Beats editor Dean Hoffman also vividly recalls Nevele Pride’s antics on race day: “I was taking care of a trotter stabled right behind Nevele Pride at the Illinois state fair in 1968. In fact, my mare raced the same day that Nevele Pride raced, although he won and she didn’t. I cooled my horse out walking directly behind groom Andy Murphy with Nevele Pride. He held the horse’s halter with his right hand and held a whip with his left hand and made sure that the whip was right in front of Nevele Pride’s face. And he never, ever took his eye off the horse. I don’t know that he ever attacked Stanley. I do recall that when Nevele Pride won the Kentucky Futurity in 1968, Stanley drove him into the winner circle. Nevele Pride stopped and then fired his hind foot a couple of times and hit the the sulky, not far from Stanley’s family jewels. Stanley quickly dismounted.”

Murphy was Nevele Pride’s third groom – the horse worked his way through the first two in less than six months. “I shuddered the day Stanley called me in and said I was next,” Murphy said. “I knew what he had done to the others. But I decided right off that I wasn’t going to fight with him. And I haven’t. You fight with him, he just fights you back. Of course, every day I give him a good cursing or two. And I got real mad the day he grabbed my $90 wristwatch and crushed it with his teeth. But we get along. I never take my eye off him for a second. You do that, he’s got you. And when I raise my voice he knows I’m on the verge of getting a shillelagh and he settles down. Most of the times he grabs you he lets right go. He’s just teasing.”

But few others considered the antics of the black colt to be nothing but teasing. As a 2-year-old, while coming in after a workout Nevele Pride clamped his teeth into Murphy’s right thumb and lifted him from the ground. Murphy weighs 170 pounds. “He just held me up there, dangling and cursing. There was another groom with me. He took one look and run off. He told me later that he didn’t know what to do, so he left.” Murphy shook his head. “When he got ready Pride let me down. He hadn’t even broken the skin, except in one little place. But that thumb was swollen for two weeks. Hurt like hell, too.”

Taking home the Triple Crown

At 3, he won 21 of 24 races, including the Triple Crown and lowered the world record for 3-year-olds on a 5/8 mile (1000 meter) track. In general, Nevele Pride had no competition against trotter his same age and the only one who could defeat him was really himself. With very good gate speed, Stanley Dancer and Nevele Pride were usually in the lead early on, and then they were rarely truly challenged.

He was also the last harness horse to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated for the Hambletonian article. His wins were generally easy and it was usually a race against the clock and not against any opponents. His win in the first heat of the Kentucky Futurity was particularly impressive as he left the field far back.

The speculation was already growing, could Nevele Pride be the one? Could he be the one to come along and finally beat Greyhound’s magical 1:55 1/4 (1.11,6) world record? Stanley Dancer declared midwinter 1969 that the record would be broken that year and predicted a 1:54.3 (1.11,2) time. As always, Dancer had a pretty good idea what he was talking about.

The mare who looked him in the eye

Before going for the ultimate record at 4, Nevele Pride would take a time-out from “domestic affairs” to beat, or so the expectations went, the best European trotters in the International Trot at the Roosevelt. Things didn’t go as expected, though. Une de Mai’s driver Jean-Rene Gougeon didn’t care about Nevele Pride’s reputation as the best in the world. Before the race he told Sports Illustrated that “I think we can win, or else I would not have come. I think Une de Mai may trot better than Roquépine. She has more speed, she can leave faster. Now it will be interesting to compare Une de Mai with Nevele Pride.”

Even though Nevele Pride had post 7 he had no problems moving to the lead for Dancer, but Une de Mai quickly moved forward and settled outside of him. The very idea of racing outside of Nevele Pride seemed crazy but not to Gougeon: “I wasn’t going to take her back (…) because then Stanley Dancer would have been able to take back and I didn’t want him to do that. I wanted to keep the pressure on him.” Four times Une de Mai came at Nevele Pride and forced a high tempo. Although it might seem like a crazy tactic, French trainer-driver Jean-Rene Gougeon had his reasons: “I wasn’t going to take her back and go into third, because then Stanley Dancer would have been able to take back — and I didn’t want him to do that. I wanted to keep the pressure on him, so I decided to stay up with Dancer on the outside.” When Une de Mai attacked Nevele Pride one last time Nevele Pride got tired for once in his life. “He was tired,” said Dancer, “and he didn’t want to go. I knew I was in trouble, but I thought the mare on the outside was in trouble, too.”

One line from Gougeon’s comments after the race has gone into trotting history. He summed up the race, and Une de Mai’s character, up in legendary fashion “When she looked him in the eye, he understood.”

The fastest ever

But despite this setback, Nevele Pride would set the record straight only right days later. On Sunday, August 31, at Indianapolis, in a time trial, Nevele Pride and Dancer finally broke Greyhound’s record in a time trial through fractions of :27 3/5, :55 4/5 and 1:25 1/5 to set a new world record of 1:54.4 (1.11,3). Finally, Greyhound’s then 31-year old world record was beaten! But he would not get any rest as he was off to Saratoga almost immediately. “What’s amazing to me is that we couldn’t get a plane out of Indianapolis,” Dancer said, “so we had to van him from Indiana to Saratoga. The trip probably took around 20 hours. We got there two days before the race, so he never really had time to rest and recover from the world record in Indiana.”

After breaking Greyhound’s record it was hard to see him topping it, but his Saratoga performance is by many considered an even great achievement. Things certainly were not served to him at a platter that day. A heavy morning deluge left the track under several inches of mud and there was concern whether the Speedy Rodney Trot, a non-betting event, would even be run. But the track dried up nicely and the race took place. Nevele Pride immediately went to the lead and pulled away with every stride, in the end winning it by 28 lengths in 1:56.4 (1.12,6).

Not only did Nevele Pride break Speedy Rodney’s world record for a trotter of 1:58.3 (1.13,7) set in 1966, but his mile was faster than any standardbred had raced over a half-mile track regardless of gait. Even more impressive, Nevele Pride’s mile was one fifth faster than the pacing mark set by Bret Hanover in 1965. Only six days after beating Greyhound’s seemingly immortal record he had put on another great performance!

“He ate all the tobacco, then spit out the filter”

Such a fantastic racehorse was of course worth a huge amount and Dancer had John Wood, an ex-jockey in his 70s serving as the colt’s night watchman. His duty consisted of lying on a cot in front of Nevele Pride’s stall door and stay there until dawn. The pair got along surprisingly well, but Wood also knew how to bribe the war horse and frequently gave him chewing tobacco. The horse would eat just about anything handed him, including fingers, and especially enjoyed sandwiches, doughnuts and beer. “I even seen him eat a filter cigarette once,” swears Murphy. “He ate all the tobacco, then spit out the filter.”

A failed stallion strategy

When Nevele Pride retired at the end of his 4-year-old season he did so with a 57-4-3 record from 67 races and $ 873,238 in total earnings. He went to stud at Stoner Creek Stud after Norman Woolworth put together a syndicate that purchased the rights for the record sum of $3 million. With a manager from the thoroughbred industry, where limiting the number of foals is common, based on the idea that fewer foals makes each much more valuable and would thus drive the price up, he only covered 50 mares per year. With Speedy Crown and Super Bowl just starting their stud careers, this would turn out to be a decision which also limited the number of good foals from Nevele Pride, compared to what it could have been had he served 150 mares per year. Whereas Nevele Pride was fertile he wasn’t too interested in the ladies. Getting him to breed a single mare could at times take hours.

Despite limiting the number of foals, Nevele Pride proved himself a very good stallion. His first crop contained Nevele Diamond as well as Madison Avenue, a good trotter exported to Sweden who sired Meadow Road. The second crop contained Hambletonian-vinner Bonefish, and in the third we find Nevele Thunder and European star Pershing. Later stars include Rosemary born 1975, Panty Raid and Snack Bar in the 1978-crop, Tarport Frenzy in 1983 and Meadow Roland born 1983. The latter was exported to Denmark and was a star on European tracks in the late 80s and early 90s.

Nevele Pride was also a very good damsire as illustrated by Hambletonian-winners Duenna and Nuclear Kosmos, Hambletonian Oaks-winner Park Avenue Kathy, dollar millionaire Go Get Lost, Elitlopp-winner Gum Ball and European stars such as Rite on Line, Charmy Skeeter, Hot Tub, Somollison and Meadow Prophet.

His sireline lives on through Bonefish’ son Mickey Viking, who stood stud for one season in France before passing away from a brain tumor. From only 30 foals he produced several very good horses, including the injury prone French super-stallion Viking’s Way. The latter sired Jag de Bellouet and is the paternal grandsire of Ready Cash, Timoko and monte (RUS) superstar Bilibili.

Causing havoc at Stoner Creek

The warning sign “Warning! Nevele Pride will bite”, which was prominent at Stoner Creek Stud, is probably the biggest understatement in the world of trotters. According to farm manager Tom Stewart Jr, there was nobody like Nevele Pride. “He’d kill someone if he had the chance,” Stewart said. “And he’s the only horse I’ve ever known who would do it on purpose.” Pictures of Nevele Pride and the iron pole used to control him are infamous. Ben Whaley hoped the iron pole would keep Nevele Pride away from him, but one day the horse came after him and bent that pole. Dean Hoffman recalls a time at Stoner Creek when Nevele Pride knocked his handler down and got loose and began to chase people on the farm like a dog chases cars. One person stayed safe by running into a stall and closing the door, while another hid under a truck. On another occasion, Nevele Pride knocked the fence down and went after high neighbor Meadow Skipper, the champion pacer stallion also at Stoner Creek, but the staff managed to keep him apart.

But for Nevele Pride’s terrible temper, not all the ruckus around him could be blamed on his temperament. Dean Hoffman, in his October 1987 Hoof Beats article Harness Racing’s Living Legend, tells of an interesting incident involving Stanley Dancer and Delvin Miller after Nevele Pride, naturally a huge favorite, broke and lost the 1969 American-National to Snow Speed. “Delvin had raced Viscount Hanover in there and we were coming off the track and had to walk through the crowd to get to the paddock at Sportsman’s. A few guys said something to me about getting beat with Nevele Pride and I expected that, but two of them took swings at me. Fortunately, Delvin saw it coming and shoved me out of the way, then, he cold-cocked both of them. Luckily, the police weren’t too far away or Delvin could’ve really been hurt.” Two people down on the ground and Nevele Pride was not at fault…

Nevele Pride died at the age of 28 on February 19, 1993 from complications the developed after surgery to repair twisted intestines. He was laid to rest just alongside Meadow Skipper and thoroughbred champion Count Fleet.

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