xt73bk16mh6t https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt73bk16mh6t/data/mets.xml Fasig, William Benjamin, 1845-1902. 1903  books b98-37-40931184 English W.H. Gocher, : Hartford, Conn. : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Horses. Horse racing United States. Fasig's tales of the turf  : with memoir in which is included a history of the Cleveland driving park, a review of the grand circuit, how the Gentlemen's driving club of Cleveland was started, and a sketch of Fasig's sale business / by W.H. Gocher. text Fasig's tales of the turf  : with memoir in which is included a history of the Cleveland driving park, a review of the grand circuit, how the Gentlemen's driving club of Cleveland was started, and a sketch of Fasig's sale business / by W.H. Gocher. 1903 2002 true xt73bk16mh6t section xt73bk16mh6t 






















































               WILLIAM B. FASIG


        BORN AT ASHLAND, 0, SEPT. 27, 1845,

DIED AT BENNYSCLIFFE, BREWSTER. N. Y., FEB. 19, 1902.

 




           FAS IG'S



TALES OF THE TURF


                 WITH


           MEMOIR



IN WHICH IS INCLUDED A HISTORY OF THE CLEVELAND
DRIVING PARK, A REVIEW OF THE GRAND CIRCUIT,
   HOW THE GENTLENIEN'S DRIVING CLUB OF
     CLEVELAND WAS STARTED, AND A SKETCH
         OF FASIG'S SALE BUSINESS




                  BY
           W. H. GOCHER



      PUBLISHED BY
W. H. GOCHER, HARTFORD, CONN.
         1903

 




























  Entered according to the Act of Congress in the
                  year 190X, by
               W. H. GOCHER,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.



    PRESS OF
WIN. & JUDSON,
  CLEVELAND, 0.

 




IN DEX.




  MEMOIR.



Jenny Fluctuates .....................    9
Elected Secretary ......................  11
1871 Meeting ........................ 13
Quadrilateral Beginning ............... 1.5
Hampden Park ........................ 17
Hartford.....     ................... 19
Grand Circuit ........................ 21-Z3
Grand Circuit Table ........ between 2-Z1
1873 Meeting .........................   '
1874 Meeting .........................'.7T
1875 Meeting ........................ 29
Willi.am Edwards ......................  31
1876f Meeting ..........................  3
Goldsmith Maid and Smuggler   ..3-. V37
Smuggler Wins    .     ............... 39
Outsiders Win   .     ................ 41
Hopples             .      .       43
187 "Meeting ...........................4. 1
Rarus Breaks the Record........    47
1880 Meeting   ..........................  49
Keyes and Lucy .       ....................... 51
1881 Meeting.     ........................... 53
Four-in-Hand Teams ...      ..... ;
Bostick and Warrior........        57
The Demon Trotter.    .......      .9
What 2:14 Meant.    .......        61
Wyandot and Keokee        ..       6 3
1883 Meeting          .     .       .)
On the Snow in New York     .  .    7 1,
Sealskin Brigade.         ........ 69
Fasig's First Sale ..................... .   71
Maud S., 2:09Y.    ...........     73
A Ringer    .       ................... 7



A Race to Wagon ...............    77...... 7
A Battle for The Throne ..........  9..... 9
Maud S., 2:08x ....................... 81
A 2:04 Gait .  ....................... 83
Phyllis in Lake Erie .................... 8.;
An Expensive Work Out .............. 87
Brown Hal and Palo Alto ............. 89
A Buffet of Fortune .....9.....1........ '1
Patron and Harry Wilkes ......:... ... '3
1887 Meeting ....................... 9Oo
1888 Sale .9..................      7...  
Twisting the Talent .................. 99
Sale of Guy ...................     ..... 101
Guy Sold for 29,7Zt)0 .................. 103
1889 Meeting ........................... 105
Emery and Fasig ............ ......... 107
1890 Meeting.........   ......... 109
The Intimidators ..l................. I
1891 Sale..................       113
Temple Bar Expelled .................. 11.
Mollie A. a Ringer ..................    117
1892' Meeting ............................ 119
The Elyria's Winning .................. 121
1893 Meeting ...    ..................... 1:3
1894 Meeting .2..................... l'!;5
13 ......................         127
Rifle ...................... 129
Bike Sulky Cut Records.....  ...... 1:1
The Gentlemen's Driving Club .... 1:-13M7)
The Challenge Trophy...... 137
18M Meeting ..      ..................... 1:39
1899 Meeting..................... 141
1900 Meeting ..........................113

 



INDEX.



Synopsis of Meetings ..... between 144-145
Fasig Goes to New York ...............145
1893 Sales.........           147-149
1895 Sales.........               1.51
Star Pointer.........             1.53
1897 Sales ..1....... 55
Change in the Firm ..... .............. 1.57
Pasig-Tipton Co..........         1.59
The Abbot Sold for 26,500.       161
Millions for Horses .163
Thoroughbred Sales      .       .165



Suburban Farm Sale ................... 167
Sales of Harness Horses ............... 169
Sales of Thoroughbred Horses ........ 171
The End......................     173
Sale Ring Reminiscences ............... 175
Bought the Wrong Horse .............. 177
Combination of Contradictions ....... 179
An Advertiser ......................... 181
A Reinsman ......................... .. 183
Press Comments .185



TALES OF THE TURF.



Andy and I .........................       266
A Speedway Incidert .................. 278
A Strange Land ....................... 224
Buffalo Park ......................... 309
Good Luck.........................258
Heat Betting ......................... 293
How a Swipe Won ...................... 303
In Bret Harte's Country ............... 282
Klatawa's Diary ....................... 274
Limit of Trotting Speed ............... 264
Matt Laird and Rubenstein .......... 312
McDoel.........................   214
Musket..     ......................... 30(1
Pat Shank.........................289



Seventy Dollars ........................ 280
Stranger .............................. 248
Temperament of Brood Mares ......... 211
The American Trotting Horse ......... 259
The Highly Polished Gold Brick ....... 310
The Old Plan the Best ................. 286
The Ride of a Life Time ................ 307
The Sandpiper ......................... 235
The Secretary .......................... 244
The Trotter on the Farm .............. 295
Trotting Tracks ....................... 188
Types of Horses ........................ 253
Wyokee ............................       313

 


                Tiiis BOOK IS DEDICATED TO


        THE AMERICAN TROTTER


A type of horse that contributed materially to the pleasure,
health and wealth of the inhabitants of North America during
the last half of the nineteenth century. On the road, to harness
and on the farm the trotter stands as the highest type of equine
intelligence and equine usefulness, being able to do all kinds of
work from racing to pulling a plough, and it is the sincere hope
of the writer of this note that the sentiment created by the record-
breaking performances of Flora Temple, Dexter, Goldsmith
Maid and their successors to championship honors, as well as
their contemporaries, will continue throughout this century and
for all time place the purely American sport of harness racing on
so high a plane that the trotter shall never become a matter-of-
fact medium for speculation.

 This page in the original text is blank.

 

MEMOIR.



   When presenting the horse stories written by the late
William B. Fasig, it is not the intention of the writer to
give a review of his life other than that portion of it cov-
ering his connection with harness racing. It was his
hobby, and fortune willed that from that source he should
win a competence, only to be carried off after he had set-
tled down at Bennyscliffe to enjoy himself breeding and
developing a few colts from Keokee, Eloise, and other
mares which he had tried on the turf and found up to his
standard of excellence. These stories have been resur-
rected from the files of the turf papers and put in book
form, as they are worth preserving on account of their
literary merit, while to those who knew their author, they
should be doubly acceptable, as they will from time to
time remind the reader of a clever, whole-souled, enthu-
siastic horseman, whose idol was the American trotter, a
product, as he termed it, "That did not require any natur-
alization papers."
   William Benjamin Fasig was born September 27,
i845, at Ashland, Ohio. His father was a minister and
a good horseman, and there is nothing on record to show
that he was displeased when he learned that "Benny" had
a leaning in that direction. For that matter, all of the
Fasig family were tarred with the same stick, Benny's
uncles being famous for "that smooth, versatile, good-
will-on-earth way of talking about a horse that is never
the result of education or practice, but a trait born in the

 



infant who is in after life a genuine admirer of a good
horse." Of these Uncle Dan was the star. He had an eye
for a horse, while he never grew weary expatiating on
the beauty and goodness of a certain blaze-faced, small
gelding, bay in color and "Morgan on both sides," that
could out trot, out walk, out run, and out pull any horse
in Ashland County for fun, money or marbles.
   The old story about the bent twig has a striking exam-
ple in the case of William B. Fasig. From the time that
he could toddle, the stable had more attraction for him
than the schoolhouse, and as soon as he was permitted
to drive a horse, a brush on the road or the third of a
mile tan bark track, was, in his eyes, the only thing on
earth worth living for. The limit of boyhood delights
was reached when his father gave him two mares. One
was called Nell and the other Jenny. Nell was a roan
mare considerably older than her new owner. She had
the heaves, a docked tail, and was adorned with a pair of
bone spavins. But all of these defects were lost sight of
from the fact that she could trot like a blue streak. There
was not a horse in that "neck of woods" that could step
by her, and the climax was reached when she made her
youthful owner the "King of the castle" by defeating the
local star,Lucy,at the county fair, for a 25 purse in 3:03.
The band was not called out to "See the conquering hero
come," but the desire to have it, and the showman in-
stinct to wish for it was there, even at that date. For
weeks "Benny" Fasig and Nell were at the top of the
heap, and when Uncle Dan called there was talk of rec-
ord-smashing that made the performances of Lady Suf-
folk, Ethan Allen, Dutchman and Flora Temple, look
hazy. All dreams of youth have silver linings. We have
all had them, our children will have them, their children



8



MREMOIR .

 

JENNY FLUCTUATES.



will have them, and so it will go on to the end of time.
   Nell was, however, fated to fall from the pedestal
erected by her owner as there was a rival in the stable. It
was Jenny. She was a four-year-old, a beautiful brown,
and one-eyed. The skill acquired in handling Nell
caused Jenny to put her right foot forward and step off
with that coveted one, two, three, four beat of the regu-
lation trotter. Over thirty years after, Fasig's eyes
would sparkle as he told how Jenny could go by Nell
"the same as a streak of lightning would pass a funeral
procession." In one of his letters to the Horse Review
he said: "I played Jenny for a 'quarter hoss,' and she
could run, until one day I found she could trot. Gee
whiz! how she could step. I wish I had her now, in the
days of bike sulkies, and silk velvet tracks. She had a
gait like Dexter's, that opened and shut 'like a steel trap,
game and gritty, and wild; you bet she was; but she
always stuck to a trot. One day father and I went into
the country. Jenny was hitched to a spring seat, one-
horse wagon, and on our return trip we struck a drove of
hogs. Jenny and hogs hardly danced in the same set, and
I didn't have a howling hankering to tackle that drove,
neither did I dare show dad the white feather. We
started cautiously and had got quarter way through the
drove, when an idiot pig got under the hind wheel and
protested. Jenny 'fluctuated' just once; father went
over backwards, and I hung to the lines tight as polish on
a tombstone. There was activity in the pork market, and
it is conceded in that locality that the next four miles were
negotiated in record-breaking time.  Nobody was hurt.
   Jenny remained the property of William B. Fasig
until he ran away from school, a few days before he
was sixteen, to join James Garfield's Forty-second Regi-



9

 



ment of Ohio Volunteers. After the close of the war he
removed to Cleveland, where he was employed by a com-
mercial house. When well under way in the matter of
making a living a trotter was purchased, the first one
selected being the outlaw Chestnut Dick. It is alleged
that before passing into Fasig's hands this horse had
masqueraded under such names as Pompey, John T., etc.,
and had made a faster mark than the 2:38 that stands
after his name in Chester's Complete Trotting and Pacing
Record. Whether he did or not does not make much dif-
ference at this date, while at the time Fasig purchased
him his history was well known by the followers of the
races in Northern Ohio. In the seventies there were a
number of non-association tracks in Ohio, so that it was
possible for Chestnut Dick and other horses that had car-
ried an assortment of names to pay their way by racing
at the fairs which began in the middle of August and
continued until the snow flew. At the period referred to
there was always a cloud of uncertainty surrounding a
strange horse at a fair in the Western States, and Ohio
was considered in the West at that time. That era of
harness racing has fortunately gone forever, and no one
did more to stamp it out than William B. Fasig. He
had seen both sides of it, and had a very fair idea how a
man, who was racing a clever young horse on his merits,
feft after being defeated or driven to a fast record by a
'ringer." When it came to a case of "diamond cut dia-
mond," it did not make so much difference, as while the
rogues gave the public to all appearances, a horse race,
they usually before the last heat was contested, took a
practical view of the situation and made "a divide." But
that is another matter.
   W. B. Fasig told me that he won a number of races



10



MEMOIR .

 

E:LECTED SECRETARY.



with Chestnut Dick, but none of them have been reported
except a 200 match which was trotted with Maggie Kim-
berly, an old time dot-and-carry-one trotter owned by
Fred Kimberly, one of the original characters of the
Forest City. The pair met at Elyria, May 29, 1872, and the
following summary shows that they had a busy afternoon:
    Chestnut Dick, ch. g., by John Henry;
      William B. Fasig ............   2 I 2 I I
    Maggie Kimberly, b. m.; Fred Kimberly 1 2 I 2 2
           Time-2:43, 2:38, 2:42Y4, 2:4IY, 2:41.
   According to the official records this was William B.
Fasig's first appearance on the trotting turf, his juvenile
victory with Nell at the Ashland fair "befo' the war"
having escaped the collector of turf statistics.
   In i882, through the influence of Colonel William
Edwards, the subject of this memoir was elected Secre-
tary of the Cleveland Club, which at that time controlled
the mile track at Glenville. In that position William B.
Fasig made his reputation as a race track official and a
horseman, and also first showed the qualities which in
time stamped him as one of the cleverest advertisers that
has ever been connected with the horse industry in
America. Under the direction of Colonel Edwards (a
man who was loved by everyone who had the pleasure of
knowing him, and who was, from the time that he as-
sumed office in i876, up to the day of his death, Septem-
ber 21, i898, the directing spirit in racing affairs in Cleve-
land), Fasig equipped the grounds and at the same time
laid the foundation of the reputation which harness rac--
ing enjoys in the Forest City. As Fasig's name is in-
separably linked with the track over which so many fast
records have been made and memorable races contested,
a brief sketch of it and the early meetings held there
will not be out of place in these pages.



11

 



12



MEMOIR.



   The Cleveland   mile track   was built in   i870  by the
Northern Ohio Fair Company, the fair feature of the so-
ciety being located on the grounds now known as Gorden
Glen, and connected with the race track by a bridge over
St. Clair street, which was at that time a country road.
In the spring of i871 the following advertisement ap-
peared in the columns of "The Spirit of the Times" and
"The Turf, Field and Farm:"


         FIRST ANNUAL SPRING MEETING
                           OF THE
              CLEVELAND CLUB,
                   UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE
          Northern Ohio Fair Association,
                     CLEVELAND, o.
                   JUNE 20, 21, 22, and 23, 1871.
             Premiums,     -  - -  -  5,000.
                 FIRST DAY-TUESDAY, JUNE 20.
           3.00 Purse. "00.-350, 125, 735, 50.
           2:40) Purse. 650.-300, 175, 100, 75.
                        SECOND DAY.
           2:30 Purse, 00.-250, 123, 75. 50
           2 33 Purse, 1,000.-600, 300, 100.
                        THIRD DAY.
           Pacing Race-Purse. ,300.-175, 75, 50.
           2:45 Purse, .500.-250, 125, 75, 50.
                        FOURTH DAY.
           Open to all-Purse, .000.-M00, 300. 100.
           Running Race, Single Dash-Purse, 300.-17.5, 75,
         50.
           RunningRace, best two in three-Purse, Z50.-123,
           75, 50.
                  RULES AND REGULATIONS.
           The trotting shall be governed by the rules of the
           National Trotting Association, and the running by
           the rules of the Cincinnati Jockey Club Association.
           A horse distancing the field shall only be entitled
           to first premium.
           All entries for premiums must close the 13th ofJune.
           Entrance ten per cent. of purse, and must accom-
           pany nominations.
           All communications addressed to GEo. W. HOWE.
           Cleveland, Ohio.
                             JOHN TODD, President.
           GEoRGE W. HOWE, Secretary.

 

I871 MEETING.



   In addition to racing under the rules of The National
Trotting Association, the Cleveland Club wvas also a mem-
ber of that organization, which was then located at Provi-
dence, R. I.. and doing business as the National Associa-
tion for the Promotion of the Interests of the American
Trotting Turf. The engineer's certificate, filed by the
Club, also shows that the track measured 5,280 feet one
inch, three feet from the pole. Those figures remained
unchanged until i883 when, after a few alterations the
track was re-measured and found to be 5,280 feet eight
inches in circumference three feet from the pole.
   A short time after the programme for the meeting was
announced, the Cleveland Club employed John Denman
to take charge of the track and grounds. At this writ-
ing (1902) he is still there, and is known from the Atlan-
tic to the Pacific, and as Adams the blacksmith might
remark, several places in Canada, as "Race Track Jack,"
whose only hobby is that fast strip of clay which is re-
ferred to by racing men as the "golden oval at Glenville."
   The first heat and race decided over the Cleveland
Driving Park was won by the gray gelding Silversides,
and this race was also the first in which that horse won
a heat. Before coming to Cleveland Silversides was de-
feated at Alliance and Zanesville by a horse called
Brown Tom, who retired from the turf with a record of
2 :45/2, while the gallant gray, who was, by the way, a
product of Columbiana County, trained on to a record of
2:22, and proved one of the best race horses of his day.
The following is the official summary of the race, which
will be of interest to those who are fond of locating early
events:



13

 



                   CLEVELAND, OHIO, June 20, 1871.
     Purse, 5oo for horses that never beat three minutes,
     250, I25, 75, 50.
     William Stewart's gr. g., Silversides by Ches-
     ter Lion ................................. I I I
     A. M. Wilson's gr. m., Kittie ............. 2 3 2
     E. A. Lytle's blk. m., Blackthorn ......... 3 2 3
     T. P. Roche's b. m., Titusville . ........... 5 4 4
     John T. Rush's blk. g., Steer . .     4 dis.
     G. A. Myer's blk. g., Tom Moore, Jr ...... dis.
     James Myer's br. g., Novelty .............. dis.
     W. C. Gimmell's br. g  .   ............. dis.
     WV. F. Archer's rn. m., Kittie ...... ....... dis.
     William B. Leonard's blk. g., Dr. Bonaparte dis.
     J. P. Gilbert's gr. g., Billy Cushing ........ dis.
     J. P. Hazard's ch. g., George .............. dis.
                Time-2:373/2, 2:35, 2:384.
   From the above date up to the close of i879, Silver-
sides was raced each season, and in that period met and
defeated the best horses in training, the list including
such old-time stars as Harry Mitchell, Lew Scott, Red
Oak, Sleepy John, John B., Hylas, Elsie Good, Slow Go,
Belle Brasfield, Deception, John H., Annie Collins, Mon-
arch Jr., Scott's Thomas, Cozette, etc., while he at dif-
ferent times took the word with Adelaide, Darby, Rarus,
Bodine, Dick Swiveller, Doctor Lewis, Huntress, Lew-
inski, Red Cloud, Tom Keeler, and a host of others.
John Hines, who is still (I902) training a few horses at
Minerva, Ohio, drove him in many of his races. Dash was
also a winner on the opening day of the meeting. He
was owned in Youngstown, and later on became promi-
nent as Ohio Boy.
   The fastest mile trotted at the inaugural meeting of
the Cleveland Club was won by Monarch, Jr., in 2 :29/4.
He started in the 2:33 class, which was placed to the



14



MEMOIR .

 

QUADRILATERAL BEGINNING.



credit of Annie Watson, a chestnut mare by Vermont
Boy, that retired with a record of 2:33. The gray geld-
ing Dan Voorhees was the winner of the only pacing race
on the programme. In the third heat of it he placed the
track record for harness performers at 2:25, which he
reduced to 2 :24Y2 at the September meeting, when he
defeated Sorrel Frank and Ladv Mlack. The Buffalo
horse Byron won the free-for-all on the last day of the
meeting, while both of the running races, which were at
a mile, were awarded the six-year-old chestnut horse
Boaster, by imported Eclipse, out of Vanity, a daughter
of Etiquette, whose dam was the celebrated Trustee mare
Fashion. Boaster was in good form that afternoon as
he galloped one of his miles in I :444, and for that mat-
ter, he was prominent all of the season after his owner
succeeded in evading Joseph Cairn Simpson and the
Bonnie Scotland colt, Van, formerly Blenkiron. The
judges for the day were John Tod, E. A. Buck, a former
resident of Cleveland, but at that time living in Buffalo,
and L. J. Powers, of Springfield, Mass., all three of
whom were named as stewards of the Quadrilateral Trot-
ting Combination when it was organized in I873, their
associate being E. Z. Wright, of Utica, N. Y. What is
now known as the Grand Circuit can be traced to the
Judges' Stand at Cleveland in 1871.
   While speaking of the beginning of the Quadrilateral
Trotting Combination, L. J. Powers, who has been
continuously connected with harness racing in an
official capacity longer than anv man living, and
who is the only surviving member of the first
Board of Stewards, told me that the question of
giving a consecutive series of meetings for large
purses was first discussed in William Edwards' house in



15

 



Cleveland, on one of the evenings of the inaugural meet-
ings of the Cleveland Club in i87I. The subject was in-
troduced at dinner, and as MIr. Powers remembers, Col.
Edwards started it. Col. Edwards' guests that evening
were John Tod, the president of the Cleveland Club, and
the Northern Ohio Fair Company; E. A. Buck, who was
at that time the vice-president of Buffalo Park and the
wheel horse of the organization which that season gave
5o,ooo for four days' racing (Chandler J. Wells being
president); and L. J. Powers, at that time the chairman
of the Executive Committee of the SpringfieldClub,which
had held meetings at Hampden Park in i868 and i869,
and which, when it secured control of the track, was re-
organized as the Hampden Park Trotting Association.
   As L. J. Powers sat in his home on Pearl street,
Springfield, and recalled the old days and reunions which
were held annually on his lawn, sloping off towards the
city, he said: "Billy Edwards and I were boys together
in this town. He was five years my senior, but as our
tastes were similar, especially on the horse question, we
traveled in the same set. About the first thing I can re-
member of him was a fondness for Connecticut river shad
and a desire to own a good horse to drive on the road.
As a starter we managed to save a few dollars to hire one
that could trot a little. I do not now remember that
either of us were particularly anxious to race with every-
one that we came to, but there was always the satisfac-
tion in knowing that we could if we wanted to. When
the time came for both of us to strike out for ourselves,
William Edwards started for the Western Reserve and
located in Cleveland, where he eventually engaged in the
grocery business. I remained here and established what
is now known as the Powers Paper Company.



16



MERMOIR .

 

HAMPDEN PARK.



   "As a young man I saw the first horse show of
national importance in Nurth America. It was held in
Springfield, October I0 to I3, 1853. George M. Atwater
was the leading spirit in the organization, while such men
as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Rufus Choate and Edward
Everett were numbered among its guests. The show was
held on a vacant field owned by the United States gov-
ernment and now covered by the United States Armory
buildings. Temporary stalls were erected, as well as a
grandstand and a half mile track, on which Budd Doble
appeared as a driver, while P. T. Barnum was judging
ponies in the infield. The show was a success, and it and
its successor furnished the funds to build Hampden
Park, which was inaugurated in I857 with an address by
the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Exhibitions were given
there in i858, i859 and i86o. Then there was a lull until
after the war. The first race meeting was held in i868.
It was given under the joint management of the Spring-
field Club and the Hampden Park Agricultural Society.
I was chairman of the executive committee and invited
William Edwards to be one of the judges. lie was with
us again the following year, when he told me that Cleve-
land would soon have a mile track. In 1870 he wrote that
it was completed, and later on I was requested to go to
Cleveland as a judge at the inaugural meeting in I871.
When I returned from Cleveland the question of a series
of meetings was left in abeyance on account of there being
but three tracks. Another link was wanted in the chain.
   "The following year, while the Buffalo meeting wvas in
progress, Col. Edwards and I were E. A. Buck's guests.
One evening at dinner he introduced C. W. Hutchinson,
who was at the head of an association which had built a
mile track in Utica. By the time the cigars were reached



17

 



the foundation was laid for what was afterwards known
as the Quadrilateral Trotting Combination, and a series of
meetings on consecutive weeks in i873. I did the balance
of the work by correspondence, designed the first letter
heads bearing the title of the combination, the names of
the stewards, as well as the name of the secretary,
Samuel Briggs, the Secretary of the Cleveland Club, be-
ing named for the place. The first meeting of the Quad-
rilateral was held at Cleveland, July 29 to August I, the
dates for the other members' meetings being Buffalo,
August 5 to 8; Utica, August 12 to 14, and Springfield,
August 19 to 22. The premiums for the four meetings
amounted to i69,300.
  -In I874, the stewards of the Quadrilateral Trotting
Combination held their first meeting in Utica, as C. \W.
Hutchinson's guests. The dates for the year were se-
lected and programmes announced, but before the bell
rang it was learned that an association at Rochester had
decided to open its new mile track with a meeting the
same week as Utica. The clash injured both meetings.
In 1875, Rochester and Poughkeepsie, where a mile
track had been built the preceding year, became mem-
bers of the circuit, the name for the series being changed
to the Central Trotting Circuit. This change resulted in
another clash on account of Poughkeepsie selecting the
same dates as Buffalo, and in order to secure entries the
Poughkeepsie association cut its entrance fee to 5 per
cent, of purse. This was the first time that such a low
entry fee had ever been heard of, the rate being IO per
cent., and it remained at that figure in the Grand Circuit
until I892, when it was changed to five per cent. to enter,
with 5 per cent. additional from the winners of each di-
vision of the purse.



18



MEMOIR .

 



  "In 1874, Charter Oak Park, at Hartford, wvas opened
with a 30,ooo meeting, August 25 to 28. Ebenezer Rob-
erts was president, Morgan G. Bulkeley, treasurer, and
Alexander Harbison, secretary. It was admitted to the
circuit in 1876, and is still a member. That year, or the
following one, the Board of Stewards were the guests
of the Rochester Driving Park, whose officers requested
them to hold all of their future meetings in that city. To
decline such a location after the entertainment provided
by the Hon. Fred Cook, E. B. Parsons, George J. Whit-
ney, George W. Archer and their associates, was an issue
that could not be considered, and from that date until
Springfield, and for that matter, until Rochester dropped
out of line in i896, the Stewards of the Grand Circuit,
with very few exceptions, held their annual meetings in
that City. To what might be termed the "Old Guard"
there are many pleasant memories attached to those
meetings and banquets at which the love for a good horse
and the purely American sport, harness racing, was the
bond of fellowship. Sentiment without a particle of com-
mercialism brought together the men who sat around the
board each year. To them a race was a contest for which
they were willing to pay, should the associations which
they represented, and in a few instances managed, come
out at the small end of the horn when the last heat was
trotted. This happened two or three times in Springfield,
there being one season when seven of us were called on
to chip in i,ooo apiece to balance accounts. Then there
were years when the balance was the other way. In the
old days the commercial spirit of the turf was left to those
who entered and drove horses and the general public.
The financial ventures of those who managed meetings
were foreign to the race track. Grand Circuit week was



19



HARTFORD .

 

2MEMOIR.



their holiday, and they took as much pride in keeping up
the standard as the New York Yacht Club has in retain-
ing the America's cup. It was the good old spirit for
genuine sport that carried Col. Edwards to the front in
Cleveland, and it is with regret that I see this spirit on
the decline, the tendency to-day being towards shorter
races and increased speculation. Such a course, especially
the latter, is beset with danger, for without a big grain of
sentiment, harness racing can never retain the popular
support which was given it in the old days when the
namres of Goldsmith Maid and Dexter were household
words, and when every slip of a lad with a hobby-horse
or a sled, designated it with a name that had become
prominent on account of record-breaking performances.
   "In the thirty years that have elapsed since the Quad-
rilateral was founded, twenty-four cities have, at differ-
ent times, been members of the Circuit. Cleveland is the
only one that has given a meeting each year in member-
ship. Buffalo has, with two exceptions, given a meeting
each season. Three of them were not in the Circuit, al-
though two of the three were held on its old dates the
first week in August. Utica skipped twice before it
dropped out in i888, after a clash with Poughkeepsie, its
grounds being sold for a public institution. Springfield
failed to hold meetings in 1878, i879 and 1882, and aban-
doned the idea of future meetings after the reform move-
ment in 1893. Rochester raced regularly from 1875 to
I896, while Poughkeepsie held but seven Grand Circuit
meetings between i877 and 1894. Hartford, as has been
stated, was admitted in i876, and is still a member. In
1893 the Charter-Oak