Hambletonian

Harness racing is a sport identified with an era when everyone owned horses, when a farmer or two in every township had a fast trotting horse in his barn. Most of the racing, but not all of it, was done in the fall of the year, when farmers had time to go to the races, and had money to bet. Sometimes two lively farmers might make a bet on their horses, race them down the main street while the townsfolk gaped at the speed, the dust, the men leaning forward on the seats of their sulkies, swinging their light whips. But if its popularity has become polarized, the honest traditions of harness racing have strongly survived. One hundred and twenty-five miles south of Saratoga, where "tamperers" were last week busy injecting dope in the necks of racehorses, 10,000 farmers, socialites and horsemen gathered at the spry town of Goshen, N. Y. to see the sixth running of the $50,921 Hambletonian Stake, richest U. S. harness race.

The favorite was Nedda Guy, a bay filly owned by W. H. Cane's Good Time Farm, on whose three-corner, one-mile track the three heats of the Hambletonian were run after two postponements for bad weather. If anything happened to Nedda Guy, there was Keno--a big bay colt owned by John M. Berry of Rome, Ga. A third choice, 5-to-1 in the auction pool just before the horses skimmed onto the track for the first heat, was William M. Wright's bay, Calumet Butler. William M. Wright was at his home in Lexington, Ky., too ill to be conscious; Calumet Butler was driven by his trainer, Richard McMahon.

Beaten regularly this season by Nedda Guy and Keno, it looked as though Calumet Butler would be beaten again when he finished third to Keno and Calumet Belricka in the first heat with Nedda Guy, unaccountably off-form, a slow fifth. Calumet Butler won the next heat and Nedda Guy, who finished second, pulled up lame and was withdrawn. In the last heat, the horses got away smoothly on the first start. McMahon kept Calumet Butler ahead around the first two turns, with Calumet Belricka breaking the wind for Keno behind her. Keno came on just before the last turn and the two raced head & head down the straightaway. Calumet Butler was still a nose ahead as they slid, their heads low, backs flat and steady, under the wire. Grizzled and taciturn, like many a harness driver and many a farmer who saw the race, 62-year-old Richard McMahon, dressed in blue and crimson silk, was hailed to a microphone to voice an opinion on his victory. Said he: "It was my life's ambition to win this race. My only regret is that Mr. Wright will never know it."

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