Sport: Hanover Hambletonian

On Wednesday some bookmakers’ tents blew down and rain made William H. Cane’s Good Time track at Goshen, N. Y. a mile triangle of treacherous mud. Only a few sportswriters, accustomed to the racing of running horses in any kind of weather, grumbled when officials decided that the Hambletonian, greatest and richest race for U. S. trotting horses, would not be run that day. Any oldster, munching sandwiches in the Ladies’ Aid booth, knew that a trotter, whose right front leg and left rear leg must move in dancing unison,* has no business trying to speed when the going is slippery.

Next afternoon when twelve of the best three-year-olds in the U. S. lined up, the track was firm but the trotters were skittish. Nine times the field failed to get off to a clean start behind Wrestling Promoter Paul Bowser’s DeSota, entitled by lot to the pole position in the first heat. Two horses were so unmanageable that the judges had to set down and replace their drivers, Veteran Doc Parshall and Amateur Dunbar Bostwick, trotting enthusiast of the Long Island polo family, who was driving his bay filly, Hollyrood Audrey, in his first Hambletonian.

Finally on the tenth try DeSota, 6-to-5 favorite, got away in front, with last year’s two-year-old champion Twilight Song and Tobaccoman William N. Reynolds’ Schnapps just behind. Twilight Song broke her gait at the first turn. By the time E. Roland Harriman’s Farr had taken the lead in the back stretch, the crowd of 35,000 was on its feet, cheering one of the quickest-stepping fields ever seen in a Hambletonian. Then one horse began to pull away from the ruck. It was not, as many hoped, favorite DeSota. It was the Hanover Shoe Farms’ bay filly Shirley Hanover, priced at 10-to-1, and she flashed away from the field in the homestretch, past Schnapps, past Farr, crossing the line in 2 min., 1½ sec. Track oldsters yipped with excitement. If Shirley Hanover could win the second heat, she would be the fastest winner* in Hambletonian history.

Her chances materially improved by the winner’s position at the pole, Shirley Hanover stepped out smartly in the second heat. In the backstretch her driver, Henry Thomas, seemed to ease, and for a moment lost the lead. But as Schnapps and Farr both broke into a gallop and were pulled to the outside, Shirley Hanover once more shot ahead in the homestretch. Time for the second and winning heat was an equally remarkable 2:01¾.

This performance not only set a Hambletonian record and enriched Shirley Hanover’s 39-year-old owner, Lawrence Baker Sheppard, by $20,916 of the $38,000 purse, but made his Hanover Shoe Farms the only two-time winner in the history of the race. Shirley Hanover’s dam, Hanover’s Bertha, carried the stable’s orange colors to victory in 1930. That was four years after Lawrence Sheppard, Father H. D. Sheppard and C. N. Myers, partners in the thriving ($4) Hanover Shoe Co. (128 stores), founded Hanover Shoe Farms near the Sheppard homestead at Hanover, Pa. A strictly blue-ribbon breeding farm, Hanover Shoe Farms owns such famed stallions as Sandy Flash, Dillon Axworthy, the 1926 Hambletonian winner Guy McKinney, and Shirley Hanover’s sire, Mr. McElwyn (1:59¼).

After the race last week Owner Shep pard, who posted Shirley Hanover’s final $500 starting fee only on the insistence of Driver Thomas, thought he might in two or three years have a really great trotter. The fastest active U. S. trotter, Edward J. Baker’s five-year-old Grey hound, who stepped a mile in 1:57¼ in a free-for-all at Springfield, Ill. last year, did only 2:02¼ in winning the 1935 Hambletonian. Two days before last week’s Hambletonian, Greyhound raced against the watch at Goshen in 1:58¼, once more failing to break the 1:56¾ world record set in 1922 at Lexington by famed Peter Manning. Now retired at Hanover Shoe Farms for sentimental reasons, 21-year-old Peter Manning is a gelding.

*A pacer, combining both right, both left legs, has a rolling and ungainly but somewhat faster gait.

*In 1932 Hollyrood Dennis won a heat in 2:01¼ but lost the race to The Marchioness.