Two Hundred Mile Mare

An article from the July 23, 1873 Washington (PA) Reporter recently caught my attention, asit is particularly demonstrative of the once-love of true staying contestsAmericans appreciated both in flat racing and in harness:

On Wednesday and Thursday, the 14th and 15th of June, theDriving Park at St. Paul, Minnesota, was the scene of an extraordinary trot,Mr. Martin Delaney matching his sorrel mare (a small, full blooded Morgan) totrot two hundred miles in forty-eight hours, for the small take of two hundreddollars. The St. Paul Press says ofthe first day: The trot was commenced yesterday at twenty minutes past fouro’clock a.m., Mr. J. Cummings holding the ribbons. The mare started out at therate of more than ten miles an hour, for the first two hours, and was graduallyslowed to about an average of about ten miles an hour. At five minutes past tenshe had completed the fifty miles, making it in some five hours and forty-fiveminutes. She was then given a rest of three hours and a half, and was startedat a little past one on the second fifty miles. At half past seven she hadcompleted it, having made the first hundred miles in fifteen hours, whichleaves thirty-three hours for the completion of the other hundred. She made thelast mile of her first hundred yesterday, the fastest of any—five and one-halfminutes. Those who witnessed the feat say that the mare showed no sign offatigue, never sweated a hair, and trotted off to the stable to feed at the endof her day’s labor as briskly as though she had just come from the barn.

Detail of St. Paul MN Driving Park location, Rice's Map of St. Paul, 1874

Just as a point of reference, the record for trotting 100miles in harness (8 hours, 55 minutes, 53 seconds) was set by a bay geldingnamed Conqueror, on November 12,1853, at Centerville, Long Island. Inbred to the imported Bellfounder (damsire of the great Hambletonian), Conquerorwas by Latourette’s Bellfounder (byimp. Bellfounder’s son Tremper’sBellfounder) and the imp. Bellfounder’s daughter Lady McClaire.
The article continues:

Wednesday the first one hundred miles was completed, and athalf-past seven o’clock the mare was driven to the stable apparently in as goodcondition as if she had only traveled one quarter of the distance. [OnThursday] morning, when taken out of the barn at five o’clock to complete thetrot, she seemed a little sore at first, but soon warmed up and commenced herday’s work with wonderful ease. At ten o’clock she had completed thirty-onemiles and was withdrawn until four minutes past twelve p.m. After this rest, inwhich she manifested no sign of weariness, she made her next seven miles in onehour and two minutes. No pains were taken to keep an account of her rate ofspeed, but in general terms it averaged during the day about six minutes andfive and one-half seconds per mile for the first fifty miles, and seven minutesand two and one-half seconds for the second fifty miles. After the rest giventhe mare—from seven until nine o’clock in the evening—all parties on the groundsaw that she would make her 200 miles easily. She pursued her even gait, and afew minutes past one o’clock this morning completed the race, making her lastmile in nine minutes and thirty-one seconds. Thus she won the wager, and inthree hours less than the time given her. She trotted off the track seeminglyunconscious of the marvel she had performed.

Bred in Vermont and brought to St. Paul via Chicago in 1873,this unnamed 15.2 hand Morgan mare was simply known as the “Two Hundred MileMare.” It was later said, “For endurance and determination she was a mostremarkable animal, capable of taking two men in a buggy fifty miles in fivehours, which feat she performed more than once.” Being so highly regarded, shewas bred to a grandson of Hambletonian,Andrews Burnham (Milwaukee), and in 1875 produced The Pigeon, a brown filly that a writerto Wallace’s Monthly described as “afilly that has developed into an animal of such rare excellence, that thebreeding of the dam has become an object of much interest.”
One point of interest in my own research deals with breedersand owners in western Pennsylvania—their socio-economic positions, theirreligion affiliations, what led them into horse ownership as well as how thatownership profited them, not necessarily financially, but socially and in theirother business (or political) dealings. In other words, did the prestige ofpossessing a good horse aid them in getting ahead? While I haven’t researchedin any further detail Martin Delaney, I did find it interesting that in1875—two years after his mare’s legendary accomplishment—he founded the UnionStock Yards in St. Paul, to aid in transporting the meat from his butcheringbusiness. The owner of her daughter ThePigeon, steamboat captain Barton Atkins left sailing the lakes and became arailroad executive, eventually appointed by President Grover Cleveland as theUnited States marshal for Alaska, a position he held from 1885 to 1889.

Sources:

• “Trotting Two-hundred Miles in Forty-Five Hours” Washington Reporter, July 23, 1873.
• Edward Madden, TheTrotters of Hamburg Place, Lexington, KY (Cleveland: Judson PrintingCompany, 1911) pp. 95-97.
• J. Fletcher Williams, Historyof Ramsey County and the City of St. Paul (Minneapolis: North StarPublishing Company, 1881) pp. 255-256.
• Wallace’s Monthly,vol. VII, no. 3 (April 1881) p. 212.
• John Brandt Mansfield, ed. History of the Great Lakes vol. II (Chicago: J. H. Beers &Company, 1899) pp. 809-812.