Crazy Good (eBook)

The True Story of Dan Patch, the Most Famous Horse in America

Charles Leerhsen (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2008 | 1. Auflage
320 Seiten
Simon & Schuster (Verlag)
978-1-4165-7926-7 (ISBN)

Infos

A hundred years ago, the most famous athlete in America was a horse. But Dan Patch was more than a sports star, he was a cultural icon in the days before the automobile. Born crippled and unable to stand, he was nearly euthanized. For a while, he pulled the grocer's wagon in his hometown of Oxford, Indiana. But when he was entered in a race at the county fair, he won -- and he kept on winning. Harness racing was the top sport in America at the time, and Dan, a pacer, set the world record for the mile. He eventually lowered the mark by four seconds, an unheard-of achievement that would not be surpassed for decades.
America loved Dan Patch, who, though kind and gentle, seemed to understand that he was a superstar: he acknowledged applause from the grandstands with a nod or two of his majestic head and stopped as if to pose when he saw a camera. He became the first celebrity sports endorser, his name appeared on breakfast cereals, washing machines, cigars, razors, and sleds. At a time when the highest-paid baseball player, Ty Cobb, was making $12,000 a year, Dan Patch was earning over a million dollars.
But even then horse racing attracted hustlers, cheats, and touts. Drivers and owners bet heavily on races, which were often fixed, horses were drugged with whiskey or cocaine, or switched off with 'ringers.' Although Dan never lost a race, some of his races were rigged so that large sums of money could change hands. Dan's original owner was intimidated into selling him, and America's favorite horse spent the second half of his career touring the country in a plush private railroad car and putting on speed shows for crowds that sometimes exceeded 100,000 people. But the automobile cooled America's romance with the horse, and by the time he died in 1916, Dan was all but forgotten. His last owner, a Minnesota entrepreneur gone bankrupt, buried him in an unmarked grave. His achievements have faded, but throughout the years, a faithful few kept alive the legend of Dan Patch, and in Crazy Good, Charles Leerhsen travels through their world to bring back to life this fascinating story of triumph and treachery in small-town America and big-city racetracks.

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A hundred years ago, the most famous athlete in America was a horse. But Dan Patch was more than a sports star; he was a cultural icon in the days before the automobile. Born crippled and unable to stand, he was nearly euthanized. For a while, he pulled the grocer's wagon in his hometown of Oxford, Indiana. But when he was entered in a race at the county fair, he won -- and he kept on winning. Harness racing was the top sport in America at the time, and Dan, a pacer, set the world record for the mile. He eventually lowered the mark by four seconds, an unheard-of achievement that would not be surpassed for decades. America loved Dan Patch, who, though kind and gentle, seemed to understand that he was a superstar: he acknowledged applause from the grandstands with a nod or two of his majestic head and stopped as if to pose when he saw a camera. He became the first celebrity sports endorser; his name appeared on breakfast cereals, washing machines, cigars, razors, and sleds. At a time when the highest-paid baseball player, Ty Cobb, was making $12,000 a year, Dan Patch was earning over a million dollars. But even then horse racing attracted hustlers, cheats, and touts. Drivers and owners bet heavily on races, which were often fixed; horses were drugged with whiskey or cocaine, or switched off with "e;ringers."e; Although Dan never lost a race, some of his races were rigged so that large sums of money could change hands. Dan's original owner was intimidated into selling him, and America's favorite horse spent the second half of his career touring the country in a plush private railroad car and putting on speed shows for crowds that sometimes exceeded 100,000 people. But the automobile cooled America's romance with the horse, and by the time he died in 1916, Dan was all but forgotten. His last owner, a Minnesota entrepreneur gone bankrupt, buried him in an unmarked grave. His achievements have faded, but throughout the years, a faithful few kept alive the legend of Dan Patch, and in Crazy Good, Charles Leerhsen travels through their world to bring back to life this fascinating story of triumph and treachery in small-town America and big-city racetracks.

Textauszug

Chapter OneThe 1900s was an age of Charisma, and some of the healthiest personalities, those with a natural endowment of the stuff, radiated their own heat -- a few seemed like walking planets. They had a gravitational heft that had nothing to do with physical size. -- Darin Strauss, The Real McCoy The crowd rose as one to stare at the horse, and the horse, as was his custom, stared back. It was 4:35 p.m. on October 7, 1905, a brilliant fall Thursday at the Breeders Track in Lexington, Kentucky, and Dan Patch, a big mahogany-brown stallion, had just finished an attempt to lower his own world record for the mile. He was still blowing hard, but after wheeling around and jogging back to the finish line -- on his own, with no guidance or encouragement from the small, mustachioed man sitting in the racing sulky behind him -- he had come to a dead stop and, with his head cocked slightly to the left, was slowly and deliberately surveying the assembled. This was a trademark move, something he did not do automatically, like a circus animal mindlessly performing a trick, but often enough, when the mood struck. People waited for it, and felt like they had gotten their money's worth when it came. Dan Patch's fans used to say -- when they talked about him in taverns and barbershops and at dinner tables all over America -- that the horse liked to count the house. A dramatic silence fell over the scene. An official clocking would come down from the judges at any moment, and a quarter of a second either way could mean the difference between the front page and the sports section. Had Dan done the impossible once again? In the press area, a finger hovered above a telegraph key. From where the horse stood, he could hear the three timers in the judges' stand, a few feet behind and about twenty feet above him, murmuring confidentially as they consulted their chronographs, if their individual hand-timings differed, as they might easily by a fraction of a second or so, they needed to reach a consensus on an official clocking. In an age when horse speed, and the mile record in particular, mattered to a mass audience, these racing judges were men of gravitas, doing important work. They wore suits and ties and natty straw boaters. They hefted 17-jewel stopwatches that had the power to transform a day at the races into an historic event. If Dan Patch had gone as fast as some in the packed grandstand guessed he had, everyone there would have a story to tell, maybe for the rest of his life. Tens of thousands who weren't there would also claim to have seen the beautiful brown horse power down the homestretch of the perfectly manicured red-clay racetrack in the lengthening autumn shadows. It was a golden age of sports, horses, ladies' hats, and bullshit. Seconds ticked by, tension increased, but the horse, as a reporter said later, was the calmest person on the grounds. Nine years old and at his physical peak, Dan Patch stood at almost the exact midpoint of a long career spent, for the most part, touring the country in a plush private railroad car and putting on exhibitions of speed. He knew the drill: first there was the Effort, the race against the clock, one mile in distance, with the galloping prompters to urge him on and stir his competitive spirit. Then there was the Silence, as judges checked their watches. After the Silence came either the Roar -- a world record! -- or the Sigh -- alas, not this time. The Roar invariably involved flying hats and a surging wave of well-wishers. Dan Patch preferred the Roar. Which was odd, because why would a horse choose hysteria over a quiet walk back to the barn? What did he...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 20.5.2008
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Sport ► Reiten / Pferde
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte
• ISBN-10: 1-4165-7926-5 / 1416579265
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-7926-7 / 9781416579267