TROTTING.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 167, 18 July 1927, Page 12

TROTTING.

SCHLESINGER'S REMARKABLE RECORD. Considering the short time lie was breeding trotters, Henry J. Schlesinger, of Milwaukee, made a remarkable record in tiie matter of producing early and extreme speed (says a New York writer.) Hi* first top-notch two-vear-old came to the turf in 1920, and he is now credited with ten of them. Captain Schlesinger a couple of years ago sold liis stock farm in Kentucky and most of his trotting stock to W. M. Wright, of Chicago, and transferred his horse-breeding activities to the runners. If the degree of success which attended his efforts with the. harness horse is continued in the new field the next few years should find him near the top among the breeders of winning two-year-old thoroughbreds. Moccasin 2.091, and Tetrol 2.10, two juveniles bv Belwin 2.004, gave Captain Schle.-inger* his first prominence seven years auo as a breeder of two-year-old trotters. Only about half a dozen topnot chers of this age earned fast records the following year, and none from the Schlesinger farm was among them. But in 1922 it was represented by Brandywine, 2.10, winner of the Horse Review Futuritv in competition with such cracks as .lane' Revere, 2.00:], The Senator, 2.Ot»J, and Thompson Dillon, 2.092. And besides this Futurity winner, Conclave, 2.10, and Crawford, 2.09J, were credited to the Wisconsin breeder.

The campaign of 1923 added none to the li?t, but in 1924, Margot, 2.095, Poppy, 2.ot>;. and Sumatra, 2.07], made iij) for it. by winning the Horse Review Futurity, the Rainy Day Sweepstakes and other important Grand Circuit races. Charm, 2.091, and Station Belle, two lillies that accounted for both divisions of the 15,000 dollars Rainy Day Sweepstakes and beat everything of their age except the invincible I'eter Maltbv, 2.001, brought further prestige to their breeder in 1925, before he sold their sire and their dams to Wright. Captain Schlesintrer thus bred ten top-notch two-vear-olds in six years and every one of them earned a record of 2.10 or better at that age.

To show how exceptional has been the success of Schlesinger, Look and Coxe, it is interesting and perhaps not offensive to compare their records with that of tlie preat nursery of trotters established by L. V. Harkness at Walnut Hall Farm, in Kentucky. Three or four stallions and more than 100 brood mares compose this oiul. which produced the then chan.pi- two-year-okl trotter, Native Belle, long ago as 1909, and seven years later the other champion, The Real Lady, 2.04}. Apart from these sensational fillies only Native Spirit and Bondclla (1914), Ammunition, 2.11J (1920) and Guy Hall, 2.10\ (1921), have so far pained records fast enough to distinguish them as top-notch two-vear-olds.

Right here it is pertinent to remark that Walnut Hall Farm sella its entire crop of yearlings by auction every year, leaving their development to the thirty or forty different owners who buy them at the sale, and who turn them over to almost as many different trainers to develop and drive. The colts that have given Coxe, Look and Schlesinger their outstanding success as breeders were, on the other hand, almost without exception retained by their breeders, who put them in the hands of such exports as Joseph L. Serrill, Ben White, Walter Cox and Thomas W. Murphy, who have few equals and no superiors in handling babv trotters. The striking contrast in the results obtained can hardly be accounted for 011 any other hypothesis than that much of the success of the three small breeders must be attributed to their superior management of the colts, as distinguished from that of the average buyer of the Walnut Hall yearlings.