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Show CAVS IM! A7ESTE 1SS0, when Lelanl Ranford had his lalo Alto farm in California in working order and was lokir? for a man to handle han-dle the colts. Ltanford wa,s a good horseman. ,Born in the Mohawk valley of New York, he had loved horses from boyhood, and in his early day stage trips across the plains had noticed the wonderful vitality of certain mares by a racing stallion called St. Clair. lience . the first brood mares bought j for the stud of which Electioneer was the bead were daughters of St. Clair. Budd Doble had brought to California some horses for Stanford, and his opinion opin-ion as to the securing of a suitable trainer was asked. Doble at once recommended rec-ommended Marvin, knowing him to be the soul of honor and industrious as well. Stanford hired Smuggler 's driver on Doble say so and the first colt Marvin trained was a year old Electioneer Election-eer gelding out of a St. Clair mare.' He was called Fred Crocker and in the fall of 1880 astonished the world by lower ing the trotting record for bis age to 2:25. This feat put Electioneer in the limelight as a sire of early1 speed and he never relinquished the position until the day of his death. To give in detail the feats accomplished accom-plished by Marvin and the Electioneer youngster from 1880 to 1891 would fill a book, but in brief it may be said that in those rears he established the following follow-ing world's records: - Yearlings 1881, Hinda Rose. 2:36; 1887, Norlaine, 2:31; 1891, Bell Bird, 2:26. Two-year-olds 1880, Fred Crocker, 2:25: 1888, Sunol, 2:18; 1891, Arion, 2:10. Three-year-olds -1883, Hinda Rose, 2:19; 1889, Sunol, 2:10; 1892, Ari-son, Ari-son, 2:10. Four-year-olds 1883, Bomta, 2:18; 1884, Sally Benton, 2:17: 1&86, Man-tanita, Man-tanita, 2:16; 1890, Sunol, 2:10. Five-year-olds Sunol, 2:08. Stallions 1891, Palo Alto, 2:08. ' The father of all the colt trainers, cow a numerous band In connection witii the racing of harness horses, was Charles Marvin, who died at Lexington, Hy., Feb. it He wag not, of course, the first man to train a trotting bred year- lirj of a two or three-year-old, for extreme ex-treme speed at the 'ages named, bat he . revolutionized the methods of fitting the youngsters, and had not been two years at the game when all the other players admitted his superior skill and followed , his methods to the letter, says Henry Ten Eyck White. - Yet it was purely a matter of acci-. acci-. dent that Marvin ever trained a colt - at all, let alone became a past master in , the art. He was born in a horsey part of New York State, served in the army during the '60s, and went out to Kan- sas to make his fortune when the big trouble was over. It was as part proprietor of a modest Every barn that he became interested ' in trotters, and although he worked Jong for the better part of a decade in a motlest way as a trainer and driver, the turf world never even got a hint of him until one of his patrons got hold of a brown stallion of fair conformation but distinctly unfashionable breeding that later, in "life became famous under the name of Smuggler famous both as a champion trotting stallion of the world with a record of 2:15, and doubly so as the conqueror of Goldsmith Maid, holder of the world's trotting record, 2:14, and unbeaten for years by any trotter that could be brought , against her. . jt Smuggler's pedigree, as far as it went which was not a great ways was that of a pacer rather than a trotter, but back in 1873, when Marvin first set eyes on the stallion, pacers were in such poor repute with those who went to the races that tracks did. not find it proflta-1 ble to give purses for them. Consequently, Consequent-ly, when a pacer came along it was taken in hand and taught to trot, on the theory that it wasn't worth anything any-thing as a paoer and might make speed enough at the 'other gait to pay the training bill. In the days when Marvin and Smuggler Smug-gler met, the toe weights, boots, hopples, side sticks, and other weird paraphernalia parapher-nalia of today were undreamt of, which made the "conversion' of a pacer mean something. Marvin began trying to balance Smuggler by putting extra weight in his shoes and. finally got the horse so he would stay on a trot, going at a slow rate of speed, for perhaps a quarter of a mile. The distance was increased little by little until the full mile could be covered without any pacing pac-ing being attempted. Then speed was made with unheard of quickness, and it was evident right away that the brown stallion was as brushy a trotter as stood on shoes. There were, of course, many disap- Fointing days after Marvin had this act fixed in his mind, but eventually the stallion went East, was sold for a , long jrice, and "made good" by trotting trot-ting in 2:20, which then was the fastest mile by. a trotting stallion, the honor being shared by Mambrino Gift, a horse that never went any faster, and it may be said in passing that neither of these early day champion trotting stallions amounted to much as a sire and their blood today is about run out in both the male and female lines. . After Smuggler had broken down and Marvin was left jobless for the reason that the stallion's owner. CoL U. S. Russell Rus-sell of Boston, did not nave any other horses to campaign, it looked as though Marvin would go back to the little Kansas Kan-sas town whence he had come and once more frequent the "bull ring" tracks of that section with the "pelter" class of trotters which were all the equine resources of the region could afford him in the way of training. This was about M |
