Who Was The Old Gray Mare?
Lady Suffolk, Champion Long Island Trotter, Acquired the Nickname
The Old Gray Mare, Lady Suffolk, campaigned for 16 seasons to the title "Queen of the Turf". She was a champion Standardbred under saddle and to sulky in the 1840s.
In the early era of the "steppers," that is, trotting horses, The Old Gray Mare gained fame in the 1840s as a top Standardbred competitor. The Old Gray Mare was Lady Suffolk, originally the property of a Long Island liveryman.
A daughter of Engineer II and Jenny, Lady Suffolk was also a great granddaughter of Messenger, the foundation sire of the Standardbred. She was foaled on the Smithtown farm of Carll S. Burr, Jr. in 1833. At the age of four, Lady Suffolk was purchased by David Bryan, who sent her to the races.
William T. Porter's Influence
Through the connections of a man named William T. Porter, a New York businessman and journalist, The Old Gray Mare became a star.
Porter founded the Spirit of the Times, an 1831 weekly, via which he lifted the trotting horse to the level of hero and heroine. A huge fan of the sport of trotting, Porter wrote primarily to punctuate the care and promotion of these popular animals.
Porter had a counterpart named John Skinner, who, in 1829, began the first sporting publication, American Turf Register. Skinner's monthly expounded almost exclusively on the merits of the Thoroughbred.
Porter's business connections allowed him to become an important figure in the breeding, buying, selling, and shipping of American trotters to other countries for stud services.
Hiram Woodruff, Sportsman and Publisher
Eventually, Porter's tireless work to promote the sport of trotting passed to the hands of Hiram Woodruff after the Civil War. Woodruff published "The Trotting Horse of America", an historic publishing achievement that set the table for the appearance of annual books that recorded the accomplishments of trotters and pacers. For Woodruff, the book was a best seller of his day.
Woodruff rode Lady Suffolk under saddle and to wagon. He also handled Dutchman, a Messenger inbred and the "King of the Turf" from 1838 to 1843.
The triumphs of Dutchman and Lady Suffolk did much to boost the early fame of Messenger.
Trotters Become Popular National Sport
At this time in the development of trotting, Americans had adopted harness racing and its stars as a national past time sport. And Hiram Woodruff was at its heart. He rode and drove many other Standardbred stars of the day. Dexter, the great son of Hambletonian, Flora Temple, Ripton, Topgllant,and George Wilkes were among them.
Woodruff's knowledge of and compassion for horses was well known and greatly admired. His horse ideology was simple: please the animals and the horses would please their handlers in turn.
Lady Suffolk's fame was built on being the first trotter to finish a mile under saddle in under 2:30. She swept under the wire in 2:26. In 1845, she became the first trotter to break the 2:30 mile hitched to harness and wagon, completing the course at Hoboken, New Jersey in 2:291/2.
Until her death in 1855 at Bridgeport, Vermont, Lady Suffolk was referred to as "Queen of the Turf". Having been a sentimental choice of the populace, she was to become forever remembered in the folk song "The Old Gray Mare".
