World's Largest Trotter Horse Farm, Late 1800s

In California, Leland Stanford builds a top-notch facility.

Jan 28, 2009

In 1876 he began building his huge horse operation in Palo Alto, about 30 miles south of San Francisco.

Stanford, railroad magnate and former governor of California, began the Farm or the Palo Alto Stock Farm, as his horse facility and home became known, in 1876. He purchased 650 acres in Palo Alto in Santa Clara county. By 1889 the Farm was the largest and best-equipped trotter facility in the world, wrote Norman E. Tutorow in The Governor: The Life and Legacy of Leland Stanford, Vol. 1 (2004).

Stanford continued to expand the Farm in the counties of Santa Clara and San Mateo until by 1892 it had grown to 8400 acres, Tutorow noted. On the other hand, Charles Marvin, the world-class trainer and driver who rose to become superintendent of the trotter department and its chief trainer, wrote that the Farm covered 11,000 acres. This acreage included separate grounds for harness horses, most of them trotters, and thoroughbreds. The latter department began in 1882. Henry Walsh was its superintendent and chief trainer.

In Training the Trotting Horse, Marvin's 1890 book that went through several editions, he detailed his work at the Farm, where he was employed from the spring of 1878 to about December 1891. His job was to implement the Palo Alto System, Stanford's innovative ideas for making champion trotters. Stanford had Marvin and his trotters compete not only in California but in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio , Missouri and other states too. Marvin wrote in his book that the Palo Alto Stock Farm was a place where "any one of the several training stables equals the training department of any ordinary large stock farm." At the height of its operation, 70 to 80 trotters were in training daily while about 20 stud horses and 300 brood mares were engaged in other activities.

According to The Governor, the Farm had an office that had sleeping quarters for 40, a dining room, a house for the superintendent, a school, a blacksmith shop, a wheelright shop. a feed mill, a harness shop and other support services. In addition to assistant trainers, variously recorded as from six to eight up to 20 for the trotter department, the operation also employed handlers, horse breakers and "Chinese laborers." Marvin concluded that of the large horse farms in America he had seen, "no two or three of them rolled into one would duplicate Palo Alto."

Important Early Additions to the Farm

In 1877 Stanford transferred his not-too-successful stallion Mohawk Chief and some broodmares from their stable in Sacramento to the Farm. But the course for greatness for the Palo Alto Stock Farm had been charted by the hiring of Marvin and by the purchase in 18767 of Electioneer, foaled on May 2, 1868.

Purchased from Stony Ford, the notable horse farm in Orange County, New York, Electioneer was a little-regarded horse by Hambletonian and Green Mountain Maid. He cost $12,500. Stanford also bought 12 other horses, including mares and fillies, from Stony Ford for an additional $28,700.

By 1888 Electioneer had sired 235 foals at Palo Alto. About 139 of these had some training and 91 of them could trot the mile in 2:30 or less, considered an admirable feat at the time. Hinda Rose, Sunol, Palo Alto and Arion were some of the trotters sired by Electioneer that set world records. In 1891 the Palo Alto Stock Farm held the world's records for trotters in every category from yearling through five-year-old. It also held the record for a horse of any age.

Some discrepancies exist between Tutorow's and Marvin's accounts of the Palo Alto Stock Farm. What the reader can be sure of, however, is that the Farm was a large operation that produced trotters that set world records.

The copyright of the article World's Largest Trotter Horse Farm, Late 1800s in Harness/Trotting Racing is owned by Linda N. Riggins. Permission to republish World's Largest Trotter Horse Farm, Late 1800s in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.