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HOLDERS Of THE AMERICAN MILE RECORD BEFORE TEN BROECK MADE HIS MEMORABLE MARK In the year 1834 Charley Ball won the Phoenix Hotel Stakes at Lexington Ky at mile heats and won the second heat iu 145 This performance created considerable excitement at the time because it was a new mile record and decidedly out of the ordinary Tracks were deep and slow at that time and anything like the speed now shown even by average selling platers a thing unknown In 1859 at the Kaiue track and in the same stake race Satellite ran the second heat in the slightly faster time of 14514 At the same trnck in 1802 a fast mare culled Mammona won fame and made a new record when she won the first heat of a race in l441i the race itself being finally won by the then noted horse Wagram Mammonas record stood until 18CG when it was equalled over the old Buckeye track at Cincinnati by the Ohio horse Revolver the two remaining joint record holders until In 18C the fast Vandal colt Herzog excited wonder by running a mile in 143 over the same course This remained the American record until the famous horse Alarm covered the distance over the Saratoga track in the year 1872 In the faster time of 142 As the result of some discussion of Alarms performance the elder August Belmont in 1874 made a match and ran his fiveyearold horse Grey Planet against Alarms time and eclipsed it narrowly his horse scoring for him in 142 also over the Saratoga track Grey Planet was a fine race horse but Alarm was infinitely his superior and founder of the great male line which reads Alarm Himyar Domino Commando Colin etc The next year after Grey Planets success the honor of holding the mile record was restored to the Lexington track when the fast Enquirer colt Searcher distanced his competitors in the first heat of a heat race in 141 Later on in 1875 Father Bill Dalys Lexington horse Kadi with catchweight up ran a mile over the Hartford trotting track in 141 This was the record that Ten Broeck ran against when 1877This be won worldwide fame by covering the Louisville track in 139 in 1877 This record of Ten Broecks was made on May 27 and the great increase of tracks and racing considered it is really a curious circumstance that it remained unbroken until Racine ran a mile at Washington Park in 189 in the year 1890 It was not for lack of effort to efface it for racing associations not infrequently offered valuable inducements Jn an effort to break the Ten Broeck record Thus iu 1889 the Washington Park club gave a mile dash with an extra 1000 to the winner if the race was run in better than 139 The race was wbu in 139 by the Frenchbred mare Maori subsequently the dam of the grand race horse Ethelbert It is a now generally forgotten detail of that meeting that the timing was done with a big clock started and stopped by electricity the faces being so large that the progress of the hands of the clock could be distinctly seen in their movements by all spectators present The device did not prove satisfactory to the club and it was only used at that meeting Racing iu Australia is timed similarly and witli undisputed accuracy Allowing accuracyAllowing for progress in breeding it may be safely asserted that the thoroughbreds of today are gifted with a greater measure of speed than were the celebrities which were record holders prior to Ten Broeck At the same time it must be conceded that the fast running of the present Is largely due to the astonishing progress that has been made in the science of fast track making On such tracks as we now have the oldtimers could no doubt have ran vastly faster than they did in their days of activity
