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NORTHERN RACING IN COLONIAL SAYS. Records of Early American Turf Contests Compiled by John L. OConnor. After twenty years of painstaking research ainoiiK newspapers, books and documents of the Colonial period for scraps of information about horse racing and raee horses of those early days. John L. OConnor is soon to show the results of his labors in the shape of a history of the American turf, and more Okirtictilarly the northern turf, before the Revolutionary war. Mr. OConnor is a nephew of John Daly, of the old racing firm of Gideon and Daly, whose horses were backed by the public with more confidence than those of almost any other turfmen twenty-five years ago. and it was when he was in charge of their interests at their stud farm in Monmouth county. New Jersey, that he became interested in the subject of early American racing and started to trace its beginning in that part of the country. He found that Gideon and Dalys farm, near Holm-del, was in itself a place of unusual historical interest in connection with racing. In early days it had been owned by J. H. Van Meter, who bred and owned Monmouth. Eclipse and many other turf celebrities of almost a century ago. At a later period it was the training ground for Fashion before her great victory over Boston in the memorable sectional ma tell for 0,000 a side between the north :.nd the south, in 1N42. and old-timers averred that Lexington was in training there in MM, when his ..wrier, Richard Ten Rroeck. brought him up from the south, to compete with northern and .-astern horses on the new National course, afterward known as the Fashion on Long Island. Frank Forester and Charles E. Trevathan apparently know nothing about racing in the north until just before the Involution. That it had then bee* going on one hundred years or more in the vii inity of New York is proved by the ancient records of the township of Hempstead on Long Island. John Austin Stevens of the New York Historical Society, drew attention to these records in this connection about forty years ago. but it remained for Mr. OConnor to make a thorough search for all information they contain on the subject of horses and racing. This is not much, and yet it is nmigh to show that horse racing in America probably began in this state and that its early race hoises supplied the foundation stock from which many of the most successful runners and stayers of the southern turf were descended. Loth Frank Forester and Trevathan assumed that the opposite was the case, and that racing and breeding began in Virginia. Gathers Information from Old Newspapers. In searching for information about bane* and horse racing before the Revolution. Mr. OConnor has gone over, page by page, practically every periodical of the tolonial period in the New York public library and most of those in the library of the Historical Society. Nearly all the news concerning horse races was in the advertisements an noiiucing the terms :,nd conditions on which they were to he run. Kven these were rare until a comparatively late period, so that little is known as to what horses ran and won, and that little has been laboriously gleaned from advertisements of stud horses in which their past performances were set forth in more or less detail. Advertisements of horses strayed or stolen also furnished bits of information about racing in Colonial days, but the amount was small indeed by comparison with the labor involved in examining the little announcements of this character which filled column after column of the advertising bulletins. As showing the possibilities of patiently collecting and classifying these scattered fragments of horse history, it is interesting to note that Mr. OConnor has been able to verify the disputed pedigrees of several noted American race horses, correct errors of lang standing concerning many others, and construct a list of produce of the celebrated Cub Mare, brought from England to New York, by James Delancey. one hundred and fifty years ago. to leave a line of descendants which dominated turf and stud for more than a century, and which is dominant today. A lineal descendant of the Cub Mare that per-fc.rmed with credit to the family traditions in 1911 WM the fast gelding lullux. The dam of this horse was named after a youthful cousin of Mr. OConnor ayincl was called Helen OC. The latter was foaled H Carrie C named in honor of an aunt of Mr. t .Connor, and Carrie C. was a daughter of Ferida. the last one of the greatest of four-mile performers. Ferida traces back ten generations to tin wonderful Slaaierkin. which brought fame to the family by her racing performances and by transmitting the qualities of the Cub Mare through fifteen decades of American turf history.
