File:Breeder and sportsman (1915) (20387606216).jpg

Title: Breeder and sportsman
Identifier: breedersportsma661915sanf (find matches)
Year: 1882 (1880s)
Authors:
Subjects: Horses
Publisher: San Francisco, Calif. : (s. n. )
Contributing Library: San Francisco Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: California State Library Califa/LSTA Grant

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TE1 BRKBDBE AND SfuRTSUAK (Saturday, June 26, 19 White Sox-An Equine Fairy Tak Being a Harmless Narrative of Charley Durfee's Dogy Filly and Some of Her Descendant "Years and years ago, before your time and un- tune and before lots of other people's time" — which if memory serves us not false, is the proper introduc- tion to a genuine, old-fashioned, honest and truly fairy tale — there lived down in a little town called Los Angeles, a colt named Bob Mason. He was the talk of the town in the early eighties, and the man who helped develop him and watched him pick up speed like a real race horse decided that he could use another of the same kind very handilv in his busi- ness, so he picked on a filly located not far from where he lived, owned by a man named Workman This horse scout's name, lest you get a little uneasy m your mind as to what this fairy tale is about, was Charles A. Durfee (the A., as we have previously remarked, being the abbreviation of Mr. Durfee's middle name, which is McKinnev). and the filly he bought was a bay lass named Geraldine, bv Echo and out of a daughter of the thoroughbred stallion Rifle- man, a true pioneer among stallions of the Golden Slope. In possession of his new prize. C. A. set about training her at Los Angeles to be a world beater ™,*1"le*e had a ?ood turn of speed and appar- ently wanted to trot all right, she had some physical deficiency that hurt her when asked to go beyond a certain limit, and Charley worked long and hard without making much headway. Now to turn back another page or two. Durfee had in his stable at this time, the year of grace one thou- sand eight hundred and eighty-three, a son of Legal Tender and the Graves Mare by Volunteer 55 rejoic- hr! f ^ aDPellation of Dashwood. Evidently the breeder had great hopes of this lad when he named up to ?n rhDe wVOr^ t0 SiVe Wm something to live up to in the way of a name, but these fond hopes were defeated. Dashwood never lived up to the S J"' the nf™e exactly fitted Dashwood, as he would dash-and that was all. He would, could and did step quarters right at thirty seconds, but a quar- *nnTAab°Ut 3tfar aS ne cared t0 SO. thank you, and he never achieved a record. He was bred to a few mares that spring and was a very slow server The stage is now properly set for the next scene which reveals a stable boy walking a bay mare up sfahl^Vhe C°°!,iDg 0Ut trail betore t'be Durfee thT™ °ne S'de yOU wU1 observe a stall door. In *r,n^LP°rU?n °Pe?' ruevealinS a Prancing stallion. »?,=„,, P°rtl°ua 0£ the foreground we call your attention to a rather irate gentleman, one C 4 D — flustered because Geraldine. in spite of all his efforts was failing to live up to his hopes of her. Suddenly he observed that the mare, still hot from her work T,aLin ,sea?on- and on the impulse of the moment he strode to the door of the stud's stall, threw it open and nature did the rest ™™,°T "Pa,'-' PurIee's opinion of Dashwood was not mountain high, ana after he had cooled down a bit he hoped the mare had failed to catch, so that he might breed her to another and more worthy sire w^LT"1"86,, her uaSe Was settled-she was safe with foal and m the spring of 18S4 gave birth to .?' „.ome time later. not over three or four months. Charles A. decided that it w-as possible that a year s let up had helped Geraldine, and he put her in training again—incidentally with no great success His opinion of Dashwood had not increased in leaps and bounds m the meantime, and as he figured that the filly foal would never be worth a counterfeit mckel anyway, he left the little lady on good grass to rustle for herself. She was named in a few little home affairs" of colt stakes, but would never do" of course, so why worry about her? Now let a few months pass and the vear of 1SS6 roll around. Young stake trotters were not numer- ous in sunny Southern California, it looked like a ease of very small fields in the stakes, and Charles A bethought himself of a certain fillv down on the salt grass pasture that had stake engagements He hadn t seen her for a long time, but he went down and got up one that answered to the description a nice oig filly, and brought her to the track, marveling at the growth that she had made under such unfavor- able circumstances. He didn't marvel long, however for a neighboring horseman came along and after asking C. A. whatinell he meant by taking up that nlly. proceeded to prove his ownership of her Charles A. had simply and unintentionally taken up the wrong filly, and with his pasture boss to help him pick out the right one he made another trip to the salt grass. Deponent further sayeth that C. A. "alibied him- self" by admitting that he saw his own filly at a distance on his original trip, but had mistaken her for a coyote. She was a little bit of a scamp wild as any doe. with a mane and tail full of burrs—but she was a stake colt, and stake colts were scarce A good cow horse and a lass-rope were needed to round her up and deliver her, still scrapping, at the Durfee stables, but delivered she was, and broken she was, and a stake trotter she became In 1887 she was second to Soudan in the first colt race at Los Angeles, won a three-minute trot a few days later and in October beat Tom Rice and Cadmus in the Southern California stake for three-year-olds By this time she had a nice name to go along with her record as a campaigner—Leonor. In after years she obtained a record of 2:24, trotted a lot of honest races for the elder Durfee, and became a brood mare of quality. For her original owner she raised Jenny Mac 2:09 (dam of Silver Coin 2:10), Dr. Book 2:10, Miss Jessie 2:131i (dam of Cuate 2:131/i) and Leo- nora MeKinney (dam of Hope So 2:27%). For another another Californian (C. A. had a habit of selling her and buying her back) she raised the pacer Judd 2:13^4. and when Henry B. Gentry pur- chased MeKinney 2:11% she also passed to that gentleman's ownership and took a long journey to the east, since which time she has given birth to Ideal MeKinney 2:2114, Zealous 2:26^4, and Wallace MeKinney 2:26M.. a speed sire. All in all, the ragged little runt of the salt grass pasture, the result of a "mistake" in breeding and an eloquent exempli- fication of the old belief in the survival of the fittest, the picture the portly form of one Mr. Clarence i Berry, made up to represent a sturdy Alaska mine! wresting riches from the bosom of old Mother Eart via the placer mining plan. Observe the flume i the rear center and at the left a dutch oven loade! to the guards with sourdough biscuit, w-hile on tl "meat hook" formed by sharpening a lower limb o! a jack pine in the shade of the big rock you ma note a generous quarter of raw elk meat. The pi, ture really is allegorical, or reminiscent to say th least, as at this time Mr. Berry had, to a very larg extent, abandoned the joyous pursuit of wealth 1 the wilds and had entered upon the much more pr< carious and hazardous occupation of keeping it whil living in civilzation. Always an ardent lover of horses, one of Mi Berry's chief pleasures after his years of roughing i in the gold fields was derived from owning, drivini and racing a small stable of trotters and pacer*
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na. , „. T CLOSING SCENE AT THE EXPOSITION MEETING cracked physiognomy is Willie Durfee. n"lhave added some ten thousand dollars to the Durfee exchequer. Now the names of most of the horses mentioned in the preceding paragraph fall familiarly on Califor- oran„rarS' 8>5 taX.e a tang reminiscent of the name of Durfee. either the father or one of the boys more especially son William, having driven them to vie ,?H -n T^ an 0ne hard fouSht battle. Son Wil- liam in the days with which we are at this moment occupied was growing into a husky young horseman with ideas of his own as to how to breed, train and race trotters and pacers. The one of kem" which we are most concerned, however, is Jenny Mac who late in the fall of 1899, piloted bv Will Dur- fee became the first of the daughters of" McKinnev »maKPT m the 2:1° Iist' and the second of the famil> of any sex to grace that select company into which Coney had preceded her by but a matter of rime in^Q-V™0"1 °f 2:07'4' Pre™us 'Ob time m 1S9,, her owner. Dr. W. P. Book, had sent her to the Cook farm to be bred to their premier stallion. Steinway, and the year before she took her fastest record she had raised a male foal after- wards to be raced to fame by Will Durfee as'Silver Com 2:10 To the cover of Steinway she also pro duced a filly, which became the property of the >ounger Durfee. and which, though possessed of a smooth natural gait at the pace, received practicallv no training, as she left the Durfee ownership and was put to breeding. Perhaps it may seem to you, gentle reader that we are a darned long time getting to White Sox but we should worry—yes? no? We have have a slight advantage over you in the respect that we draw- salary for doing this whether you read it or not so we will take our time and you can do as you darned please. At this juncture, however, we get just a little closer to our real subject by introducing into Things ran on with varying success until some few- years ago when he got Will Durfee to take home trom the Pleasanton meeting a horse that, in another trainers hands, had failed to make good. One day some weeks later at the track at Los Angeles. Dur- fee knowing Mr. Berry's qualities as a sportsman and his ability to buy what he pleased, asked him whj- he didn't try to get hold of something really good Some slight conversation will now be shown on the screen by a cut-in. "Lead me to it," says C. J. "Look 'em over," says Wilyum Gee, casual like, w aying his hand toward the stables and corrals That's her," remarks C. J. some moments later indicating a bay mare of pleasing type. "Wowl" says Wilyum Gee, for he had sort of a fondness for that lass himself, and the dicker was on once he had picked his critter Clarence was not to be shaken off easily, and negotiations were concluded by the mining magnate becoming the owner of the bay mare, a full sister to Silver Coin 2:10—bv Stein- way 2:25%, a world's champion and a sire of cham- pions; dam Jenny Mac 2:09, the first daughter of MeKinney to become a 2:10 performer or a produc- ing matron; grandam Leonor 2:24, "Pa" Durfee's old bread-wmner that he offered for sale right off the salt grass for a measly fifty bucks; great-grandam Geraldine, a double producer that could breed even if she couldn't race, by Echo; great-great-grandam a daughter of that hardy pioneer that "come bv de Plains across" in the days now long gone bv," the thoroughbred Rifleman. The mare (need we say it?) was Subito—"subito," in pure Castilian, being something infinitely sooner than manana," something vastly quicker than pronto." In our crude way, personally, if one should ask us for a free translation of "subito" we would

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