Born to Trot

by Marguerite Henry

  Underfoot there was a springiness in the quaggy earth. It would feel good to a crippled mare, Gibson thought, and to a colt’s heels. He came to the footbridge and crossed it gingerly, wondering if these were the same logs William Rysdyk had laid. Then he went up a little rise toward an oak tree and found the place.

  The present fell away, and all at once Gibson was in the heart of the past. Everything just as it had been. The grassy knoll for the colt’s bed. The rugged boulder for him to scratch against. And the same wind saying “Sh!” in the oak leaves.

  Yet there was a difference, too. Where before there were three oak trees, now there was only one. It was gray and hollowed but still making a brave show of green leaves and acorns.

  Gibson went around the tree to the boulder. A small bronze tablet had been fitted into its face and on it the words:

  HAMBLETONIAN

  FATHER OF THE TROTTING HORSE

  FOALED ON THIS SPOT

  MAY 5, 1849

  A woodpecker began drumming noisily on the hollow trunk of the old oak. The past faded under his hammering. A wet-nosed cow dawdled over, eyeing the quiet intruder.

  Gibson looked about him, wishing he had some tribute to leave beside the boulder. He saw blackberries shiny and round on bushes nearby, and Queen Anne’s lace growing wild, and huge acorns everywhere on the ground.

  Nothing for him to give. Only things to take. Fruit to sample and acorns for keepsakes. He stooped down and picked up an acorn from here, one from there, until he had a handful. He might send them to Mike and Grubber and Beaver. He had never seen such acorns as these. How big they are! he thought. The tree seemed struggling to reproduce itself, to be immortal like the colt it had sheltered. He thrust the acorns into his pocket, among the spiky oats. Suddenly his fingertips were feeling the smooth, hard little kernels. “Oats!” he said softly. He cupped his hand, bringing them out. Oats were better than any wreath. Hambletonian and the Kent mare would have snorted in agreement. Oats would grow!

  With a twig he scratched the soil around the boulder. Then he scattered the seed, walking once around, and once around again. From the edge of the ditch he picked up some clods of the peaty earth and broke them with his fists and let the crumblings fall over the seeds. Then with a sigh of satisfaction he started back to the car.

  The sky was blue and deep with dusk now. Only one wispy white cloud overhead. Gibson watched it with a smile of wonderment. If he squinted his eyes ever so little, he could see in the cloud a human head strangely familiar—a rugged head with ears pointed a little at the top—the face of William Rysdyk smiling in his white beard. Who else?

  and now . . .

  IT TURNED out that Gibson and his father did have a champion on their hands. A world champion. Rosalind went on to become the fastest trotting mare the turf has known. In a match against time she earned a mark which no other mare has ever touched—1:563/4 for the mile.

  In Gibson’s black notebook he shows seven world championship performances for her, three of which have never been equaled: the three-heat record, the four-year-old record for the mile, and the all-age record for the mile. Today, as Queen of Trotters, she wears a triple crown between those forking ears—the Hambletonian, the Kentucky Futurity, and the Transylvania.

  Even in a handicap race when she had to start more than two hundred feet back of the starting line, she overtook horse after horse and went to the front at the first turn. Then she breezed home, the winner. The greater the challenge, the more determined she seemed to win.

  Only one trotter could better her mile record, and that was the mighty Greyhound, by a tick and a half. Between them, Greyhound and Rosalind took every race in stride. There were no records left for them to break.

  Then someone had an idea. Why not hitch Greyhound and Rosalind pole to pole? The world champion trotter and the world champion trotting mare in double harness!

  The idea caught on. And in the year 1939 the exhibition took place, with Sep Palin holding the lines. Time seemed to stand still as the King and Queen of the trotting turf flew around the track in great reaching strides. By four and a quarter seconds they shattered the world team record that had stood for twenty-seven years. Five days later they did it again, bettering their own record, lowering it to 1:581/4.

  And now? What of Rosalind now? She is retired to the Blue Grass country of Kentucky, with a record of twenty-seven races won. But her career is by no means ended. She is a busy brood mare, raising colts for Gibson to train and drive. Three of her fillies have scores—Rose Dean, 2:043/4; Rosamond, 2:033/5; and Deanna, 2:023/4, the fastest two-year-old of 1945.

  Who drove them to their records? Why, Gibson White, of course. Long, lean Gibson. And with the sun glints in his eyes, he is still working to win the Hambletonian with a colt out of Rosalind.

  For their help the author is grateful to

  E. ROLAND HARRIMAN, president, The Hambletonian Society

  WILLIAM H. CANE, president, Good Time Park, Goshen, N. Y.

  JOSEPH S. COATES, designer of Good Time Park, Goshen, N. Y.

  WILLIAM H. STRANG, JR., owner of two Hambletonian winners, The Ambassador (1942), Volo Song (1943)

  MR. AND MRS. W. SANFORD DURLAND, Chester, N. Y.

  MR. AND MRS. RICHARD K. MILLER, Chester, N. Y.

  ROY MILLER, Lexington, Ky.

  TOM GAHAGAN, turf scribe, Indianapolis

  CHARLES E. KOONS, publisher, Times Herald, Middletown, N. Y.

  EDWARD P. DOUGHERTY, editor, Times Herald, Middletown, N. Y.

  THOMAS W. MURPHY, Poughkeepsie, N. Y.

  DR. S. W. MILLS, Middletown, N. Y.

  COLEMAN J. KELLY, turf consultant, Chicago

  STEPHEN G. PHILLIPS, starter, Westbury, L. I.

  CLEM MCCARTHY, radio announcer, New York, N. Y.

  CHARLES W. HINKLE, radio announcer, Dayton, O.

  GEORGE COOK, Netherlands Information Bureau

  BENJAMIN HUNNINGHER, Queen Wilhelmina Professor, Columbia University

  DR. HENRY J. VAN ANDEL, Calvin College

  DR. ADRIAN VAN KOEVERING, Zeeland, Mich.

  PROFESSOR NELSON VAN DE LUYSTER, The Citadel, Charleston, S. C.

  WILLARD C. WICHERS, Netherlands Information Bureau

  THOMAS S. BERRY, trainer, Lexington, Ky.

  S. F. PALIN, trainer, Indianapolis

  STANLEY STUCKER, reinsman, Stockton, Cal.

  MRS. T. WAKELY BANKER, Sugar Loaf, N. Y.

  C. H. BORLAND, Goshen, N. Y.

  MISS MARY BRANHAM, Orlando, Fla.

  MRS. WILLIAM FLEMING, Pinehurst, N. C.

  MR. AND MRS. JOHN C. MEDRICK, Goshen, N. Y.

  MRS. MARION B. RUTAN, Goshen, N. Y.

  STAFFS OF Harness Horse Magazine, Hoof Beats, The Horseman and Fair World, Chester News, Goshen Independent Republican

  BERTHA M. BORLAND, Goshen Public Library and Historical Society

  H. H. HEWITT and ROBERTA SUTTON, Chicago Public Library

  MILDRED LATHROP and FERN FINFROCK, Gail Borden Public Library, Elgin, Ill.

  LOUISE KEUCK, St. Charles Public Library, St. Charles, Ill.

  ELEANOR PLAIN, Aurora Public Library, Aurora, Ill.

  AVIS GRANT SWICK, St. Charles, Ill.

  EMILY B. WHITE, Lexington, Ky.

  GERTRUDE B. JUPP, Milwaukee, Wis.

  NICK SAUM, Wayne, Ill.

  MR. AND MRS. L. C. FERGUSON, Oak Point, Hammond, N. Y.

  CHARLES RUDERMAN, Gouveneur, N. Y.

  SIDNEY CROCKER HENRY, Wayne, Ill.

  MRS. KENNETH M. HESS, St. Charles, Ill.

  DR. FREDERICK E. HASKINS, St. Charles, 111.

  EDWARD PACUINAS, horseman, St. Charles, Ill.

  WILLIAM WINQUIST, horseman, Wayne, Ill.

  HENRY YUNKER, countryman, Elgin, Ill.

  and especially to Gibson White’s mother

  SARAH GIBSON WHITE

  Other books by Marguerite Henry

  Misty of Chincoteague

  King of the Wind

  Sea Star, Orphan of Chincoteague


  Justin Morgan Had a Horse

  Black Gold

  Stormy, Misty’s Foal

  Mustang, Wild Spirit of the West

  San Domingo, The Medicine Hat Stallion

  Brighty of the Grand Canyon

  Aladdin Paperbacks

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster

  Children’s Publishing Division

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  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 1950 by Rand McNally

  All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  First Aladdin Paperbacks edition 1993

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Henry, Marguerite, 1902-

  Born to trot / by Marguerite Henry ; illustrated by Wesley

  Dennis.—1st Aladdin Books ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: As he learns about the famous Hambletonian, sire of the American trotter, young Gib White dreams of some day having his own filly become a champion trotter.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-689-71692-8 ISBN-10: 0-689-71692-3

  1. Hambletonian 10 (Horse)—Juvenile fiction. 2. Horses—Juvenile fiction. [1. Hambletonian 10 (Horse)—Fiction. 2. Harness racing—Fiction. 3. Horse racing—Fiction. 4. Horses—Fiction.]

  I. Dennis, Wesley, ill. II. Title.

  [PZ10.3.H43Bo 1993]

  [Fic]—dc20

  92-24139