Hambletonian
I caught a cold. I mention that only to explain why, on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, I was lying on the couch watching TV. As I flipped through the channels, I came across the Hambletonian, a horce race--or, more specifically, a harness race. (Apparently, it is the harness race, with a purse of $1.5 million.)
Of course, the only reason this was of any interest to me is that one of the sons of Hambletonian Ten (who was the original progenitor of most standardbred horses, and for whom the race was named) is buried on the farm! I know this because we have a newspaper clipping from 1942. (Unfortunately, I cut off the edge when I scanned it.)
Addendum: Found this link of horse pedigrees, which lists Middletown in 1858.
Until we found this newspaper article, we never knew why the one building was called the "stallion pen." (Click to enlarge.)
2 Comments:
The Hamiltonian horse race was held in Middletown, NY for most of its history. Hence the horse named Middletown
Actually, the race wasn't started until 1926, and wasn't moved to Middletown (Goshen) until 1930: http://www.hambletonian.org/history/history.html
However, Rysdyk's Hambletonian Ten was born in Sugar Loaf, NY, just ten miles from Goshen, so our horse was undoubtedly named for the town:
http://www.harnessmuseum.com/Pages/cradleoftrotter.htm
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