Beyond Price

"If I put a price on her," Lawyer Paul Moore once said of his proud mare Seaton Pippin, "some damn fool will buy her." Some smart horsemen tried. But Mr. & Mrs. Moore just smiled at offers that went as high as $50,000. Men who knew thoroughbreds all agreed that Pippin was the finest hackney horse that ever lived.

For seven years during the late '20s and early '30s, the high-stepping bay seldom knew defeat in the show ring. When she did lose, she was always in double harness, her talent slowed by a teammate. Going through her paces alone, she had no peer. All told, the "Million Dollar Hackney Mare" won about $25,000 in prize money, including $2,800 worth of silver plate and a trophy room full of cups and ribbons. Crowds cheered her entry into show rings as if she were Sarah Bernhardt.

Pippin must have felt that she had earned a life of leisure at home in New Jersey. When she was retired in 1932, the Moores imported a great Scottish stallion, Ophelius, as a stud. Pippin would have nothing to do with the old horse. (Later breeding with an American stud produced one foal, but it was never shown.) So Pippin lived out her years on the wooded acres of Seaton Hackney Farm--alert, lovely, always a pleasure to watch working in harness. Last week, at 36 (the equivalent of more than 100 years in a human), she developed a serious case of colic. Reluctantly, the Moores made the final decision to put her down.

"It will be interesting to note whether there will ever be a horse to excel her," said the show judge who gave Pippin the first of her 203 blue ribbons. Until the day Seaton Pippin was chloroformed last week, there never was.

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