Harness King

From a vast, air-conditioned restaurant with sweeping glass windows, thin, tanned women and fat, pale men peered over thick steaks and cool drinks at the dirt track below. Roosevelt Raceway, the orange-and-magenta pleasure dome at Westbury, N.Y. was having its biggest harness-racing season in history. A record $144 million had been bet in the first 82 days of the meeting. For the highlight Messenger Stake* prize money had reached $108,565, making it the richest pacing race of all time.

Set Down. Early elimination trials narrowed the field to ten of the nation's best three-year-olds, driven by the nation's top drivers. But the best all-round harness man of them all was not driving. Balding, twinkly Del Miller was sweating out a 15-day suspension, imposed by the stewards for his driving in an earlier Roosevelt race. Miller had pulled back at the halfway mark, presumably to find a hole along the rail. There was no hole. He came in last, was promptly set down for driving "in a manner inconsistent with an attempt to win."

Even under suspension 45-year-old Del Miller was still the dominating presence at Roosevelt. In fact, in the last ten years he has become the dominant figure in the whole sport. Raised on his family's breeding farm in Pennsylvania, Del Miller has won a dazzling reputation as a breeder and trainer. His most spectacular success came in 1948, when he bought a stallion named Adios for $21,000. Adios earned him $1,000,000 in stud fees and sales of yearlings before he sold the horse for $500,000 to the Hanover farm in 1955. Adios' progeny hold some seven world records.

All My Children. Of the ten Messenger entries, four were offspring of Adios--Raider Frost, Ike Frost, Adios Paul and Kwik. Two who were not were Del Miller's own entry--a pair of colts named Thorpe Hanover and O'Brien Hanover. Owned by Pennsylvania Oilman Hugh Grant, Thorpe and O'Brien were sons of Tar Heel--another Miller-developed sire. Grant, who depends on Miller's advice and uncanny instinct for horseflesh in making his purchases, bought the two colts in 1956 for a modest $13,000 and turned them over to Miller for training. In his skilled hands, they had already won $103,463 in prize money, as an entry went to the post 19-20 favorites.

As the gate pulled away and the race began, Del Miller watched unhappily from the clubhouse. His mood changed fast. As the pacers whipped past the three-quarter mark, his O'Brien Hanover was in the lead with Thorpe Hanover close behind. Only a final burst to second place by Tommy Winn's Flying Time marred a straight one-two finish for Miller's Tar Heel colts. Their first and third took $67,310.62 of the total purse. Also in the money in fourth and fifth place: Adios' sons Raider Frost and Adios Paul. Quipped the New York News's Wes Gaffer: "One more stakes victory and Trainer Del Miller owns Roosevelt Raceway."

* Named for a great, grey English race horse who retired to a rich old American studhood in 1788. Messenger forefathered such thoroughbreds as Man o' War, War Admiral and Seabiscuit, plus 99% of all U.S. trotters and pacers. Messenger died at 28 in 1808, is buried near the fairways of Long Island's Piping Rock Country Club.

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