The Butler

It used to be the rubes' sport, shunned by city sophisticates but drawing as many as 2,500,000 fans a year at hundreds of fairgrounds across the U.S. Today, thanks to such swank night tracks as Long Island's Roosevelt Raceway, harness racing is thriving on cosmopolitan crowds and city slickers anxious to make a $2 wager. Last year it was an $819 million business, drawing 15 million spectators and dishing out $32 million in purses to the cream of 17,702 trotters and pacers.*

Last week, with harness racers prancing toward the billion-dollar-a-year mark, with bettors in 15 cities--from New York and Baltimore to Detroit and Columbus --flocking to gaudily lit tracks, the "trots" were giving a good run to thoroughbred flat racing, which drew 34 million customers in 1960. And along with its burgeoning attendance records and parimutuel handles, harness racing had something special to boast about: its own Man o' War, a horse named Adios Butler, thought by many to be the best pacer ever.

A fast-stepping mahogany stallion with a white star on his forehead, the Butler was picked up at the 1957 Harrisburg, Pa., yearling sales for a paltry $6,000. Since then, he has won 26 out of 39 races, captured $355,844 in purses, brought $600,000 from his sale to a syndicate. Last year he became the world's fastest pacer by stepping off a 1:54.6 mile at Lexington, Ky., breaking the 1:55 record set in 1938 by his granddad, Billy Direct.

New Hat. With his winning ways, the Butler inspires every upstart to an all-out effort to whip him. His third time out this season, when he burst in front at the start of the $25,000 Summer Festival Pace at Roosevelt, spectators wise in the ways of the wagon ponies strained to see the expected duel. Could the Butler's seven rivals box him in and keep him from winning? The Butler dropped back briefly at the 1/4mile pole, then surged in front again. Four horses, as if working in relays, came up to challenge him, but the Butler kept his lead to win in 1:59.6. Says Eddie Cobb, the Butler's stocky, 198-lb. driver and part owner: "It probably makes me harder on the horse, trying to keep him in the clear. But he stands up under it."

When the swift little stallion was gaveled off at over-the-counter prices in 1957, the suggestion of such a future seemed absurd. His lineage was the best: his sire was the prolific Adios, whose offspring have earned $6,868,930 during the last five seasons; his dam was Debby Hanover, sired by Billy Direct. But Adios Butler was small and unimpressive-looking, and his owner, Horse Breeder Russel Carpenter, mayor of Chester, N.Y., figured he was a loser. Carpenter persuaded Paige West, a lean horse breeder and sulky driver from Snow Hill, Md., to try to bid the price up to $7,500. West opened the bidding at $6,000, was amazed when nobody challenged him. "I had bet Mr. Carpenter a new hat that the colt would bring at least $15,000," says West. "When he brought only my $6,000, I went right over and bought the hat. I guess it was worth it."

There were times when West, 29, had his doubts. As a two-year-old, Adios Butler was a spindly 850 lbs., won only four of ten starts. The next year he developed stifle trouble--a lameness in the hind leg near the flank--but as a result of West's patient training and full-time pampering by Groom Sylvanus Henry, he began to move. An 11-to-1 shot, he won the Cane Futurity, went on to take the Messenger Stakes and the Little Brown Jug, and became the only horse ever to sweep pacing's Triple Crown. Last year, up to a sleek 1,050 lbs. and finally cured of his stifle trouble, he won 13 of 17 starts, was named Harness Horse of the Year.

New Shares. Early in 1960, even before the Butler had established himself as the world's fastest pacer. West offered 40 shares of the horse at $15,000 apiece, watched them go like penny uranium stocks. West himself kept ten shares; Carpenter, who had let the whole horse go for $6,000, happily bought back a one-fortieth interest for $15,000; ex-New York Yankee Outfielder Charlie ("King Kong") Keller bought a share; Driver Cobb bought four. All were gone in two weeks.

After about ten more races this season, the Butler will take a feed bag full of records to Fair Chance Farm in Washington Court House, Ohio, to stand at stud for a $3,000 fee. Says Paige West: "There's never been another pacer like him. I don't think there ever will be."

*Trotters race with left front and right hind legs moving forward in unison; pacers keep legs on the same side moving in unison.

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