Horses
As he turned over the business to other partners, he spent more time on breeding race horses on his Hickory Grove Farm. Harness racing was the sport of choice among the wealthy in the 1880s. One of his favorite horses was named Jay-Eye-See, a pun on Case's initials. The black gelding, foaled in 1878, broke the mile trotting record of 2:10 at Narragansett Park in 1884. After winning many other races, the horse was injured and retired in August 1889.
However, Jay-Eye-See was retrained by Edwin D. Blither to race with a new gait, and three years later set a pacing record of 2:06.25 in 1892 at Independence, Iowa. Both records were quickly broken; the trotting mark on the next day, and the pacing mark in a subsequent heat of the same race. However, the feat of two records was unique enough that the horse became a celebrity. Currier and Ives did a series of prints and the horse's image was used to advertise products by the Case company for years. The horse outlived Case and died in 1909 at the age of 31. The horse "known the country over" had its obituary printed in national newspapers such as the New York Times. Jay-Eye-See was inducted into the Harness Racing Hall of Fame in 1990 and the Wisconsin Harness Racing Hall of Fame in 1996.
Read more about this topic: Jerome Case
Famous quotes containing the word horses:
“Kings and queens who wear a suit but once, though made by some tailor or dressmaker to their majesties, cannot know the comfort of wearing a suit that fits. They are no better than wooden horses to hang the clean clothes on.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below!
Now my brothers call from the bay,
Now the great winds shoreward blow,
Now the salt tides seaward flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“We are like horses who hurt themselves as soon as they pull on their bits—and we bow our heads. We even lose consciousness of the situation, we just submit. Any re-awakening of thought is then painful.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)