Racing Career
Roamer raced for the Clay brothers as a two-year-old. One of the brothers entered him in a $1,000 selling race, only to see him claimed, and had to buy him back for $2,005. He was then sold for $2,500 to New York City publisher Andrew Miller, the secretary/treasurer of Saratoga. (Miller, one of the founders of Life magazine, was a classmate of Teddy Roosevelt at Harvard, and in 1900 helped purchase and revive the Saratoga Race Course.) At that point, Roamer's training was taken over by A. J. "Jack" Goldsborough.
Roamer made 98 starts. He won 39 of them, came in second 26 times, and finished third nine times. His career earnings were $98,828.
He could run short races, and long. Any surface suited him. He carried up to 133 pounds and broke more track records than any other American racehorse up to his time. Roamer could carry his early speed. Descriptions of many of his races say that he "he cantered home" or "won easing up." At the ages of three and four, he was the undisputed champion.
He won the Saratoga Special Stakes, the Carter Handicap (against older horses and setting a track record), the Brooklyn Derby (an 8 length rout), the Midsummer Stakes, the Travers Stakes (a ten length romp while setting another record), the Huron Handicap, the State Fair Stakes, the Municipal Handicap, the Autumn WFA Stakes, the Washington Handicap at Laurel Park Racecourse (giving away 22 pounds to the runner-up and breaking the American 9-furlong record), the Queens County Handicap (twice), the Brookdale Handicap (twice), the Saratoga Handicap (3 times), the Merchants and Citizens Handicap, the Saratoga Cup, the Havre de Grace Handicap, the National Handicap, the Yonkers Handicap (twice), the Excelsior Handicap, the Aqueduct Handicap, the Arlington Handicap, the Empire City Handicap, the Mount Vernon Handicap, the Pierrepont Handicap, the Edgemere Handicap, the Continental Handicap, and an Overnight 'cap as an 8-year-old beating the French champion, Sun Briar, Roamer's final career win. He also finished ahead of another Hall of Famer, Old Rosebud, in the Yonkers Handicap, placing second in his final start ever.
As his career progressed, Roamer was required to carry more and more weight. In August 1918, at the age of seven, he attempted to beat the great Salvator's 1890 record mile of 1:35 1/4. He came under the wire in 1:34 4/5. (Fifty years later, in 1968, Dr. Fager set a new mark of 1:32 1/5 around one turn at Arlington Park. This record stood for over thirty years.)
Roamer raced for seven years. In 1914, he was the track's leading earner and was named America's Horse of the Year.
Read more about this topic: Roamer (horse)
Famous quotes containing the words racing and/or career:
“Upscale people are fixated with food simply because they are now able to eat so much of it without getting fat, and the reason they don’t get fat is that they maintain a profligate level of calorie expenditure. The very same people whose evenings begin with melted goat’s cheese ... get up at dawn to run, break for a mid-morning aerobics class, and watch the evening news while racing on a stationary bicycle.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“They want to play at being mothers. So let them. Expressing tenderness in their own way will not prevent girls from enjoying a successful career in the future; indeed, the ability to nurture is as valuable a skill in the workplace as the ability to lead.”
—Anne Roiphe (20th century)