The Captain’s mare
by Lisa Harkema
She was one of the most famous trotters around the time Hambletonian was born, but we don’t even know her name. In the mid and late 1840s, one gray mare was dominating among the New York roadsters. That was Captain Roberts’ mare. Her name, breeder and pedigree is lost to history – but not her abilities. The unnamed gray wonder founded a family that has thrived throughout trotting history.
In Wallace’s Monthly February 1883, it says “if anyone had spoken of the Captain Roberts Mare among New York horsemen thirty years ago, everybody would have known just what animal was meant. We have not learned that she had any name, but as a road mare she was quite as famous, in her sphere, as Lady Suffolk was in hers, in fact she seems to have been recognized as the mistress of the road, and while her owner, Captain Roberts, was building the High Bridge over the Harlem, this mare was able to take his weight, 250 pounds, either up or down from that work and beat all others with great ease.”
Her then-owner, Captain Samuel Roberts, was one of three contractors for the High Bridge over Harlem River. It was completed in 1848, after which, according to Wallace, “Roberts returned to his farm adjoining Middletown, Orange County, NY, and took the mare with him. He did not live long afterwards, and the mare became the property of his son, Charles.” In fact, Captain Samuel Roberts died on Aug 20, 1848 at “his country seat in Middletown, NY.” According to the little notice in a New York newspaper: “Few men were more extensively known, and none more justly esteemed. In the several relations of husband, father and friend, he fulfilled his duties arising therefrom in such a manner as to win the love and admiration of all who knew him.”
Further information is scant, but Wallace found a later owner of the mare, Sheriff James Hoyt, of Orange County. who stated the she had been engaged “in a good many scrub races, on the road, for small considerations; that she accepted everything that came along, and that she beat everything she started against. The Sheriff seems to think she would have been the Maud S, of her day, under proper treatment.” However, the Captain Roberts mare only raced on the road, otherwise we would have a name, a record and some kind of pedigree.
Wallace repeated the claim that “she was a Messenger mare,” but was quick to iterate that there were no sources and nothing to prove this assertion. Though this claim likely has roots in the truth, to underscore that this was just hearsay, The Breeder and Sportsman in 1904 referred to her as an “inbred Messenger,” while New York Tribune, in an article on Jun 19, 1898, wrote that “from the fact that she was gray in color and a tireless, fast trotter, it was inferred that she may have been a descendant of imported Messenger.” Already around the turn of the century this information was lost, and another 125 or so years since nothing new has been found to firmly establish the pedigree of Captain Robert’s mare. However, when Axtell set several world records in 1889, more information was dug up about Captain Roberts’ mare. According to an article in the Rutland Daily Herald on Jul 17, 1889, the mare “was of the blood of imported Messenger, and was bred on Long Island. She was bought as a new-broken-filly by Capt. Samuel Roberts, at that time a partner with George Law in the contract for building the Croton aqueduct, and a resident of Middletown.” This again fails to substantiate or expand on her pedigree, but Long Island is a vital clue: the place was teeming with sons and daughters (and grandsons and granddaughters) of Messenger.
The above quote also gives some clue to Captain Roberts’ mare’s year of birth. According to Wikipedia, “The Croton Aqueduct or Old Croton Aqueduct was a large and complex water distribution system constructed for New York City between 1837 and 1842.” However, the above-mentioned High Bridge was also seen as a part of the Croton Aqueduct, as it extended it’s reach. We’ve not yet been able to ascertain exactly when Captain Roberts started working on the Aqueduct, but assuming the mare was a 2 or 3-year-old at the time of purchase, and assuming further that she was bought around the time he started working in New York, it seems quite likely the Captain Roberts mare was born in the mid or late 1830s.
The known foals
To further quote from Wallace: “As a road mare she seems to have been greatly distinguished, and when put to breeding she was coupled with some of the best horses in the country. She had a filly by Mambrino Patchen, that was bred to George Wilkes, and a horse colt was the result which Mr. Dunn sold to Mr. Corbitt, of San Francisco, for seven thousand, five hundred dollars. In 1874 she produced Joe Bunker, by George Wilkes, and he has a record, his first season, of 2:20 3/4 (1.27,5). In this family Mr. Dunn has a bonanza.”
The gray mare had three known daughters:
1852 Lady Dunn, by American Star
1853 Susie Roberts, by New York Black Hawk (a son of Long Island Black Hawk)
1862 Miss Hoyt, by New York Black Hawk
The birthyear of Lady Dunn is, by the way, often given as 1855 after Wallace wrote this in his later articles, contrary to his original statements – and without any explanation for the change. According to Wallace’s original statements, however, it was earlier: “Besides the Black Hawk filly, Charles bred her to American Star in 1851, and she produced a grey filly. Upon the death of Charles, this filly was sold to Mr McQuaid, and when she was four years old, FJ Nodine bought her and sold her the next year to Mr Whitney. Upon Mr Whitney’s death, his executors sold her to Mr Wm Dunn, of Cincinnati, Ohio, and she died his, a few years ago.” Charles Roberts died on Jul 25, 1854, so although it is possible that Lady Dunn may have been born in 1855, 1852 seems more likely.
The two daughters by New York Black Hawk both ended up at Charles Backman’s Stony Ford stud, and Susie Roberts’ year of birth is from the Stony Ford catalog of 1870. Susie Roberts had quite a few foals at Stony Ford, mostly by Messenger Duroc, but didn’t produce anybody who excelled either on the track or at stud. The best was Waverly 2:33 (1.35,1), who also stood stud at Stony Ford for most of his life, though with very little results.
Another gray star
Despite Susie Roberts and Miss Hoyt – and potentially unknown foals – not producing, Captain Roberts’ mare founded a family that has stood the test of time. It started with Lady Dunn, whose son Joe Bunker 2:19 1/4 (1.26,5), by George Wilkes, was near undefeatable in 1882 and 1883. The gray gelding born 1874 set his record at Fleetwood, NY on Jun 21, 1883, defeating Director.
The gelding, described as 16 hands high (162,5 cms), had one conformation defect he had inherited from his dam who, in turn, had inherited it from her sire Seely’s American Star. Says Wallace in the Wallace Monthly, “Lady Dunn, the flea-bitten grey daughter of American Star, toed out so excessively in both front feet that no clamps or splints or bandages or surgical operations could ever have straightened her forward limbs. The defect was plainly located in her ankles. Their articulation, instead of being backward and forward in a straight line, was sharply outward. When seen coming down the avenue, up to her full speed, about two minutes and fifty seconds, she seemed to be moving in a straight line, but when jogging her front feet displayed outwardly like the disgruntled paddles of a wrecked windmill revolving out of line. This chronic defect, in her case, she transmitted to her daughter Lady Bunker (…) Joe Bunker, 2:19 1/4 (1.26,5) the best son of Lady Dunn, had the same deformity, by inheritance, to an intensified degree, if that could be possible. He, too, speeded with apparently straightforward action, and never brushed either ankles or knees. But this escape was not owing to his apparently correct forward action. All of the progeny of Lady Dunn, like himself, were exceedingly wide in their chest measurements. The fore limbs seemed to be fastened onto the outside instead of under the carcass. Their peculiarity of conformation enabled them to swing their upturned front feet inwardly, both while jogging and speeding, without either ankle cuffing or knee-banging. The American Star cross, in a purely physical point of view, was not one of pure gold to the composite trotting horse of America. His ankles were not only awry but his knees were sadly sprung, so that to some of his daughters, like Lady Dunn, he bequeathed the curse of deformed ankles (…)”
A great guy
Though Joe Bunker was one of the best horses of his time, it was Lady Dunn’s 1873 foal, Lady Bunker, by Mambrino Patchen, who ensured the family’s growing legacy. Bred at 5, her first foal was the spectacular Guy Wilkes 2:15 1/4 (1.24,1).