While the arrival of the first 2.00 trotter was celebrated with worldwide fanfare shortly after the turn of the 20th century, the first 2.00 mile by a pacer shortly before it was greeted with comparably mild acclaim.

Various factors contributed to this, not the least of which was the fact that the pacer was still considered a very poor relation or by product of the trotter, and ‘blood’ pretensions of those breeding them, and in fact often an entirely different breed altogether.

Moreover, the generations of expectation, anticipation and hope that the 2.00 trotter would prove a reality and not a dream never existed as regards the 2.00 pacer.

His advent was not awaited with any such emotions by the general body of horsemen and also there was never any anti-2.00 crusading preceding his appearance.

On the contrary, the general belief being at the time that the most extreme pacing speed was at least three seconds faster than the most extreme trotting speed, when the trotting record began to sink below 2.05 it was taken for granted that a 2.00 pacer was a mere formality. This was confirmed when in 1894, Robert J. shaved the pacing mark down to 2.01 1/2 and three years later, John R. Gentry just missed immortalizing himself as the pioneer pacer by recording 2.00 1/2.

John R. Gentry, a great grandson of George Wilkes with three crosses to Hambletonian and two to Mambrino Chief and a grandam by Messenger, was popularly known as “the little red horse” and was both fortunate and unfortunate.

He was a public idol, he was loved and cherished by his owner, he was one of the most beautiful individuals the standard breed had produced, he won many great races and broke many records in single and double harness; but fate had willed it that the supreme triumph would he recorded as that of his great rival, Star Pointer.

After having in the autumn of 1896 defeated Star Pointer, Robert J. (grandson of Hambletonian’s son Harold) and others in a race in New York in which he broke the three heat record, Gentry and Pointer then went north for a match race at Glen Falls, a fast mile track where Gentry prevailed in straight heats and lowered the race record to 2.01 1/2 - Robert J. had posted this against time.

A fortnight later in Maine at Rigby Park, another lightning fast mile track long since vanished from the map, Gentry himself went against the clock, but while the track was perfection, the Maine autumn had come much earlier that year and there was a piercingly cold wind.

In these conditions John R. Gentry paced in 2.00 1/2 and opinion was unanimous among those present that day that in more favourable conditions he would have bettered 2.00 quite easily.

John R. Gentry subsequently paced many brilliant races and exhibition miles, but was never in quite the same splendid form and the great honour that otherwise would have undoubtedly been his gradually retreated beyond his reach and fell to a horse he had defeated twice in rapid succession not long before.

It was on August 28, 1897, that Star Pointer, a son of Brown Hal and Sweepstakes, placed his name at the beginning of the 2.00 list by pacing a mile in 1.59 1/4 at Readville in Boston, Massachusetts.

The reception which his feat was accorded was one which lacked nothing on warmth or appreciation, and among pacing enthusiasts it was even rapturous, while trotting horsemen joined generally in the applause with which was greeted.

But it would be fair to say that it was felt by many that he had, so to speak, “won by an eyelash,” luck having broken in his favour and against his great rival.

While that aspect of Star Pointer’s accomplishment has diminished entirely by time, what hasn’t is the fact that he represented an entirely different breed of horse at the time to what was more common and popular - the Hambletonians, Mambrinos and Clays etc.

He was for all intents and purposes a purebred ‘Hal’ and represented the backward blocks of horse breeding states such as Tennessee, where his kind held sway for many decades and while they were soon to vanish, it was not before they gradually and imperceptibly infiltrated other states and families and ultimately changed the course towards the standardbred as we know it today.

We will therefore next take a look at how this unique but extinct breed of pacing horse came to be before moving on to the life and times of Star Pointer.

The pacer as a breed in the form that we currently know it has only been around about a century - just a blink of an eye in the context of evolution - and as a true purebred as such its age can be counted in about half as many decades.

As a gait, pacing has however been around since the horse evolved into a size where it was big enough to carry the weight of a man, and it has popped up at various times and in various places since when there was a purpose to be served.

In more recent times though, the road to the current form of standardbred pacer as a racehorse has been a rocky one, with lady luck and fate playing just as much part as good management.

All breeds and types of horses which have evolved through a specific need, or been bred selectively by mankind, trace ultimately to the Oriental species.

From this early point, references clearly indicate that no sooner was the horse being ridden at the trot or gallop, than attempts were being made to develop the pacing gait through 'hobbles.'

The trot was of little value in either war, sport or the chase, while the Romans, great roadbuilders that they were, did so for military purposes and speed at the gallop was of little use in general, particularly given the primitive nature of the vehicles that required pulling and the weight involved at times.

Through all this, the artificial pacer was the animal created and those that took most kindly to being forcibly made to pace were selectively bred to a point where trotting became as foreign to the pacer as vice versa.

This led to various distinctly "ambling pad" or pacing breeds which flourished through the Middle Ages in Europe without the need for hobbles at all, probably the most famous being the Irish 'hobbies' and these were the ancestors for the first such breeds to set foot in the Americas.

The best known of these was the Narragansett pacer, America's first indigenous breed or strain of 'light' horses who found both the trot and the gallop completely foreign, while the more versatile and adaptable Canadian or 'Canuck' was popular not long after.

The Narragansett was established prior to 1700 and preceded the earliest thoroughbreds into Virginia by about half a century.

The Narragansett Bay colonists on Rhode Island had a lively trade with the Spanish and there can be little doubt that this is from where the breed came, while the Canuck from French Canada is thought to owe its origins to a variety of sources, not the least of which was the locals desire to breed a horse suitable for the harsh prevailing climate.

Considerable interbreeding between French Canada, New York and other colonies eventually led to the demise of the Narragansetts and Canucks as identities, but there is no doubt they laid the foundations for the popular pacing-bred strains of the 1800s.

The original Tom Hal, who established the most successful breed of pacers during this time, and which led to Star Pointer, is widely believed to be a direct male line descendant of a Canuck in Copperbottom.

However, while the pacer fulfilled most requirements the best when the "world was on horseback," as time went by there was a gradual change to a "world on wheels," and to this end the much maligned trotter was recalled from oblivion in the Americas.

Improved roading arrived first in the more populated and developed areas of the east coast such as New York, and later Kentucky, and the call from these richer communities was almost entirely for the runner or trotter, with their pretensions to "blood" i.e. thoroughbred.

Pedigree and elegance became the most important ingredient and when it came to roadsters, the trotting gait should be either the grand reaching stride of the Messengers, the more round and plastic action of the Clays, or the snappy, gimpy, gay and clever ways of the Morgans.

Thus, through the latter half of the 1800s in the U.S., the thoroughbred and the evolving trotter had securely found its way into the heart of aristocracy, while the pacer had retreated back into the position of a plebeian - or in such undeveloped states as Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee and the outer reaches of Kentucky. "No gentleman drives a pacer" was the unwritten law.

The pacers had several objectionable colour schemes, lacked style with a stiff kneed and low going action, and were characterized by a wide, swinging habit of motion which won for them the derisive nickname of "side-wheelers," the allegation being that one required the entire width of the road to navigate in.

Nothing more clearly indicated the vast difference in the status of the two gaits during this time than their names, the leading trotting sires bearing such regal and dignified titles as Abdallah, Hambletonian, Mambrino, Norman, Chancellor, Commodore, Columbus, Champion, Fearnought, Highland Chief, Royal George, American Star, Volunteer, Grey Eagle, Jupiter, Magna Charta, Napoleon, Superb and Washington.

Prominent pacers were left to suffer with names such as Blue Bull, Bald Hornet, Black Snake, Bull Pup, Cockspur, Crazy Nick, Clinker, Crook Neck, Flax Tail, French Charley, Hoosier Tom, High Jack, Nigger Baby, Tom Hal, Stump The Dealer and so on.

Given their humble and in many cases illiterate background, it is not surprising that while the first 2.30 mile was recorded by a pacer in 1844, it was not until the renowned chestnut mare Pocahontas, who went to 2 17 1/2 to wagon in 1855, that there was a champion with an accredited pedigree, breeder and year of foaling.

However, while all this was going on, two significant factors were about to combine to change the course of events.

While the pacer had been shunned by 'nobility' to an extent where it was not considered eligible to Wallace's Register, the forerunner to the USTA's Sires & Dams, it could not be prevented from slipping fairly closely into a significant number of 'standard' maternal families.

When present on enough occasions, this purebred pacing blood, which was a complete outcross to Hambletonian and his almost totally dominant trotting sire line, and the other popular trotting ‘families,’ sort of wiggled its way into the breed and caused enough confusion for the use of diagonal hobbles on trotters to be required at times.

While this practice of compelling mixed or double gaited horses to trot was frowned upon by the owners and trainers of better class, it became quite common in the 1880s and early 1890s, and it still survives today in a way through the use of half hopples.

However, then an unknown person hit upon the idea of rigging the hobbles laterally rather than diagonally - to help the trotter to pace, rather than vice versa - the latter being the universal practice up to this point, ranging up to the historic two pounds carried on each front foot by Smuggler (2.15 1/4), the pacing-bred pacer who was converted to become the world champion trotting stallion in 1874.

The lateral hobble immediately reduced the tension and stress of the diagonal one to which the trotter had been subjected, and this allowed the weight of the "Indiana pants" to be significantly lightened. Within a few years the supposedly trotting-bred hobbled pacer had inched its way on to the Grand Circuit.

In 1895, Strathberry (2.04 1/4), a grandson of Strathmore, became the first such horse to enter the 2.05 list, while seven years later another great grandson of Hambletonian in Prince Alert (1.59 1/2) joined the 2.00 list.

While Star Pointer had his moment in the sun in 1897 in becoming the first pacer to enter that list, he was a poorly conformed horse and a disaster at stud, and not long after the turn on the century, the old-style free-legged "side-wheeler" and their families had all but vanished.

50 years later, Star Pointer remained the only 2.00 pacer descending from those pacing-bred origins, while there were 82 additions from the Hambletonian sire line.

The Hal blood had contributed to the turn of events, but with the passing of time, in the end it was merely in a subsidiary way.

However, the influence of these purebred pacers in shaping the standardbred as we know it today, should never be underestimated. Had the 'aristocracy' and major breeding farms had their way, the trotter would have remained solely a trotter of thoroughbred, or 'blood,' ancestry.

Instead, the likes of the Tennessee Hals were of such a purebred nature, and this in itself is why they probably 'bred themselves into a corner,' that they contributed towards creating a unique horse which has continued to be refined down through the decades and now dominates standardbred sport everywhere but Europe.

This was initially due to the fact that with the aid of hopples, the pacer could often represent a far faster and easier return, a fact that generally still exists to this day.

In every way, Star Pointer was one of those exceptional horses that appear but rarely.

From a pacing standpoint he was a true triumph of breeding, being a three-quarter brother to Hal Pointer 2.04 1/2, the first to take a race record of 2.10 or better (2.09 3/4 in 1890) and the first in a long line of champions for Edward F. Geers, the foremost reinsmen in America at the time and for another three decades until his tragic death in a track accident aged 73.

Hal Pointer was by (Gibson’s) Tom Hal from Sweepstakes, by (Knight’s) Snow Heels, and was foaled in 1894. Star Pointer was by Brown Hal 2.12 1/2, in his day the champion pacing stallion and also given his record by Geers, and a son of Tom Hal.

Though Tom Hal occupies a patriarchal position among the numerous famed members of the Hal family of Tennessee, Brown Hal ranks as indisputably its greatest sire.

He was also a brother to the gelding Little Brown Jug 2.11 3/4, the first pacer to reach and pass the 2.12 mark.

Thus both Sweepstakes, the dam of Star Pointer and Hal Pointer, and Lizzie, the dam of Brown Hal and Little Brown Jug, produced two world champions. Nothing at all equalling this has ever occurred since, both in pacing and trotting.

Both Hal and Star Pointer were bred by Captain Henry P. Pointer of Spring Hill, Tennessee, the same place where the Ewell Farm of Captain Campbell Brown was located and where Tom Hal headed the stud. Brown was the man who, more than any other, was responsible for the eminence of the position of the family which was known as the Tennessee Hals.

Its founder was a roan stallion taken from Philadelphia to Lexington, Kentucky, in about the year 1824, of whose origin absolutely nothing is known. Called Tom Hal, he was says Wallace, “as was the custom in those days, called a Canadian, like all other pacing horses.” There is not a scintilla of evidence that he came from Canada however.

After a long career at stud there before dying in 1842, he left a large family behind him, including numerous sons and grandsons that were used for stud purposes by breeders of pacing and saddle horses. He was himself always used as a saddle horse and probably never broken to harness.

For the most part, his get flourished in the back districts of Kentucky, from where they spread north into Indiana and south in Tennessee, there propagating two subfamilies identified with those states. These earlier Hals were mostly roan and many of them were conspicuously marked with white, and not infrequently they had white (or “glass”) eyes, which would not indicate a Canadian origin.

The original Tom Hal, often called Boswell’s or Mason’s, and also West’s and Shropshire’s, among other sons had one called Lail’s Tom Hal or Bald Stockings. He was in Harrison County and was out of a mare by Chinn’s Copperbottom, a son of the original Copperbottom, the authentic Canadian Copperbottom taken to Kentucky in 1816.

For the sake of simplicity we will refer to this Tom Hal horse as Bald Stockings. He was a chestnut with a bald face and four white socks, foaled in the 1840s. In turn he begot a son known as Sorrel Tom in about 1850 and he was the first of the family to sire pacing racehorses, particularly Hoosier Tom 2.19 1/2, one of the earliest 2.20 pacers.

In 1850, Major M.B. Kittrell brought into Tennessee the founder of the branch of the family that there became so famous. He differed from typical Hals in that he was a bay and was variously represented as being by the “original” Tom Hal or by his son Bald Stockings, but was probably the latter.

Gibson’s Tom Hal, a son of the Kittrell horse, was a roan foaled in 1860 from Julia Johnson, she by Adam’s Stump, a son of Stump the Dealer, a son of Timoleon, and he by the thoroughbred Sir Archy. Stump the Dealer’s dam was by Potomac, and Sir Archy and Potomac were perhaps the two most famous sons of the imported Diomed. This was all thoroughbred blood, but Adam’s Stump was a pacer out of an unknown dam.

Julia, the dam of Julia Johnson and grandam of Gibson’s Tom Hal, both mares being pacers, is given as by Whip, said to be a thoroughbred, and out of a mare of both thoroughbred and pacing blood. Brown Hal’s dam and grandam, Lizzie and Blackie, were both also male line descendants of Kittrell’s Tom Hal.

Coming to Star Pointer’s maternal ancestry, Knight’s Snow Heels, the sire of his dam Sweepstakes, was by Knight’s Tom Hal and he was also by the Kittrell horse. His grandam Kit was by McQueen’s Traveller, he by Sugg’s Stump, another son of Stump the Dealer. There the pedigree ends, as Star Pointer’s third dam was a saddle mare of unknown blood.

The tabulation shows just how his combined thoroughbred and pacing elements were interbred to produce Star Pointer, the outstanding fact being that there was not a drop of what may be termed true trotting blood in his veins.

Aside from him and Hal Pointer, Sweepstakes also produced Elastic Pointer 2.06 1/2 and the dam of Argot Wilkes 2.14 1/4, at one time among the leading pacing sires with three in 2.05 and the dams of May E. Grattan 1.59 1/4 and Directum J. 2.01 1/2 etc.

As a yearling in 1890, Star Pointer was sold for a small sum by Captain Pointer to J.W. Titley of Chicora, Pennsylvania, and was trained as a 2-year-old by John Heard, who gave him a record of 2.34 1/4 over the half-mile track at Carion.

He was not seen in public however for the next two years, as while showing great speed in his work, leg trouble interfered with his progress and development.

However, as a 5-year-old he was sent to Geers, who after proceeding very carefully with him, produced Star Pointer in August at Washington Park in Chicago, where he defeated a field on 12 2.20 pacers for a stakes of $1500 in 2.12 1/2, 2.11 3/4 and 2.12 1/4.

This was witnessed by historian John Hervey, who was moved to write that he “had seen the rising star in the famous family of pacing Hals from Tennessee, which has given the harness turf a stellar galaxy of equine immortals. And mighty as was its greatest luminary, the renowned ‘Pinter Hoss’ (Hal Pointer) himself, premonitions may be felt that his tenure of premiership is threatened.”

While three years passed between that day and the mile in 1.59 1/4, the forecast was more than verified.

Hervey had been moved to pen it not only for the promise that Star Pointer’s maiden performance in fast company displayed, but because Geers, the “Silent Man,” had broken his then habitual taciturnity to state that he was the fastest horse that he had ever sat behind, and that if he could keep him usefully sound his possibilities were the greatest.

But the very next week at Fort Wayne in Indiana, after winning the first two heats of a race, he went lame and was distanced in the third, pulling up on three legs, the trouble being in the stifle. Thrown out of training and carefully wintered, Star Pointer returned the next year for a campaign of six races and won them all, taking a record of 2.04 1/2.

He was now recognised as the coming rival of Joe Patchen (sire of Dan Patch) and John R Gentry, the two closely matched contenders for the stallion pacing crown, as well as for Robert J’s unqualified championship, then standing at 2.01 1/2. But his very doubtful underpinnings were a disquieting factor.

In the spring of 1896, owner Titley, believing that he was about through, decided to sell him and he was consigned to W.B. Fasig’s May auction at Clevedon. But the gossip about his unsoundness kept his price down to $5500, his buyers being J.H. Bronson of New Haven, Connecticut, and Smith and Mills of Boston. Geers had pleaded with C.J. Hamlin to purchase him, but vainly, that cautious investor considering the risk too poor.

Ed Mills, junior partner of the new owners, now astonished everyone by removing him from the stable of Geers and turning him over to David McClary, hitherto a groom and not only unknown to the public, but without any experience as either a trainer or driver.

This provoked a storm of criticism and Star Pointer’s speedy eclipse was generally prophesied, which seemed fully justified when in his first two starts with McClary up, he was distanced.

He was not ready that summer until August 8 when he met Joe Patchen in a two horse special over the Combination Park half-mile track in Boston. Patchen made a show of him in both heats and the truth was that he should never have engaged in such an affair, as he was utterly unsuited to anything less than a mile track on account of his gait and general way of going and was never again started but once on the minors.

The peculiarities of racehorses were never better illustrated than by this event. Though Joe Patchen strode 23 feet when fully extended, he was the best half-mile track horse of his time, lowering the record from 2.07 3/4 to 2.04 1/4; whereas Star Pointer, though his extreme stride was 21 feet, seemed all at sea when asked to negotiate one.

He was rested for a month after this disaster and then met John R Gentry, Robert J and Frank Again at Fleetwood Park, New York City, in a $2500 free-for-all, in which he again finished a bad last in the first two heats to Gentry in 2.03 3/4 and 2.03 1/4, only to win the third in 2.03 1/4, a three heat record.

The criticism was now redoubled and high pressure was applied, both publicly and privately to Mills to return the stallions to Geers, but he remained unshaken in his faith of McClary to such an extent that the following week he started Star Pointer in a match for $5000 at Glen Falls, NY, and while he lost it, this time the son of Brown Hal gave a grand account of himself, forcing Gentry to pace heats in 2.03 3/4, 2.01 1/2 and 2.05 3/4, with the last quarter of the first heat in 28 3/4 a rate of speed never before known in a race officially timed, and the second heat lowering the race record from Robert J’s 2.02 1/2.

Star Pointer was not beaten again over a mile track that year, winning races at Boston, Readville and Lexington and a match with Joe Patchen at Philadelphia, and at Mystic Park in Boston where he established a new three heat record of 2.02 1/2, 2.03 1/4 and 2.03 3/4. Of all the stars in these events only Gentry was not present.

Star Pointer was now looked upon by the majority of experts as the coming 2.00 horse, and his owners decided that it would be well to take advantage of this by consigning him to a New York sale in February, 1897. Though times were hard, the competition was keen and he was struck off to local Denton Pearsall for $16,000. However he failed to make good on his last bid and after being led back into the ring another spirited dual ensued before James Murphy of Chicago bought him for $15,000. This amount represented a clear profit to the sellers, as he had already earned back his cost to them of $5600.

He was shipped to Murphy’s farm just out of Chicago and it was announced he would remain in the hands of McClary.

His record that season more than verified the forecasts of his admirers. While there was a hiccup at Columbus when he made several bad breaks and Geers piloted Joe Patchen to equal John R Gentry’s race record of 2.01 1/2, his other starts all resulted in wins, including a Canadian record of 2.01 3/4 at Fort Erie in Ontario and a return match with Joe Patchen in Chicago in 2.02.

This was on August 21 and one week later found him at Readville, where before a crowd of 5000 Bostonians he immortalized himself by pacing fractions of 30, 59 3/4 and 1.29 to come home in 1.59 1/4 to beat Gentry’s record of 2.00 1/2. Upon returning to the stand, McClary was lifted out of the sulky and carried about on shoulders before he and Murphy were summoned by the starter Frank Walker to receive an ovation from the usual contained New England audience.

This performance had the natural consequence of creating a demand for his appearance from all parts of the country. It was possible to fill only part of the engagements clamoured for, which consisted either of miles against time or special races against Joe Patchen, the only horse willing and able to oppose him, as John R Gentry and Robert J had been purchased by L.G. Tewkesbury and contracted for a nationwide exhibition tour in both single and double harness.

He was kept busy until mid-October, appearing at tracks at Hartford, Boston, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Terre Haute, Springfield (Illinois), Ottumwa (Iowa), Omaha (Nebraska) and St Joseph (Montana) in these two months.

His best mile was in a third heat at Springfield, where he beat Joe Patchen by a neck in 2.00 1/2, which stood as the world’s race record for 13 years until lowered by Minor Heir to 1.59. This climaxed probably the most remarkable double feat of its kind on record, as just three days earlier at Terre Haute, Star Pointer had paced against time in 2.00 1/2 and Joe Patchen in 2.01 1/4.

The glamour now surrounding him was only to be described by extravagant epithets and he had also raced himself entirely out of opponents and into the exhibition field exclusively.

After wintering again at Park Ridge, he first covered mares in the spring of 1898 and then set out in July for a series of appearances which were as follows: Peoria, Ill., to beat track record of 2.05 - time 2.02 1/4; Columbus, Ohio, to beat track record of 2.01 1/2, he equalled is own mark of 1.59 1/4; Joliet, Ill., to beat track record of 2.02 3/4 - time 1.59 1/2; Readville, Mass., to beat 1.59 1/4 - time 1.59 3/4.

The last performance was considered his greatest, as the Belmont Park track was rated at least one to two seconds slower than the best Grand Circuit courses. The first half, which was somewhat downhill, was covered in 57 1/4, but the steep upgrade left him labouring at the finish. He closed out the season with two efforts to wagon to beat Joe Patchen’s record of 2.04 1/4 at that hitch, but the best he could manage was 2.05 in what became snowy conditions.

Shortly afterwards for a third time he was led into the auction ring, Murphy consigning him to the Old Glory sale of 1898 in New York. The reason he gave for doing so, which was sincere, was his inability to any longer stand the strain upon his nerves of owning such a horse.

Though a turf veteran of many years experience, Murphy had become so wrought up through the intense sympathy with Star Pointer in his efforts, also anxiety lest he break down under the terrific ordeals that he faced, as latterly to be unable to witness them.

At times he would be absent altogether and on others he would leave the stand to seek the seclusion of the stables or some other remote spot until it was all over and done.

He was seen at such times shaking like a man with palsy, unable to use his timer or talk with normal coherence, his face drawn and livid and his condition distraught.

Nor, try as he might, could he control these crises which began to set in the day before the horse was to go and for several afterward would leave him weak and unstrung. So he cut the Gordian knot by selling the stallion and when the hammer fell he received precisely the sum he had paid for him 18 months earlier - $15,000.

The buyer was W.J. White of Cleveland, Ohio, who some years before had established a stud farm which, as an optimist and firm believer that the 2.00 horse was bound to appear, he had named Two Minute Farm. He now seized the opportunity to place at its head the first and only horse that had realised his anticipations.

White left Star Pointer in the hands of McClary with orders to fit him for the next season in his role of world’s champion.

But McClary, who had already performed an almost miraculous training feat through two seasons of unprecedented performances, when again and again it had seemed that one race might be his last, could not achieve the impossible.

As soon as strong work began, Star Pointer threw out alarming signals and progress was very slow.

Finally he made his season’s debut on August 31 at Hartford and paced one of his topmost miles in lowering his own track record from 2.00 1/2 to 2.00 as the track was considered far from its best. His limbs however were by now in the shakiest possible shape and every passing day was full of apprehension.

The next week brought the end.

Taken to New York to once more confront his consistent adversaries, Joe Patchen and John R. Gentry, he won the first heat with ease in 2.04 1/4, but in the second he looked to have it won until near he wire when he was suddenly seen to falter and Patchen swept past to win in 2.02 3/4.

That it was a breakdown was obvious, but his burning front shins and ankles were cocained and he was brought out for the third heat in an effort to save second money.

It was a regrettable decision as he could not be kept pacing, broke again and again, and the flag fell in his face - a truly lamentable finale to a career among the most glorious in turf history.

All told, Star Pointer started in 30 races, of which he won 22, was second in four and unplaced in four.

Not counting his three 2-year-old races, he started in 79 heats to sulky and won 60, while all inclusive he recorded 2.00 or better on six occasions and 14 averaged 2.00 3/4. The track and state records he broke were literally numbered by the dozens, with over half a dozen world records. His money winnings were never computed, but exceeded $50,000.

Star Pointer began stud service in Ohio in 1900 and remained at Two Minute Farm for six seasons.

He was given little publicity and the number of farm mares was not large so his covers were limited. In the fall of 1905, White gave him to his son, who leased him to Charles De Ryder, who took him to California, where he made the seasons of 1906-09.

After being returned to the East to be exhibited at Lexington, Murphy repurchased him for purely sentimental reasons and sent him to his birthplace in Columbia, Tennessee, where he made the season of 1910 at Rosewood Farm. And there death overtook him on the morning of December 14 of that year, the cause assigned being apoplexy; his age 21.

As a sire Star Pointer was expected to be the greatest ever known among pacing stallions, but instead he proved a grievous disappointment.

His best performer was Morning Star 2.04, got when he was young in Pennsylvania and just a pony in size and not resembling him at all.

Nothing else by him beat 2.05 1/4, although a son in Sidney Pointer sired Angus Pointer 2.01 3/4. None of his daughters either produced anything memorable, and his blood soon became but a faint trickle occasionally appearing in the back crosses of some none too prominent pacer.

The causes of this almost incomprehensible failure, aside from the sudden and permanent decline of the Hal family which set in soon after his day of glory, included individual inferiority, many of the Star Pointers being from a standpoint objectionable.

And the prevailing unpleasant dispositions was an inheritance from not only Star Pointer himself but Brown Hal as well.

Star Pointer stood 16 hands strong and when he first appeared as a 5-year-old he made a striking impression as an individual by his range, style and elegance. But as he grew older he lost his character altogether, growing gross, ill shapen and beefy, with scarcely a trace of his former beauty.

His great frame was loaded with flesh and muscles in layers and bunches; his youthful head, which had been bloodlike, became coarse and heavy; his paunch bellied down; his neck, which was of a good length, too heavily crested for attractiveness.

In these particulars he closely resembled his sire, Brown Hal, who when young had been handsome, but later developed into a horse almost as ponderous as a draught horse. He also inherited Brown Hal’s chief structural defect, his legs, instead of being clean, firm fibred and sinewy, were round, meaty and early developed unsoundness that was radical and incurable.

On his front ankles were unsightly wind puffs, while his pasterns were too straight and his hind legs very crooked.

His defective structure affected his gait and he was a confirmed knee knocker, punishing himself severely on repeated occasions.

When it is added that he was not always a horse with speed ready to use, but required an unusual amount of strong work to bring him to an edge and keep him there, what he did borders, indeed, upon the marvellous.

It is of interest, also, to know that he was a natural trotter as a foal and did not shift to pacing until he was broken to harness as a 2-year-old.

Here, still again, he was a son of his sire as Brown Hal was first trained and raced as a trotter and was only to pace when he had gone so wrong from carrying excessive weight, a fact that was generally forgotten if known at all.

Another of Star Pointer’s characteristics was his extreme habit of pulling, which was so inveterate as to be abnormal.

He “took hold of the iron” to such an extent that a severe Crit Davis bit had to be applied, but nevertheless it was his custom to go away pulling hard, to do so through the entire mile, and to even finish in that manner until at times McClary would be totally exhausted when dismounting.

But so tremendous was his strength and so determined was his will and character, that going in and around 2.00 time and time again, whether on the same day or week after week, became the expected rather than being something out of the ordinary.

Frank Marrion