Boston (horse)
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Boston (1833-1850), a chestnut with a white nose (and often called "Damn his eyes" because no one could beat him), was born in Richmond, Virginia. Boston was the sire of a horse that would become America's leading stud for many years, the brilliant Lexington, but before that day Boston himself was a great—if tempestuous— race horse.
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[edit] Either cut or shot
As a two-year-old, Boston was won in a card game. Lost by his breeder, the Virginia attorney John Wickham (who had been Aaron Burr's counsel in his trial for treason), and won by Wickham's friend Nathaniel Rives, the unbroken colt seemed at first a major loss rather than a small gain. Named for the card game, the son of the very good Timoleon (by Sir Archie) out of Sister of Tuckahoe (going back on both sides to Diomed and Eclipse as well as, as named, sister to the great Tuckahoe), Boston was hopelessly willful, and viciously untrainable. Sent to the stable of John Belcher, and then to the trainer L. White, and then back to Belcher, White said, "The horse should either be castrated or shot—perferably the latter."
Belcher neither cut him nor shot him—he trained him with a whip. To discourage him from rolling on his riders, Belcher had him tied down so stable lads could sit on his head and beat him with sticks. After that bout of "training," he was entered into a match in Richmond against a colt of White's. It was April 20, 1836, and Boston was three years old. Boston ran away with the race, gaining a long lead. He then stopped dead on the course, and sulked. At that point, Belcher turned him out as a common hack on the streets of Richmond until he could mend his ways. For a season, Richmond saw quite a display of temper as the horse bucked and balked his way through the town. But in the end, man won and horse lost. Sort of. Boston would race, but he bit horses who tried to pass him.
[edit] Man vs Horse
Back under saddle, Boston won fifteen races in succession. From Georgia to New York, he raced until he was a ten-year-old, winning 40 of his 45 starts. In those days, races weren't stakes, graded or otherwise, and they weren't run on tidy ovals. They were heats across open country and could be four miles long. (A horse called Young Fire was the first named race horse in American records, known only from the very common horse racing lawsuits of the times.) Thirty of Boston's wins were at that distance. He beat every horse of any distinction he ever met whether the "track" was knee deep in mud or hard as cement. More than once, his then owner (Colonel W.R. Johnson, called the "Napoleon of the Turf") was paid good money not to race, in order to encourage other owners to enter their horses in an event.
By 1840, jockey clubs in the north were sick of Boston's winning ways and so pleaded with Johnson to race him farther south. Either that, or they would include the words "Bar Boston" in their race conditions.
The accepted wisdom is that Boston lost on his merit only once. In May of 1842, he met the filly Fashion, the daughter of Trustee and Bonnets o' Blue, in a well touted match race at the Union Course on Long Island, New York. 70,000 people witnessed the event, including US Senators and Congressmen who made the long journey up from Washington, DC. By all accounts it was mayhem that day: train service broke down, people stormed the ticket office or rushed the guards at the back fences to get in.
In the first heat, the nine-year-old Boston (carrying 126 pounds) cut open a long jagged gash on his hip against a rail and both he and five-year-old Fashion (carrying 111 pounds) were upset by the crowd often surging onto the track. It was a mess of a race that Boston led for three miles, but in the end Fashion won it by 60 yards setting a new world record of 7:32 1/2 for a four-mile heat.
[edit] A sire of sires
The white nosed "Damn his eyes" went blind as he grew older. Even so, he was leading sire in 1841, 1842 and 1843, beginning his stud career even before he raced against Fashion. (He'd covered 42 mares before the match at $100 each.) He stood, at first, in Hanover County, Virginia, then in Washington, D. C., and was then led over the mountains to Kentucky (not exactly wilderness in 1846, but only sixty or so years earlier, Daniel Boone had come in by pack horse and had them all stolen by Indians), to spend his last seasons in Woodford County, Kentucky. It was in Kentucky that he was finally bred with mares of good quality which enabled him to become a leading sire. He was also a noted sire of trotters.
By 1849, Boston was in such poor health he could stand only with the aid of a harness. He met his death as he'd lived his life—furious and indomitable. He was found dead in his stall on January 31, 1850, blind and emaciated from illness. The sides of his stall were bloody from the struggle he put up as he died, hitting his head and legs over and over. His two best sons, Lexington and Lecomte were born in the Spring after his death.
Boston was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1955.
