He was The Grey Ghost. The Horse of the Century. Across his racing career, he established no fewer than 14 world records. At age seven, he effectively partnered with a female to set two of those records. He was an incredible combination of beauty and power. And after he retired to a small Illinois farm, visitors came to see the gelding during the following 25 years from 50 states and more than 30 countries around the world.

In the rich history of harness racing, there has never been a trotter quite like Greyhound. He was born in March of 1932 at Kentucky’s legendary Almahurst Farm which also produced the great Kentucky Derby champion Exterminator. Today, the estate is Ramsey Farm, property of successful Thoroughbred owner Ken Ramsey and his family. As a yearling, Greyhound was consigned for sale at the Indianapolis Speed Sale in the fall of 1933. Even though America was in the thick of the Great Depression, Greyhound was sold to Colonel Edward John Baker for a respectable $900.

E.J. Baker was a native of St. Charles, Illinois and created Red Gate Farm just north of the city. The farm would ultimately become known for its talented trotters including Winnipeg, Labrador and Sister Mary. Greyhound showed promise during his two-year-old season, winning four significant juvenile races. His three-year-old season was highlighted by his victory in the sport’s most prestigious race, the Hambletonian Stakes in Goshen, New York. He dominated harness racing in 1935, winning 18 of his 20 starts. He was unbeaten in every race with his only two losses coming in heats.

For the remainder of his racing career, Greyhound would only lose one race, that as a four-year-old. The world records he broke were often his own and many endured for more than three decades. In 1939 at age seven, he didn’t start in a race because there was no horse prepared to race against him. Subsequently, he ran in exhibitions against the clock. If Greyhound was the King of the Trotters, the Queen…was Rosalind. The six-year-old mare had won the Hambletonian in 1936, the year after Greyhound captured the title. In the summer of 1939, the two champions came to Syracuse, New York and were harnessed in tandem together and lowered the team-to-pole world record to 1:59. One week later at the Indiana State Fair, they lowered their own record to 1:581/4. It was the closest thing to a love affair that horse racing has ever seen.

Greyhound’s racing career came to an end at the close of the 1940 season. Across a six-year career he won 71 of 82 heats and 33 of 37 races with three of his four defeats coming as a two-year-old. He retired to the Chicago area where he split time between Colonel Baker’s Red Gate Farm and Baker’s Acres in Northbrook. As he grew older, he turned nearly white and would tour racetracks across America adorned in his red blanket. In 1949, Greyhound moved to Flanery Farm in Maple Park, Illinois. Baker loved the horse so much he built an elegant 12’ x 21’ tongue and groove oak-lined stall, supplemented with air-conditioning, recessed lighting and a wide picture window overlooking an adjacent sitting room so Greyhound could lean through the opening and greet fans.

It was here at these modest stables where Greyhound welcomed thousands of visitors from around the world. One young man said he came to America to see “the Statue of Liberty, the Grand Canyon, and Greyhound.” For nearly 25 years the horse was loved and cared for by Dooley and Leona Putnam and his trainer Doc Flanery until the great champion passed away on February 4, 1965 at age 33.

Long after Greyhound’s death, Flanery Farm remained in family ownership and the facilities were leased to other Standardbred breeders. As time marched on, the legendary stall was kept intact until 2013 when word spread that the farm, which had become rundown, would be leveled. Two women from the area, Jan Heine and Nancy Brejc, had formed a lifelong friendship and had worked at Flanery Farm in prior years caring for horses of various lessees. Both in their mid-fifties by 2013, Heine and Brejc had developed an obsession with Greyhound over the years and kept tabs on his stall. Before the farm was razed, the women came to Flanery in the cold of November and spent a total of 193 hours over 11 days disassembling both the stall and sitting room, nail by nail and board by board. This included a few solid oak boards containing Greyhound’s tooth marks. The painstaking process included numbering each board as if it were a piece in a puzzle so it could be put back together exactly as it once had been.

Every part was stripped down and packed safely away for the winter. In May of 2014, it was time for Nancy Brejc and Jan Heine to hit the road with Greyhound’s stall in tow. An 840-mile road trip was made to Goshen, New York and the Harness Racing Museum & Hall of Fame. After a few years of planning and reconstruction, Greyhound’s rebuilt stall was opened to the public on July 2, 2017.

I visited the museum on a trip to New York. When I walked into the sitting room and then into the stall, I immediately felt a deep reverence for one of the most amazing racehorses that ever walked the earth. Beautiful haunting music played on a background video as the voice of his late caretaker Dooley Putnam reminisced about his longtime friend from a 1965 interview. Artwork and photos lined the oak walls and Greyhound’s racing tack and various trophies and treasured mementos were also displayed.

Magical? Unquestionably. As Stanley Harrison once wrote…

Somewhere in time’s own space

There must be some sweet pastured place.

Where creeks sing on and tall trees grow

Some paradise where horses go.

For by the love that guides my pen

I know great horses live again.

GREYHOUND'S STALL

By: Tom Ferry