Odds On Racing - Harness Racing

Speedy Crown

Speedy Crown & Howard Beissinger

Speedy Crown's legacy as a trotting sire is unequalled in harness racing in terms of money garnered by his progeny. With over $110 million in offspring earnings, the prolific sire, who passed away in 1999, sired diagonally-gaited Standardbreds for the last three decades of the 20th century.

Hall Of Famer Howard Beissinger, who steered Speedy Crown to a Hambletonian victory in 1971, and then revisited the Hambletonian winner's circle with his son Speedy Somolli in 1978, believes his charge was one of the best.

"Speedy Crown never made any mistakes or breaks in a race and was just as honest as he could be, " Beissinger said from his home of Hamilton, Ohio.

Originally named Headin And Heelin, Speedy Crown was lightly raced at two, winning four of eight starts and time trialing in 2:01.2. Standing just 15.3 hands tall, he was not thought of as a serious threat in the three-year-old stakes division in the spring of 1971.

"Speedy Crown was very sound at two," Beissinger recalled. "The only thing we did was in the spring of that year I had a splint removed. He was a nice-sized horse, not too big and not too small. When I first started to develop Speedy Crown, I never knew that he was going to be a great horse. I always trained him well within himself and never asked more of him than I thought he could give me. I always wanted a fresh horse and I was very careful in making sure he stayed that way."

Beissinger's training methods paid off as witnessed by Speedy Crown's stellar sophomore season. The son of Speedy Scot, out of the Florican mare Missile Toe dominated his rivals in 1971, winning 15 of 24 starts and taking divisional honors as Trotter Of The Year. He captured the Hambletonian in straight heats and set a world record for three-year-olds on a half-mile oval. In addition he won the Leland Stanford Stakes, an American National, the Old Oaken Bucket, the Hanover, the Scioto Challenge, the Gay Acres T., and a heat of the Founders Gold Cup. Speedy Crown scored his lifetime best of 1:57.1 at Lexington for Frank and Tom Antonacci's Crown Stable and was well on his way to being named one of the top trotters of all time in the sport.

"Speedy Crown was very simple in terms of rigging," Beissinger remembered. "He was very clean-gaited and didn't interfere anywhere, and only wore a pair of hind trotting boots and scalpers."

"He also wore a very loose tie-down, and in terms of his feet, had a very natural angle," Beissinger said. "He wore a full swedge behind and plain flat shoes in front early in his career. When I went to DuQuoin with him I noticed that he came a little closer to his elbows than I would have liked him to, so I put a crease in the toe of the front shoes and that seemed to do the trick. He went on to win the Hambletonian shod that way and raced that way the rest of his career."

Speedy Crown's four-year-old campaign saw him amass over $350,000 enroute to being voted Four-Year-Old Trotter of the Year. He captured the Roosevelt International Trot, the Realization Stake and the American Trotting Championship. He also bested the world's best at that time, the great French mare Une de Mai and the top American mare Fresh Yankee, by winning the Challenge Match in 2:32.1 at one and a quarter miles. He also equaled Nevele Pride's mark of 1:58 on a five-eighths mile track that season.

Beissinger recalled the events leading up to the foaling of his future champion.

"One of the first horses that I ever drove was named Lady Argo," Beissinger said. "In her pedigree, on the dam's side, she had The Senator, who I liked. I liked Darnley, who I had seen race. He was a son of Scotland, who as a sire, was second only to Volomite at the time. Well, Darnley was bred to a mare named Sparkle Plenty, which had The Senator in her pedigree on the dam's side, and together they produced Worth A Plenty. She was for sale at the right price, which combined with her breeding background, prompted me to buy her.

"Of course then we bred her to Florican and she foaled Missile Toe, who we then bred to Speedy Scot. The result was Speedy Crown."

"I think the horses today are faster than ever before," Beissinger continued. "Speedy Crown would certainly hold his own today on the race track. He was a great racehorse even though it seems most people know him mostly as a sire.

"Speedy Crown was a true gentleman in every sense of the word," Beissinger said. "He was a professional on the race track and in the breeding shed. I don't think I ever heard a cross word spoken about him."

The great racehorse retired with $545,495 in lifetime earnings and a mark of 1:57.1 to become a great sire. Besides fathering trotters who earned over $108 million, Speedy Crown also sired pacers who earned nearly $2 million.

Speedy Crown last bred mares in 1996 when he was 28-years-old. His sons and daughters such as Speedy Somolli, Prakas, Sir Taurus, Kit Lobell, Royal Prestige, Fancy Crown, Crowning Point, Armbro Fling, Armbro Goal, Crown's Invitation, Embassy Lobell, Workaholic, Jazz Cosmos, and King Conch continue to carry on his legacy. He continues to be the leading sire and broodmare sire of 1:55 performers, with 40+ to his credit in that category. His progeny earnings of over $141 million puts him atop the broodmare sires list along with pacing top sire of all time, Albatross, who has over $367 million in purse monies to his credit as a broodmare sire.

Moni Maker, the great trotting mare who retired in 2000, is Speedy Crown's top foal by both earnings ($5.5 million) and time (1:52.1). Embassy Lobell is next in line with a 1:54.4 three-year-old mark and $2.5 million in earnings, while the great Prakas is third with $1.9 million in earnings a record of 1:53.2.