Odds On Racing - Harness Racing

Wall Street Banker

Hall of Famer Doug Ackerman trained and raced Wall Street Banker, after paying $110,000 for him as a yearling. The colt was an extremely bad actor, Ackerman recalled.

"He was the meanest SOB I was ever around, but he was just like a kitten on the racetrack. Carter Duer sold him as agent and he told me to watch the colt because he was meaner than a snake,” Ackerman recalled.

A brother to the vaunted Valley Victory, Wall Street Banker was a standout, winning seven of 13 starts and earning $146,471 as a 2-year-old.

As a 3-year-old, he added $176,099 to his earnings and Ackerman recalls just missing the win in the Beacon Course. Wall Street Banker later encountered knee problems. Ackerman, who uses veterinary assistance sparingly, says that he probably should have injected the colt’s knees and kept going, but instead he simply retired the horse to stud.

Wall Street Banker then became the responsibility of Patti Gira at Oldfield Farm.

“He was a horse that demanded your respect. If you slipped for one minute and let your guard down, he was all over you. And he knew just how to do it. He was absolutely the meanest horse I have ever dealt with, but he was also the most intelligent.”

Gira said that he was calm and relaxed in his paddock and “all business” in the breeding shed. Wall Street Banker began stud service at Oldfield Farms in Michigan in 1992 and quickly established himself as a leader in the state’s trotting ranks. From his first crop came Misty banker 7, 1:56.4f ($302,515); PV Dutch Banker 1:56.2s ($252,236); Wall Street Max 1:56.3F ($248,197); and Perfect C 1:54.4z ($218,645).

He later sired Babe’s Five Six 1:56.4f ($419,981) and Call City Hall 1:57f ($329,148). In total, Wall Street Banker has sired the winners of over $12.3 million and he has 87 trotters on the 2:00 list, including six in 1:55.

“Most of his offspring were big and beautiful as well,” Gira said. “His mares are turning into sought-after broodmares in Michigan, as you would expect from his line.”

Wall Street Banker was sold to Sweden in 1999 and Gira went along with him, but she was astonished to find that he was in a container stall separated from coach class passengers by only a cloth curtain.

“If those poor people had only known what was behind them,” Gira said. “We could have made a movie. Instead of ‘Snakes on a Plane’ it would have been ‘Banker on a Plane.’ ”

When he was inspected for stallion duty in Sweden, Wall Street Banker was shown with a muzzle on as a precaution. He was sent to Estonia for stud duty recently, but is reportedly returning to Sweden. The horse’s accomplishments in the stud earned him a spot as an inductee into the Michigan Harness Racing Hall of Fame.