. Breeder and sportsman. Horses. A Raoo For 8200,000 According to the Philtdelpha Press the greatest amooDt ever raced for ou this contioeot was $200,OjOf and this is the â¢ray it happened. Jamw L. Aiken of Denver, a wealthy retired contractor of that place, has been spendiog the summer at Atlantic City and was at the Lafiyette Hotel a few days ago. Some of Mr. Aiken's friends who had been present at the recent Fu- turity race at Sbeepshead Bay, were telling him about the struggle and ureal nine of the stake and to exceed $50,000. "This year, boy*," said the old gentleman, with a con
. Breeder and sportsman. Horses. A Raoo For 8200,000 According to the Philtdelpha Press the greatest amooDt ever raced for ou this contioeot was $200,OjOf and this is the â¢ray it happened. Jamw L. Aiken of Denver, a wealthy retired contractor of that place, has been spendiog the summer at Atlantic City and was at the Lafiyette Hotel a few days ago. Some of Mr. Aiken's friends who had been present at the recent Fu- turity race at Sbeepshead Bay, were telling him about the struggle and ureal nine of the stake and to exceed $50,000. "This year, boy*," said the old gentleman, with a contempt- oooscurl of the lip, "thirty-eight years ago, I witnessed the finish of the greatest race on record fcr a stake of $200,000 io gold. The race was against time, and was won by the man Sylph, belonging to A. B. Miller, who a few years ago was still living in Denver. The race was arranged through the efforts of Secretary of War Flood to defeat a scheme of a New Yirk Lobby to obtain an appropriation of $5,000,000 for carr?iog the mails overland from Chicago to San Fran- cisco. Mr. C. W. Russell, a friend of the Secretary and a partner of Mr. Miller, offered in answer to arguments pre- sented by the lobby to bet $200,000 in gold that be could put a mail line on from Sacramento to St. Joseph, Mo., then (be terminus of railroad communications, to make the distance â1950 milesâio ten days. The wager was taken. Mr. Miller woo his bet by employing eighty post riders and using 300 horses 1 Ban the tinieh o( that great race on the lStbof April, 1860. The first horse, Border Roffian, ridden by a man named Baker, made a run of twenty miles in forty- nine minutes. The rider carried the mails and each rider was required to mike sixty miles of the distance. The horses were all thoroughbreds, and a number of tbem could make a mile at a 1:50 gait. Sometimes the men were almost 1 st in snow storms and often the riders were chased by the Indians. One rider lost his horse, but saved
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjecthorses, bookyear1882
