The Legacy of Speedy Crown

In Standardbred racing, you have either trotters or pacers, and most certainly, one horse that is known to any harness fans in terms of being a top sire is Speedy Crown.

Speedy Crown's legacy as a sire is unequalled in harness racing in terms of money garnered by his progeny. With over $106, million in offspring earnings, this prolific sire, who passed away in 2000, is still regarded highly by most professional horsemen.

Harness racing's Hall Of Famer Howard Beissinger, who has since retired to a small farm in southwest Ohio, steered Speedy Crown to a Hambletonian victory in 1971, and then his son Speedy Somolli to a Hambo win in 1978, says he believes that Speedy Crown was one of the most honest horses he ever drove.

"Speedy Crown never made any mistakes or breaks in a race and was just as honest as he could be," Howard recalled. "He was originally named Headin And Heelin."

Speedy Crown was lightly raced as a two-year-old, winning four of eight starts and time trialng 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," Howard said. "The only thing we did was in the spring of that year I had a splint removed. He was a nice-sized horse, but not overly big."

"When I first started to develop Speedy Crown, I never knew that he was going to be that great of a horse," Howard added. "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 that 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 mark 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 his rigging," Howard remembered. "He was very clean gaited and didn't interfere anywhere. He wore just a pair of hind trotting boots and scalpers. He wore a very loose tie-down and in terms of his feet, they had a very natural angle. 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 I raced him that way for 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 the 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 kof 1:58 on a five-eights mile track that same season.

"One of the first horses I ever drove was named Lady Argo," Howard noted. "In her pedigree, on the dam's side, she had The Senator, who I had liked. I liked Darnley, who I had seen race, and 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 iwht her breeding background, prompted me to buy her."

"Of course we bred her to Florican and she foaled Missle Toe, who we then bred to Speedy Scot. The result was Speedy Crown. I think horses today are faster than every before, but Speedy Crown would have certainly held his own today on the race track. He was a great race horse even though it seems most people today know him only as a great sire."

"Speedy Crown was a gentleman in every sense of the word," Howard continued. "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."

Speedy Crown last bred mares in 1996 when he was 28-years-old. His sons such as Speedy Somolli, Prakas, Royal Prestige, Crowning Point, Amrbro Goal, Crown's Invitation, Embassy Lobell, Workahohlic, Jazz Cosmos, and TV Yankee continued to carry on his legacy. Despite his death, he continues to be the leading sire and broodmare sire of 1:55 performers, with 40+ to his credit in that category. His progeny's earnings of over $106 million puts him atop the sires list along with the top pacing sire of all time, Albatross, who has over $135 million in purse monies to his credit as a sire.