A hundred years ago, the most famous athlete in America was a
horse. But Dan Patch was more than a sports star; he was a cultural
icon in the days before the automobile. Born crippled and unable to
stand, he was nearly euthanized. For a while, he pulled the
grocer's wagon in his hometown of Oxford, Indiana. But when he was
entered in a race at the county fair, he won -- and he kept on
winning. Harness racing was the top sport in America at the time,
and Dan, a pacer, set the world record for the mile. He eventually
lowered the mark by four seconds, an unheard-of achievement that
would not be surpassed for decades.
America loved Dan Patch, who, though kind and gentle, seemed to
understand that he was a superstar: he acknowledged applause from
the grandstands with a nod or two of his majestic head and stopped
as if to pose when he saw a camera. He became the first celebrity
sports endorser; his name appeared on breakfast cereals, washing
machines, cigars, razors, and sleds. At a time when the
highest-paid baseball player, Ty Cobb, was making $12,000 a year,
Dan Patch was earning over a million dollars.
But even then horse racing attracted hustlers, cheats, and
touts. Drivers and owners bet heavily on races, which were often
fixed; horses were drugged with whiskey or cocaine, or switched off
with "ringers." Although Dan never lost a race, some of his races
were rigged so that large sums of money could change hands. Dan's
original owner was intimidated into selling him, and America's
favorite horse spent the second half of his career touring the
country in a plush private railroad car and putting on speed shows
for crowds that sometimes exceeded 100,000 people. But the
automobile cooled America's romance with the horse, and by the time
he died in 1916, Dan was all but forgotten. His last owner, a
Minnesota entrepreneur gone bankrupt, buried him in an unmarked
grave. His achievements have faded, but throughout the years, a
faithful few kept alive the legend of Dan Patch, and in "Crazy
Good," Charles Leerhsen travels through their world to bring back
to life this fascinating story of triumph and treachery in
small-town America and big-city racetracks.
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