In my last few blogs I’ve been peeking into the future, looking at some of the new damsires appearing at the yearling sales. In the next few blogs I want to dive back almost 100 years and celebrate two exceptional trotters, a mother and daughter, and the damsire that added so much value to their pedigree.
As breeders and owners, we are delighted when our filly or mare takes a record of, say, 1.58 mile rate. Just going 2 minutes these days doesn’t really stand out from the crowd.
So imagine a trotting mare who went 1:591/4 in race conditions and 1.581/4 in a speed trial – 90 years ago.
Her name was Nedda, and she was an outstanding world champion trotting mare who took her record in 1922. This wasn’t a fluke – although in today’s standards her lifetime stake earnings of $12,294 look small, she won 23 of her 43 starts. Incredible!
Nedda is the great-grandam of the wonderful sire and broodmare sire Good Time, so you will find her in many pedigrees of top pacing sires wherever Good Time appears – including Most Happy Fella, No Nukes, Jate Lobell. Through a slightly different route, she’s also in the bottom line of Big Towner’s pedigree.
At Lexington on October 4 with Harry Fleming in the cart (trainer and driver for many of her races), Nedda lowered the world’s record for trotting mares to 1:581/4, which held good for 16 years until Rosalind reduced it to 1:563/4 in 1938.
A New York Times article of August 13 1922 indicates she was in great form that season:
“Sensational Trotter Will Make Speed Trial At Philadelphia Grand Circuit Races.
Nedda, the sensational trotter by Atlantic Express, that stepped to a mark of 1:591/4 last week over the Toledo track, will be one of the features in the Grand Circuit meet at the Belmont Driving Park here the coming week….”
About a month previously, at another Grand Circuit meeting in Toledo, she competed in three heats of The Maumee 2:05 Trot (value $2,620) winning the first heat and coming second in the others, but still pipped for the purse by a gelding called Peter Coley who won two of the three heats. The Lewiston Daily Sun of July 14 records:
“In the first heat, Nedda overtook the field at the quarter post after a bad start and pulled away for a length win…Nedda trotted a great race in the second heat after getting away fully four lengths behind the others at the flag. Peter Coley won by a nose from the fast stepping favourite but Nedda went the fastest mile of the year, separately timed, completing the circuit in 2.023/4. The little mare made the first half in 59 seconds, the fastest half of the year.”
If you think she sounds tough, just wait till you read about her daughter, Nedda Guy, in my next blog!
It is hard to find photos of these historic race horses unless they became sires. I’ve located one of Nedda on the front cover of a USA trotting magazine from the 1930s (appears to be her rather than daughter Nedda Guy) but cannot reproduce it at this stage – will do so later.
I’ll cover Nedda’s breeding record briefly in the next blog, but any photos or other Nedda anecdotes are welcome – searching the web on dial up is a little frustrating (visualise smiley face with gritted teeth..)
A quirky footnote: Also at that same July 1922 meeting in Toledo where Nedda was competing in trotting heats, a pacing event was run over four heats. The third placed horse overall (with a 1st, 9th, 3rd and 3rd) was a black pacing entire called Abbedale, who of course went on to many great things including siring Hale Dale, one of the most important sires in our pacing history. You can never tell how things will turn out!
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