Exterminator: A Wonder Horse

An Account of Our Distance Champion, a Star of Seeming Permanence in the Racing Firmament

O'NEIL SEVIER

WONDER horses are of fairly common recurrence in racing. Regrets, Roamers, Campfires, Hourlesses, Omar Khayyams, Billy Kellys, Eternals, Sir Bartons, Purchases, Grey Lags, etc., are cropping up every season or so to crowd writers of racing hard for fresh superlatives;. Fairly often, two thoroughbred whirlwinds show in a single season and it is necessary toward the end of such to organize special events such as the Hourless—Omar Khayyam and Billy Kelly— Eternal matches of 1917 and 1918 respectively, to determine which is the champion in his class.

At more widely spaced periods great outstanding fellows like Hermis, Sysonby, Colin, Fitz Herbert, Friar Rock, Sir Barton, Purchase and Man o'War appear each to be decorated, for a time at least, with some such grandiose title as "The Horse of the Century." At very remote intervals one of these horses keeps winning long enough, or retires opportunely enough, to have such an appellation stick, as in the case of Man o' War.

But horses like Exterminator, are very rare. That another such has raced within living memory no follower of the doings of the thoroughbreds would risk his reputation by suggesting. Like Banquet a gelding, Exterminator has out Banqueted Banquet. He has made the reputation for iron endurance which gallant old Advance Guard took from racing to useful service in the New York Bureau of Breeding, seem as nothing.

An Amazing Record

AT seven years old, after having won one Kentucky Derby, one Latonia Cup, four Saratoga Cups, three Pimlico Cups, two Autumn Gold Cups, three Toronto Autumn Cups, one Independence handicap, and innumerable races with less high sounding titles and earned a matter of $233,000 for his New York owner— Willis Sharpe Kilmer, of Binghampton, one of the leading producers of thoroughbreds of the Empire State—Exterminator is able to watch with interest two year olds and three year olds, claiming for daddies thoroughbreds he was beating and, being beaten by three, four and five years ago, now winning fame and purses while he still plods on to victory after victory. The career of Exterminator is an American racing epic. His racing glory is the glory of a fixed star, not the ephemeral, meteoric kind of the wonder horse or the horse of the century.

Old Bones and Slim are the affectionate names the racing fraternity call him. Horsemen, whose cracks he is constantly beating and whose betting and purse winning plans he is forever upsetting, have given him the significant name "Poison." He is regarded as an essential element in every distance event that attracts class and, generally, he is expected to win, which he frequently does. That in 1925 stories will be written of Exterminator's deeds in 1923, 1924 and 1925 seems not in the least improbable.

Beginning the current season in April at Havre de Grace, Exterminator astonished racing by defeating a field of the fleetest sprinters then ready for the colors in a renewal of the Harford handicap, a dash of three quarters of a mile. Billy Kelly, sprinter of sprinters, was one of his opponents and the betting favorite, it being assumed that fleet and honest Billy had a lifetime mortgage on the Harford, as Exterminator appeared to have on the Saratoga, Pimlico and Autumn Gold Cups. Billy looked a winner when he turned into the homestretch. He was out in front by a couple of lengths, galloping easily along. But great striding Old Bones, trained for speed, bore down on him in the last quarter and beat him going away.

A little later Exterminator was beaten by the shortest appreciable margin in a renewal of the Philadelphia handicap by Boniface. Beating Boniface by a nose or a head and being beaten by him by a nose or a head appears to be one of Exterminator's specialties. They were, for instance, separated by a head at the finish of the Pimlico Cup renewals of 1920 and 1921. After Boniface had beaten Exterminator, by a head in the Philadelphia handicap renewal the two horses moved over to Baltimore to be separated by a nose at the finish of a renewal of the Pimlico Spring handicap. This time it was Exterminator's muzzle that showed in front. It is a peculiarity of Exterminator that he rarely wins by a wide margin. With him a head or, at the farthest, half a length, suffices. Instinct seems to tell him what he can do and what his opponents can't do. He never seems to care for spreadeagling a field.

Then Exterminator went out to Kentucky, his native state, and, over the Churchill Downs course on which he first acquired fame by winning the Kentucky Derby renewal of 1918, won renewals of the Clark and Kentucky handicaps. In the Kentucky handicap he galloped his mile and a quarter through slow going in 2:04 2/5ths, an amazing performance.

Following this Exterminator came back east to win a couple of overnight races at Belmont Park and then to defeat Grey Lag, in a renewal of the Brooklyn handicap. Slim, saving ground at the turn into the homestretch by skinning the inner rail, while Grey Lag was making a wide circuit around Polly Ann, the early pacemaker, shoved his head in front of Grey Lag's a quarter of a mile from the finish. Once Exterminator's head appears in front of an opponent it stays there. Passing Old Bones in a homestretch drive is a job approaching the impossible.

The only reason Exterminator did not win the last Suburban Handicap renewal at Belmont Park was that he was not eligible to start, because Mr. Kilmer did not enter him. Exterminator had had poor luck in two earlier Suburban renewals. There is a streak of superstitition in all men who race thoroughbreds. Mr. Kilmer grew suspicious of suburban handicap renewals and elected not to risk his gelding in another. In July Exterminator journeyed back to Kentucky to finish unplaced in the Independence handicap. The winner was Firebrand.

Convinced by the failure of Exterminator to keep pace with Firebrand that he had had enough of racing for the time, Mr. Kilmer ordered him to Saratoga for rest. Later he went West, this time to help Windy City sportsmen revive racing, after a lapse of eighteen years. Ten thousand men and women paid proper homage to Poison at the Kilmer stable the Sunday following his arrival. He galloped one mile and a quarter over the rebuilt Hawthorne course in a futile attempt to lower the old track record, futile because the unsettled going was too deep and cuppy.

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A Trip to California

IT is likely that in January or February he will travel to Tijuana, James W. Coffroth's Lower California racing place, just over the Mexican border, where in March the Coffroth handicap will be renewed. The idea of sending Exterminator to the Pacific coast appeals strongly to his owner. Mr. Kilmer wants sport lovers of all parts of the country to see his iron horse in action.

The winner of $58,850 this season and of $233,000 in the course of five and a half years of racing, Exterminator stands second only to Man o'War among American thoroughbred money earners. Man o'War amassed $249,000 in two seasons of racing. But Man o'War had a $25,000 Preakness purse and an $80,000 Kenilworth Park Gold Cup purse to race for, and win, in 1920. The biggest purse Exterminator has ever tried for was the Kentucky Derby purse of 1918, the winner's share of which was $14,700. Colonel Matt. J. Winn, the genius of Kentucky racing, offered $50,000 for a meeting between Man o'War and Exterminator in the autumn of 1920 after Man o'War's victory over Sir Barton at Windsor. The distance of Colonel Winn's race, was to have been one mile and a half or two miles. Mr. Kilmer was wiling, but Samuel D. Riddle, Man o'War's owner, declined to subject his great 3-year old to a gruelling gallop over a distance of ground with America's distance running champion.

Man o'War is the only outstanding crack of his time Exterminator has not conquered. Sir Barton, Purchase, The Porter, Mad Hatter, Sennings Park, Cleopatra as well as Boniface and Grey Lag, have, at one time or another, bowed to his speed. His immediate racing objective is the money earning record of Man o'War. Having been denied a racing chance at Man o'War, Old Bones is shooting at the mark America's Horse of the Century set in the fiscal records of American sport. Exterminator passed Ballot, Kingston, Hanover, Banquet, Miss Woodford, Peter Pan and Raceland last season. His earnings of the current year have moved him up above Domino, Sysonby and Colin. That he will ultimately reach and pass Man o'War's record is reasonably certain. Sound of wind and limb in spite of what he has been through, he looks as good today as he did the day he galloped home in front of Escoba and Viva America through the mud of the Churchill Downs course in May 1918.

Exterminator is a spring horse; also, a fall horse and a summer horse in between. Any trainer can handle him, any jockey ride him. All he asks of trainers is food and plenty of it and systematic exercise. A jockey has only to sit still and let him romp along. He has had half a dozen trainers and he has made them all look good. He has won at Windsor, Toronto, Louisville, Lexington, Hot Springs, Saratoga, Havre de Grace, Pimlico, Laurel and over every course about New York City. Having perfect poise he never permits racing to upset his mental serenity or disturb his digestion. He has never been sick.

Exterminator was bred in Kentucky by Frederick D. Knight. McGee, his sire, a son of White Knight, was an English horse imported to this country some twenty years ago. McGee was a horse of imposing physique, but of only modest pretensions to racing class. In Exterminator he easily "outbred himself." His blood seems destined to exert a strong influence on the American thoroughbred family,

In spite of the McGee blood that is in him, Exterminator is not pur sang in the British General Stud Books acceptance of the term. He traces in the female line to an American origin. He has no "number" in the Bruce Lowe figure system. His family is known as the Maria West family. It is one of the stoutest we have on this side of the Atlantic even if the British will have none of it. It is the family of Ben Brush, founder of one of the two strongest American stallion lines figuring conspicuously in the production of recent splendid material.