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Accepting the $21,000 first-place money, Peter Astra's owner, Dr. Lowry Miller Guilinger, a 70year-old horse-&-buggy doctor from the Ohio sticks, announced that he had just refused a foreign-syndicate offer of $37,500 for the bay colt he had bought as a yearling for $3,250. Outstanding two-year-old of 1938, Little Pete, who wears his forelock ribbon-braided like a pickaninny's, has been undefeated in five races this year (he has not lost a heat or once broken his stride, even in scoring). Winner of $47,000 so far this year, and entered in six more rich stakes, he may well become the biggest money-winning three-year-old of all time before the season ends in September.
Chiefly responsible for Peter Astra's superiority is his trainer-driver, sandy-haired, peppery, 40-year-old Hugh Maynard Parshall, called Doc because he has a D. V. M. from a veterinary college. Winning "hoss" races is nothing new to Doc Parshall. A comparative youngster at a job where 20 years' experience is a major requirement, he has been the No. 1 U. S. harness-racing driver for eleven of the past twelve years, has won 763 first places since 1925 (including the Hambletonian twice), has never raced without a kitchen match in his mouth.
Like most of his big-time colleagues, Doc Parshall operates a public training stable, takes on horses at $100 a month (this year he has 28). Unlike jockeys in Thoroughbred racing, Standardbred drivers have their own racing colors. Doc Parshall's red-white-&-blue silks were handed down to him by an early-Century driver named Tom Murphy. Harness-racing drivers need never worry about weight. Doc Parshall may go on driving for decades—like the late great Pop Geers who raced for 50 years —may have many more champions like Peter Astra.
*The Standardbred, result of cross-breeding of Thoroughbred stallions and rugged Cannuck mares, was developed to answer the late-18th Century demand for a "fast-walking" horse to pull the rich man's buggy. A pacer moves both right legs and both left legs in unison. A trotter moves its right front leg and left hind leg in unison. Of the 10,000 Standardbred racers on U. S. tracks, 70% are trotters, 30% pacers.
*Unlike Thoroughbred races, a Standardbred race is three heats of a mile each (with intervals of 20 minutes between each heat).