The unplanned supermare
by Lisa Harkema
The first dam of three 2:05 trotters, her mating was the result of chance. Even though Nervolo Belle was never even trained, she went on to achieve fame as a broodmare and also produced one of harness racing’s biggest names in Peter Volo.
The story of Nervolo Belle starts in many ways when Grant Lee (“GL”) Knight bought Mambrino Beauty at the first day of the Woodard & Shanklin auction in Lexington, KY, on Jan 9, 1893. A beautiful chestnut mare, Mambrino Beauty was a daughter of Mambrino King and Beulah, the latter often simply referred to as an “Allie West mare” in reference to her sire, a paternal grandson of Alexander’s Abdallah. Mambrino Beauty was unstarted but showed promise as a broodmare as she had already produced pacer HR Hiatt p2:17, by Mohican. In the spring of 1893, Knight bred his mare to Betterton, a son of George Wilkes who stood stud at Ash Grove Farm in Lexington.
His choice of stallion was probably inspired by Mambrino Beauty’s then-two-year-old daughter by Betterton. That filly, Betty King, was bred by ZT Chrisman’s Jessamine Stock Farm, a farm Knight was familiar with. Knight was a banker with the First National Bank and when Chrisman went bankrupt in 1894, Knight’s bank was one of the biggest creditors. Furthermore, at the WR Brasfield auction the previous year in Lexington, on Feb 4, 1892, Knight had bought the broodmare Alpena from the consignment of Jessamine Stock Farm. Another horse in that consignment was Betty King, who was sold to AY Art of Hartford, Iowa, for $525. Although it could have been a coincidence, it seems likely that Knight was well aware of Betty King and that she inspired the choice of Betterton.