The Little Big Champion
by Lisa Harkema
He was a slight two-year-old who was sold off in the belief that he had no future. However, the 15 hands/152 cm trotter grew to be a spectacular animal with exceptional speed and strength and, most of all, extreme courage and gameness. “Little Lee” would indeed be the biggest, before he tragically died way too soon.
Foaled at the legendary nursery Walnut Hall, Lee Axworthy was one of 45 yearlings sent to the Old Glory sale at Madison Square Garden in November 1912 as part of their consignment, though the colt was actually bred by William Bradley, proprietor of Ardmaer Farms of Raritan, NJ. He was bought by Walter Cox for $510, more than double the auction’s yearling average of $236.
He didn’t own the horse for too long, though. According to well-known journalist Will Gahagan, “Cox gave Lee a record of 2:28 1/4 (1.32,1) the following year, but decided that the son of Guy Axworthy and Gaiety Lee was a ‘lemon’. Before the season was over Cox dealt him to the Pastime Stable and threw in Prince Loree and some cash for a trotted called Sir Thomas Lipton. Walter is regarded as a pretty shrewd horseman, but in this particular case the slim Yankee pulled a real ‘boner’, for Lee Axworthy proved to be the greatest trotting stallion of all time, while Prince Loree, after being matineed a year or so and traded a time or two, turned out to be the leading money-winning aged trotter of the 1918 season which just came to a close, having something like $13,500 to his credit, also a mark of 2:05 1/4 (1.17,8).”