The Horse who wasn’t allowed to Time Trial
by Lisa Harkema
Having won the Hambletonian twice, in 1930 with Hanover’s Bertha and 1937 with Shirley Hanover, the Hanover Shoe Farms’ Lawrence Sheppard had no obvious Hambletonian candidate in 1938. However, he got the success he wanted when he bought the winner shortly before the big race. McLin Hanover turned out to be a spectacular trotter – in fact so good he had to leave the continent.
Two weeks prior to the Hambletonian, Lawrence Sheppard’s best three-year-old was the Calumet Chuck-son Henry Boyd Hanover. He was, however, a bad-tempered and unpredictable trotter who, at best, was a real longshot in the big race. Sheppard wanted a “real” candidate and forked out $20,000 for the talented but inconsistent McLin on August 1, with the promise of another $5,000 if the colt won the Hambletonian.
After the purchase the horse was transferred from Walter Cox to Henry Thomas, but the latter had just nine days to prepare McLin for the Hambletonian. At 2, McLin had finished last in five races and his fastest mile was 2:13 1/2 (1.23,0), making him an unlikely future Hambletonian contender at the time. Wild breaks were to blame, but as the colt had demonstrated extreme speed he had been kept eligible in the big stakes. The following summer McLin started to show a lot of promise. In an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer on Jul 20, 1938, about the upcoming Hambletonian Stakes it said “a real outsider that many horsemen are seriously considering is McLin from the Good Time Stable, owned by WH Cane, promoter of the race. The son of Mr McElwyn – Ethelinda has yet to race, but he recently worked a mile in 2:04 1/2 (1.17,4) and that’s fast time for any horse trained by Walter Cox.” Just four days prior to the purchase, McLin had underlined his promise by winning a heat of the American Stake at Agawam, MA, but it was at the same time quite clear the antics from his two-year-season was still there as he made breaks in the other heats, including another heat when he went offstride looking like a sure winner with one-eighth to go.