The First three-year-old to beat 2:00
by Lisa Harkema
His whole life is spectacular. He was the best trotter in his generation, even though his trainer was skeptical and at 2 felt the horse should be gelded and turned out. His stallion performance was equally fantastic and the events surrounding his death has become the stuff of legends.
Mr McElwyn was bred by William Herbert Lee McCourtie, originally from Michigan but relocated to Dallas, Texas, where he, according to the Wikipedia page W.H.L. McCourtie Estate, “made a fortune in the oil business.” He had one single broodmare, Widow Maggie, who had previously produced Herbelwyn 2:05 3/4 (1.18,2). When the colt was a yearling, McCourtie asked Ben White to train him, and was delighted when the champion trainer said yes. William Henry Gocher, in his book Racealong, tells the story from Ben White’s perspective: “That evening Mr. Ellis and I were sitting in front of my stable at the track when WHL McCourtie drove up in a taxi. He called me aside and asked if I would train a colt for him. I told him that I would be pleased to. He then told me that he had a yearling by Guy Axworthy out at Walnut Hall Farm and that when I got around to it I could telephone them to bring him over to the track, and send him the bill to Dallas. With that he was off but later on he told some of his friends that he was satisfied that if I had asked to see the colt before deciding to train him he thought I would have turned him down.”