Researched, authored and posted October 24, 2014 by author Patricia Nell Warren
MORE ON REGENT: When this young Thoroughbred stallion arrived at the Grant-Kohrs Ranch in 1878, his first job was to sire a bunch of new cow-horses, produced from selected Indian-bred mares. Kohrs and his business partner, brother John Bielenberg, apparently liked the toughness and staying power that Regent’s sire, Bonnie Scotland, was known for.
These crossbred horses made open-range ranching possible with their endurance and ability to lope 20 miles at a go. They came to be known as "Big Circle horses," after the roundup practice of sending out a team of cowboys to lope around a different area every day and bring in whatever cattle they found there. The biggest compliment on a horse was to say that he "could make the big circle."
Until well into the 19th century, American horse racing followed the custom of English racing, where mature horses had to win several mile heats in order to be considered the winner of an event. So old-time Thoroughbreds had to be "stayers" over long distance. It made them a shoo-in as cow ponies. Kohrs & Bielenberg sold any surplus crossbreds to other range-cattle outfits.
A year or so later, Kohrs and Bielenberg finally acquired a few Thoroughbred mares. Among them was Miss Ella, who had a distinguished pedigree and appears in the 1883 Grant-Kohrs illustration in Leeson’s “History of Montana.”
Kohrs & Bielenberg then proceeded to make some extra money by breeding and selling straight-bred Thoroughbreds into the racing fancy that was overtaking the West. Often the two men kept a nice filly by Regent, and put her into their growing herd of broodmares. According to American Studbook records, their usual practice was to breed these Regent daughters to another stallion, the Virginia-bred Eolian, winner of the 1886 Woodlawn Handicap. This reliance on a favorite cross was what old-time horsemen used to call a “good nick.”
Sometimes Kohrs & Bielenberg wound up with a cow horse that was 7/8 Thoroughbred.
Regent also appears in the Leeson "History" illustration. He’s described as a chestnut, and is mentioned in Bonnie Scotland’s writeup in “Thoroughbred Heritage” online. At the time, Bonnie Scotland was the U.S. leading racehorse sire.
http://www.tbheritage.com/Portraits/BonnieScotland.html
(1910 photo of Grant-Kohrs cowboys and part-Thoroughbred horses from GRKO collection)
Researched, authored and posted April 30, 2015 by author Patricia Nell Warren
GIRL POWER. With fillies running the Oaks tomorrow, it's a good moment to look at female Thoroughbred history at the Grant-Kohrs Ranch. Top brood mare was probably Miss Ella, whose picture appears in Leeson's "History of Montana." Sired by stakeswinner Enquirer, out of Metella by imp. Australian, the chestnut Miss Ella arrived at the ranch in the early 1800s and was a steady producer till 1894.
In 1885, bred to Regent, the ranch’s top sire, Miss Ella foaled a filly. Named Nevada 2nd, the filly was sold and went on to race successfully under the colors of Helena businessman Hugh Kirkendall. While she never campaigned on the national circuit, she apparently raced all over the Northwest and California. In 1889 the Breeder & Sportsman reported on the 4-year-old Nevada at the Deer Lodge meet, where she went off the favorite and destroyed the field, winning "in a gallop."
Nevada was the object of particular pride to John Bielenberg, who kept this oil portrait of her hanging in his bedroom at the ranch. Four white socks were supposedly bad luck in Thoroughbreds, but not for this doughty girl. Nevada 2nd and Miss Ella are both listed in the 1898 American Stud Book of the Jockey Club.
Breeder & Sportsman writeup on the 1889 Deer Lodge meet, mentioning John and Nick Bielenberg, at:
http://www.mocavo.com/Breeder-and-Sportsman-July-Dec-1889-Volume-15/730223/150
(Photo of Nevada 2nd portrait from Grant-Kohrs Ranch NHS archives)
Researched, authored and posted March 15, 2015 by author Patricia Nell Warren
MYSTERY RACEHORSE. As horse lovers wonder if American Pharoah will win the Preakness tomorrow, I am wondering what happened to a racing stallion at the Grant-Kohrs Ranch. In Iowa in 1878, Conrad Kohrs purchased two stallions he called "thoroughbreds," namely Regent and Strideaway, and they traveled out to the ranch. Regent arrived being led by a man on horseback, but Strideaway came over the mountains pulling a light sulky wagon, so I surmise he was a harness racer.
Regent went on to leave a paper trail in 19th-century race reports and Thoroughbred studbook records. We know his pedigree and racing record. We know most of the mares he was bred to, and many of his offspring, recorded as bred by Kohrs & Bielenberg, that went on to race for other owners.
But Strideaway is a mystery. He has left no paper trail in the sport of racing that I’ve been able to find – so far.
John Bielenberg, especially, loved trotters and had already owned one named Sorrel George. In 1868 he entered this horse at the Helena state fair. The horse bolted and lost the race. When Strideaway arrived at the ranch, Uncle Johnny probably hoped to do better by breeding his own harness racers.
Trotters and pacers had been emerging out of the American Thoroughbred gene pool since post-Revolution times. Breeders noticed that all of them traced back to a stallion named Messenger, imported from England in 1788. Messenger was prepotent for passing on the genes for a fast slashing trot or pace. So was his sire, a British stallion named Mambrino. By the mid-19th century, these trotting and pacing descendants of Messenger/Mambrino were slowly being gathered into their own U.S. studbook and called Standardbreds. They had to qualify for the breed label by a performance standard -- going a mile in 2 minutes 30 seconds or better.
We know Strideaway was at the ranch for a while. Portrayed as a dark-colored horse, he appears in the Grant-Kohrs illustration in Leeson’s 1885 “History of Montana,” along with several other stallions standing at the ranch. Today a training sulky belonging to John Bielenberg can still be seen in the ranch’s vehicle collection. But…what happened to Strideaway, who may have pulled it? Who bred him? Did he race? Who were his offspring?
I’ve been poring over the archives of 19th-century American racing, which are quite copious. Strideaway was a popular name with Victorian breeders, so the pedigrees of several turn up. One was a Thoroughbred flat racer, but he was foaled too late in the 1800s to be the Grant-Kohrs horse.
So far, the only Strideaway that fits into the Grant-Kohrs timeline is Strideaway Jr., a black horse foaled in New Jersey in 1869. He was sired by Strideaway, a noted trotter who died in 1874 while training for a big stallion race in Boston. Jr.’s dam was the Thomas Smith Brown Mare, daughter of the great trotter Henry Clay. Jr. had half a dozen trotting and pacing offspring of his own, including a colt named Harry Strideaway, that recorded fast public times in the early 1880s.
The name “Strideaway” became a sire-line epithet that went for several generations, as often was done with different strains of trotters. But this little Strideaway family was not included in either the Thoroughbred or Standardbreed studbooks. They’re only listed in the Morgan Horse registries put together by Joseph Battell in 1894 and 1913.
Like the trotters descended from Mambrino/Messenger, the Morgan breed also emerged out of the Thoroughbred gene pool through a famous foundation sire named Justin Morgan. This iconic horse, who lived in New England during the colonial era, was said to have been sired by an English Thoroughbred captured from a British army officer. Good trotters were also found among Morgans, though where in their ancestry the trotting gene comes from is not clear, since Justin Morgan was not a Messenger descendant.
Strideaway Jr. has an interesting pedigree – a savory brew of outstanding Thoroughbred, Standardbred and Morgan ancestors. He was a greatgrandson of the famous Black Hawk, an influential grandson of Justin Morgan. He also had four different doses of trotting founders Mambrino and Messenger, so he was definitely line-bred to trot. Surely he could have delivered the goods for John Bielenberg.
But…was this actually the horse that Kohrs & Bielenberg owned? Strideaway Jr.’s paper trail, so far, does not mention Kohrs & Bielenberg ownership. From 1886 on, his records showed east-coast owners.
So the search goes on. The importance of the “family name” may be a clue. Maybe some page buried in Google somewhere will reveal that the Grant-Kohrs Strideaway was another offspring of that Strideaway who died so tragically in 1874.
Researched, authored and posted October 29, 2015 by author Patricia Nell Warren
With the Breeders Cup starting tomorrow at Keeneland, it's a good moment to note the Grant-Kohrs Ranch's history as Thoroughbred breeders. Kohrs & Bielenberg were not ambitious to put their colors on the track at national levels, though they did race locally and regionally. They sold their best young racehorses at their annual horse auction, and let the new owners foot the expenses and anxieties of the turf. Among their best was Ben Kingsbury, son of Regent and Miss Ella, owned by man of the same name. Ben Kingsbury ran 3rd in the 1890 American Derby, one of America's richest races in those days. This horse's oil portrait still hangs in the ranch house today. Other winners bred by Kohrs & Bielenberg included the mare Nevada II, who raced for Helena freighter Hugh Kirkendall.
(National Park Service photo)
Originally researched, authored and posted by Patricia Nell Warren on February 18, 2016.
Now and then, I dredge through online archives of 19th-century racing and breeding publications to see what new information on the Kohrs-Bielenberg horse operation can be turned up. Breeder and Sportsman, a California turf newspaper, paid close attention to the Montana circuit. The paper often mentioned John Bielenberg, who had taken personal charge of the ranch's horse operation. Yesterday I hit pay dirt in several items relating to the Grant-Kohrs Ranch's battery of stallions.
In a July 1898 issue, Breeder and Sportsman reported: "John Bielenberg has a new stallion at the head of his thoroughbred farm at Deer Lodge, Montana. It is a handsome four-year-old colt by Favordale. The colt is at present called Favordale Jr., but would have been named Admiral Dewey only some one else got in ahead of Mr. Bielenberg. Eolian, the predecessor of Favordale Jr., is dead."
As time passed, the faces of equine breeding stock at the ranch were changing. By 1898, Regent, the original leading turf sire at the ranch, had passed on as well, at age 27. However, Miss Ella, one of the original Thoroughbred brood mares (she was pictured in Leeson's 1885 "History of Montana") was still going strong into the early 1900s.
Yesterday I also found an 1883 source (in ChroniclingAmerica.com) which reported on Kohrs-Bielenberg advertising of stallion services, and also provided a clue about the background of the mystery stallion Strideaway. This horse had been purchased in Iowa in 1878 along with Regent and was described by Conrad Kohrs as a "thoroughbred." This source indicates that Kohrs & Bielenberg advertised Strideaway as a "coach stallion." In those days, this label would not be inconsistent with Thoroughbred ancestry, since Mambrino, ancestor of today's Standardbred trotters and pacers, was a British flat-racing champion who also founded a British strain of light-harness horses desirable for driving. The fact that Kohrs & Bielenberg described Strideaway as a "coach stallion" suggests that they were hoping this horse would help boost the availability of quality driving horses in Montana.
I have yet to unearth the actual pedigree of Strideaway, but stay hopeful.
This 1883 source also mentions the two Canadian-bred Clydesdale stallions, Glancer and Clyde of Brent, that Kohrs had purchased in 1878 while on a trip to Canada. They were now available for public service at the Nevada Creek ranch of A. Hoephner, a partner with Kohrs in this Clydesdale venture.
From this ChroniclingAmerica source, I also gleaned the interesting tidbit that Kohrs & Bielenberg's dapple-grey Percheron stallion Figaro had previously belonged to Deer Lodge stockman John Pemberton. Figaro (who would appear in the 1885 Kohrs illustration in "History of Montana") was advertised as standing for the 1883 season (April 15-July 15) at the ranch.
All in all, the Grant-Kohrs ranch of the late 1800s must have been a busy place, with daily management of so many stallions. Each had his own quarters and was earning his keep at $15 to $20 per service. In addition, there was the care of mares sent there to be bred, to which Kohrs & Bielenberg guaranteed: "All mares left In our charge will receive the same care and attention as our own."
(Photo of Breeder & Sportsman cover from Wikipedia Commons)