Focus on History: Kentucky Derby winners with Amsterdam ties – The Daily Gazette

Two completely different Amsterdam industrialists owned Kentucky Derby winners. The horses have been named George Smith and Clyde Van Dusen. 

George Smith was named for widespread gambler and racing handicapper George Elsworth Smith, who died in 1905 from tuberculosis

John Sanford of Amsterdam had not bred the Kentucky Derby winner however bought the horse in 1915. 

The Sanfords operated one in all Amsterdam’s largest carpet-making factories.  John Sanford’s father Stephen made a fortune together with his mills and based the household’s horse farm.  A company known as Buddies of the Sanford Stud Farm is working to protect buildings remaining from the as soon as large unfold on Route 30.  The placement within the city of Amsterdam is a regional buying mecca right now.

George Smith’s coach, Hollie Hughes, was serving within the U.S. Military when the horse gained the 1916 Derby.  Hughes was chief coach for the Sanfords for a few years and has been inducted into the Nationwide Racing Corridor of Fame.

Within the Derby, George Smith, with jockey Johnny Loftus within the saddle, gained by a neck over Star Hawk on a transparent day.  George Smith later was used for stud at Sanford’s farm, producing no well-known offspring.  Sanford donated the horse to the Jockey Membership’s Breeding Bureau in 1926 and he finally ended up siring horses for the U.S. Military.

Years later Hughes discovered a horse named Snob that he thought would even have an opportunity within the Derby.  John Sanford was not saying, “I gained one Kentucky Derby. I’ve no want to win one other.”

CLYDE VAN DUSEN

The 1929 Kentucky Derby winner was a gelding named Clyde Van Dusen, the primary male offspring of Man of Conflict.  With Linus “Pony” McAtee within the saddle, Clyde Van Dusen beat 20 different horses on a muddy observe. The following gelding to win the Derby was Saratoga’s Humorous Cide in 2003.

Amsterdam broom mill proprietor Herbert Gardner owned the Kentucky-bred Clyde Van Dusen.  Gardner lived at 301 Man Park Avenue and had a horse observe and farm off Golf Course Highway within the city of Amsterdam, behind the present location of a Fort Johnson fireplace station.

Brothers William and Herbert Gardner operated their broom manufacturing unit on Chuctanunda Hill, a road working from Church to Grove streets on the east facet of the Chuctanunda Creek.

The horse was named for his Kentucky coach, Clyde Van Dusen. The animal spent his later years as an train horse for his human namesake who went on to be a horse coach in California.

Van Dusen, a former jockey, stated, “Clyde is a bit horse, and that’s the reason Mr. Gardner named him after me.”

No trophy was awarded in 1916 for George Smith’s Derby victory.  Trophies first appeared within the 1922 Derby and the primary Derby Gold Cup, as it’s known as, was offered in 1924 to Rosa Hoots, proprietor of Black Gold.

Presumably the 1929 Derby gold cup was offered to the proprietor of the winner, Herbert Gardner.

In 2008 curator Jay Ferguson from the Kentucky Derby Museum made numerous unsuccessful inquiries in an effort to find the trophy awarded Herbert Gardner for Clyde Van Dusen in 1929.

Ferguson informed The Every day Gazette in 2008 that he believes Herbert Gardner had monetary reverses and the trophy ended up together with his brother William, who was mayor of Amsterdam in two non-consecutive phrases.  Ferguson thought the trophy might have been handed on to William Gardner’s heirs.

When requested concerning the location of Clyde Van Dusen’s trophy, museum director of communications Rachel Collier stated this month, “Sure, so far as we all know, the trophy in query remains to be unaccounted for.”

Classes: Information