

She got the job done and did it quickly.”Īt a mile and a quarter, the Delaware Handicap was a question mark for the filly who had had most of her success at sprinting distances to that point. After the race, her jockey Orvie Scurlock expressed his enthusiasm for his Haskell filly: “I have been very high on this filly right along. The race also featured High Voltage, the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes and Coaching Club American Oaks winner of the previous year, and Gandharva, who had beaten Blue Sparkler in the Betsy Ross Stakes.ĭespite the salty opposition, Blue Sparkler won the Regret in record time, sprinting the six furlongs in 1:09 1/5. Ahead in the new year were more chances to wow mid-Atlantic crowds, with races like the Regret and Atlantic City Handicaps ahead of her.Īfter winning her first start of the year, an allowance race at Garden State, she returned to her owner’s Monmouth Park to compete in the six-furlong Regret Handicap, named for the famed New Jersey-bred filly who became the first distaffer to win the Kentucky Derby, in 1915. By this point in her career, the daughter of Knave High and Blue Tiara had more than outrun her pedigree to some extent, winning in her division as well as in open company and logging almost as many wins as her parents had had starts.īut even Wells probably didn’t realize just how banner a year she would have. Read more here!įor Blue Sparkler, 1956 “should be a banner year for this game, four-year-old stake contender,” according to trainer Harry Wells as he prepared her for the campaign ahead. And run she did.īackTracks includes stories about Concern, trainer Elliott Burch, Susan’s Girl, and many others. Grier, Upset, Mad Hatter, and Celt in her pedigree, giving Blue Sparkler a stellar pool of genes to run on in her days on the racetrack. Neither her sire nor dam had made much of a mark on the racetrack – between them they had eight starts and zero wins – but her grandsire Jack High had won the Metropolitan Handicap as well as the Hopeful, Tremont, and Flash Stakes. In 1951, Haskell paired his homebred sire Knave High with another homebred, Blue Tiara, and produced a lovely chestnut filly he named Blue Sparkler. Woodland also was home to Haskell’s own Thoroughbred operations, where he bred horses to race at many mid-Atlantic tracks. There, he was able to host an annual hunt, where up to 300 guests would enjoy champagne and elegant dining while watching fox hunting and horse races.
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His family’s wealth plus his own business acumen gave Haskell the means to purchase his own farm, Woodland Farm in Red Bank, New Jersey. After serving in World War I, Haskell returned home to serve as vice-president and general manager of General Motors and then later started his own company, Triplex Safety Glass Company. Haskell’s early life was spent in the company of horses by the age of seven, he was jumping over hurdles and nursing an interest in hunters.

The son of Jonathan Amory Haskell, who served as a vice-president of both General Motors and duPont, Amory L.
