Benjamin Franklin White

Background

Benjamin Franklin White was born on Feburary 3, 1873 in Whitevale, Ontario, Canada. His father was a miller.

Career

White drove his first race at Markham, Ontario, in 1888. Five years later he began working as a groom at Cicero J. Hamlin's Village Farm at East Aurora, N. Y. , near Buffalo. Hamlin's breeding farm dominated the Grand Circuit of harness racing during the late 1890's and early 1900's. White worked under the legendary trainer Edward ("Pop") Geers, the "Silent Man from Tennessee, " eventually becoming Geers's first assistant. He became head trainer at Village Farm in 1903, when Geers resigned to return to Tennessee, and he raced the Village Farm stable in its final racing season. In 1905 the horses at Village Farm were sold because of the ill health of Hamlin, who died that year. Seymour Knox, the wealthy gelatin manufacturer, purchased many of Hamlin's horses and hired White as trainer. White remained with Knox until his death in 1915. In 1915 White was hired by the Pasttime Stable to replace Billy Andrews as head trainer. While at Pasttime he drove Volga to victory in the Junior Horse Review Futurity, the Horseman Futurity, the Junior Kentucky Futurity, the Champion Stallion Stake, the Horse Review, and the Kentucky Futurity (1916). He broke the two-minute barrier for the mile with Lee Axworthy on September 15, 1916, and drove him to the trotting stallion title. Within a few years Pasttime Stable was dissolved, but White continued to train for Frank Ellis, one of the former owners. In 1920 he trained during the winter in Orlando, Fla. , and was instrumental in developing Orlando into an important winter training ground for harness racing. The city-owned track was later named the Ben White Raceway. During the 1920's and 1930's, White was to harness racing and training what Babe Ruth was to baseball, Red Grange to football, and Jack Dempsey to boxing. Among the trotters he developed and rode in the 1920's were Lee Worthy, Lee Axworthy, Volga E, Alma Lee, and Ruth M. Chenault. He drove Mr. McElwyn, Sumatra, and Main McElwyn to world records during the 1920's, and he developed and trained Iosola's Worthy, winner of both the Hambletonian and the Kentucky Futurity of 1927. White drove in his first Hambletonian in 1926, coming in third with Charm. White had given the horse as a yearling to his ill son, Gibson, in the hope that this would restore the boy's health. White had bred her and trained her, and in 1936 he drove her to seven victories and one second place in her eight starts, including victories in the Kentucky Futurity and the Hambletonian. In 1939 Rosalind won the Transylvania, one of the three major harness races along with the Hambletonian and the Kentucky Futurity. During five years of competition, she was the all-time champion trotting mare, winning twenty-four of thirty-six races and establishing seven world records, including a 1:56. 75 mile. White won his last Kentucky Futurity in 1937 with Twilight Song, defeating the supposedly invincible Dean Hanover. He won his third Hambletonian with The Ambassador in a startling upset in 1942. The Ambassador's first victory, it was at the longest odds until then in Hambletonian history. The greatest colt White ever drove was Volo Song, which never lost on a mile track. White drove him to victory in 1942 in the Junior Kentucky Futurity and, the next year, to victories in the Review Futurity, the Matron, and the Hambletonian. White's last Hambletonian was in 1949, when he drove William Wells. He trained and drove more winners of major harness races than anyone else in history. During his career White drove in nineteen Hambletonians, winning four; he also won seven Kentucky Futurities, six Matron Stakes, and four Review Futurities. His success earned him the title "Dean of Colt Trainers. " White was not a spectacular and flamboyant driver. He rarely used the whip and hardly ever took extravagant chances. Instead, he relied on a masterful judgment of pace, an incisive knowledge of his horse, and an acute perception of the location of the other horses in the race. One of his major influences was in turning the emphasis in harness racing toward speed among the two- and three-year-old trotters. White spent the last years of his life in Orlando, operating a training stable with his son, who had become a driver and a trainer. Together they developed True Boy and Madison Hanover. Although in failing health late in his life, White remained active in the sport virtually to the end. He died in Orlando, Fla.

Achievements

• He trained during the winter in Orlando, Fla. , and was instrumental in developing Orlando into an important winter training ground for harness racing. In 1933 White won his first Hambletonian at Goshen, N. Y. , with Mary Reynolds. That same year he also won the Kentucky Futurity with Meda. The most memorable years in White's career were 1935-1939, when he was associated with the bay filly Rosalind.