When I go to estate sales, visit used bookstores, and stop by my local Little Free Library, I am always on the lookout for old horse books. They underscore the importance of the horse in years past, and sometimes they give us clues about the people who used to own the books themselves.
Such is the case of a very old horse book I found at an estate sale in Monrovia a couple of weekends ago. The house had been owned by Steve Baker, who had been the city's historian for many years before. The book was published in England, but it has a specific Southern California connection that is a bit of a mystery.
The book is called Secrets of the Turf, Etc. It is a hardbound copy of four separate books, three written by Bracebridge Hemyng and one by an author with the pen name "Hawks-Eye." The Northern Illinois University Libraries website tells me that Samuel Bracebridge Hemyng was best known as an author of "bloods," also known as "dime novels," during the late Victorian era. Obviously, he also wrote horse stories. I haven't been able to find the true identity of the other author who called themselves "Hawks-Eye."
The first book inside the bound volume is called Secrets of the Turf.
The second is Out of the Ring, or Scenes of Sporting Life.
The third, Turf Notes.
And the fourth is The Favorite Scratched; or The Spider and the Fly. The three short books written by Hemyng were part of the "Clarke's Popular Railway Reading" series. My guess is that these smaller, easy-to-carry volumes were marketed to people who could read them while riding the train, much as we look at our cell phones to kill time while riding on mass transit.
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In tiny letters on the upper left side of the inside cover the words "BOUND BY POTTER & SONS, YORK" are printed. That company compiled the four publications under one cover.
All of this is interesting, but it's a printed label in the inside front cover of the book that really piqued my curiosity. This bookplate identifies this copy of Secrets of the Turf, Etc. as being part of the Kent Cochran Collection, purchased by the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association and presented to the California Thoroughbred Breeders Foundation on October 5, 1959. Cochran's collection of more than 4,000 titles was a bedrock of the CTBA's Carleton F. Burke Library, housed for decades in a building near Santa Anita racetrack. Burke was the first chairman of the California Horse Racing Board, director of racing at Santa Anita, and a secretary-treasurer of the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association. He died in 1962, and the following year the library was named for him in recognition of his contributions to racing.
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Cochran wrote for the Racing Form for several decades. His October 1980 obituary in the Sacramento Bee newspaper called him a "turf historian and bon vivant" who had passed away in San Mateo one day ahead of his 92nd birthday.
I found this article in the Monrovia News-Post, dated 18 February 1965, about the 4,000 volume-Kent Cochran Library being part of the CTBA collection.
It reads, in part: A magnificent library, perhaps one of the most complete, on the Thoroughbred, is the heart of the building.... The Kent Cochran Library of 4,000 volumes was acquired by the CTBA Foundation and was the basis for the collection.
Finding this little volume with a bookplate identifying it as part of the Cochran collection was particularly interesting to me, because earlier this year it was announced that the Burke Library would be donated to nearby Cal Poly Pomona, home of the W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library. The news release from Cal Poly Pomona rightly called the Burke Library a "treasure trove:"
University officials said they were delighted that Cal Poly Pomona would serve as the collection’s new home. The extensive materials will broaden the scope of the library’s existing Arabian horse collections to cover more equine history about the region and California.
“Cal Poly Pomona’s legacy in agricultural and equine education and scholarship represents a core component of who we are as an institution,” said Cal Poly Pomona President Soraya M. Coley. “Without a doubt, this unique collection will add immensely to the already tremendous research and scholarly resources available at the University Library.”
The California Thoroughbred Foundation news release summarized the reason this is such good news to equine history researchers and the general public, and provides some background information:
This will benefit anyone interested in publications about horses, whether for serious study or just pleasure reading.
Yet this small book somehow escaped the CTBA collection years ago, and found its way to me. Its handsome binding is in relatively good condition, considering its age.
In years past, someone taped a call number to the lower part of the book's spine.
How Secrets of the Turf, Etc. made it to an estate sale in Monrovia, may always be a secret -- we'll probably never know. Perhaps many years ago someone borrowed it and never returned it; perhaps it was deaccessioned by the Burke Library for some reason, and was sold to a member of the public.
Beyond the obvious connections of equine history research and the organizations' proximity, the CTBA and Cal Poly Pomona have several other "dotted line" connections. I can think of three, offhand:
1) Carleton F. Burke served as a member of the Arabian Horse Advisory Committee at Cal Poly Pomona during the 1950s.
2) During and shortly after World War II, Colonel F. W. Koester served as the commanding officer of the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps (Remount) Depot in Pomona, located on the property that had been the W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Ranch and is now Cal Poly Pomona. After the war, Col. Koester served as the general manager and field representative of the CTBA and editor of its The Thoroughbred of California magazine.
3) In the mid-1960s, The Thoroughbred of California published a series of articles on horse conformation and history by Gladys Brown Edwards, whose papers are held by the W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library. The articles are illustrated with photographs and GBE's drawings.
And I'm sure there are more connections between the two institutions. The transfer of the Burke Library to CPP really is a match made in heaven, for so many reasons; it will indeed be a "treasure trove" once researchers and other members of the public are able to explore it.
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Here's a link to more information on Bracebridge Hemyng:
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