history: names of racehorses

Question
I am looking for a historical listing of race horses.   I have 3 works of art by Henry Stull. The horses names on these pictures are; Ten Broeck, Volunteer and Harold.  All are dated 1880.  Were these real race horses?  Where can I find information about them?  Thank you for your help.  Nancy B

Answer
Nancy -

Sorry to be a few days in responding.  I've now had a chance to look up the horses in your Stull portraits, and here's what I've found out.

In the case of Volunteer, I'm afraid it's nothing.  I've never heard of him, and he doesn't show up in any of my books on racing history.  However, I can tell you that Stull painted portraits of real horses, so Volunteer was almost certainly a real animal.  I just can't tell you anything about him.  You might look up The History of Thoroughbred Racing in America, which I no longer have.  It's a huge book, and possibly would have information about Volunteer.  Sometimes you can find it in used bookstores.

Harold won the 1879 Preakness, and was evidently a pretty high-quality race horse, having been offered at odds of 1-to-6 that day (i.e., you had to bet $6 on him to win $1 - he was a very, very heavy favorite).  He won the race easily, by 3 lengths.  I can't find anything else about him, but he was obviously quite good.

As for Ten Broeck, he's a very famous racehorse, the best horse of his generation in Kentucky and (much to the consternation of the Kentuckians of his era) the loser of one of the greatest races of the 1870s, an 1877 3-horse match race at Pimlico that also included Parole (the longshot and eventual 4-length winner) and 1875 Preakness winner Tom Ochiltree.  Interest in this race was so intense that Congress shut down for the day so that the Senators and Congressmen could travel to Pimlico for the event.

I hope this helps, and wish you good luck in finding information about Volunteer.

- Mark Shrager