Handbook N-P - Fulton County Public Library

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completing her chain of life under Mr. Powell’s tutorship by passing through the auctions for more
money than the corn on one of the Powell farms would bring in the open market.
Top Pacer Injured
“Just before the meeting over The Historic, half-mile track at Goshen, N.Y. opened last
June, Mr. Powell came east with a filly of his own breeding and training named Miss Almeda by
Preakness 2:07, son of Mr. McElwyn 1:59 1/4 - her dam was Guyetta by Arion Guy 1:59 1/2,
modern breeding as compared with Maud by Indiana Dan Patch, or Dora D by Rain Drop, but as
fast in her training as some of the sensational pacershe made at his Indiana Speed Foundry. He
had worked Miss Almeda over the farm track early in June, a mile in 2:12, half in 1:02 1/4, quarter
in 30 seconds, unbelievably fast if you did not know O.M. Powell, whose word is good any place
he ever set his foot down.
“Mr. Powell said when he reached Goshen that Miss Aomeda was the fastest colt he had
ever raised.
“Unfortunately his luck in bringing sensational great ones to a track to market them,
failed him last spring, as after a mean ship by express in an unseaworthy crate, Miss Almeda
awoke with a nasty splint which prevented her Indiana owner training orracingt her a single time.
“Miss Almeda was on the road to fame for the Pacing Farme when splints stopped her
training last summer. There isn’t much style, or dog, put on around the Powell stable, but there
are two truths about this plain Indiana farmer horseman, the first, that for number of colts bred he
has raised and sold more speed than any man in the United States. The second truth is that O. M.
Powell of Rochester, Ind. can make race horses and stick as firmly to the truth about them as any
living man.”
[The News-Sentinel, Monday, November 16, 1942]
IN THE SPORT OF HARNESS RACING,
O. M. POWELL WAS A MASTER
Considered Comment
Jack K. Overmyer
Together we now shall revive and burnish the memory of O.M. Powell, for he is among
the best and the brightest of those Fulton County citizens who have gained national recognition
and ultimate fame.
For 58 years Powell bred and trained harness horses at his county line farm on the Green
Oak road. now 400S. He raced them yearly at countless fairgrounds tracks and on the Grand
Circuit of harness racing at major fairs east of the Mississippi River, often in the driver's sulky
himself.
The results were astonishing: Powell's horses established six world's records, won
countless first places in other races and earned for their owner universal respect for his breeding
and racing capabilities. Not until the year before his death in 1952 did he yield to age (86) and
health and give up his racehorse obsession.
O.M.'s horses were pacers, a racing gait in which both legs on one side of the horse hit
the ground at the same time. There also are trotters. whose diagonal legs strike at the same time.
Harness races are run by Standardbreds, so-called because all speed records are based on a
“standard" distance: one mile.
Powell was born in Miami County in 1865 and named for Indiana's Civil War governor,
Oliver Morton. His father, William, arrived in the Macy area as a child in 1846 and eventually
sired 12 children with wife Sarah Biddle. The Powell name has been a familiar honored one
around here ever since.
O. M. began racing in 1893, when at the age of 28 he drove Florie Woodburn to victory
at 2:19 for the mile at the Lincoln fairgrounds track west of Macy. With that triumph Powell was
hooked on a harness, so to speak, and dedicated the rest of his life to the breeding, training, racing
and selling of Standardbreds.
He became such a familiar figure on the harness race circuit that he was called “The
Pacing Farmer." Yet farming as an occupation he mostly hired others to do while he pursued his