Dan Patch and Myron McHenry at Lexington in 1905.

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Myron McHenry and Lotta Crabtree at Lexington.

from Dec 17, 1924 Horse Review; People We Miss by John Hervey

Myron McHenry, whose name has just been mentioned, when he disappeared from the Grand Circuit left another gap that has never been filled and that never can be, and by followers of the sport wonted for many seasons to the thrills that he alone could produce, is still and always will be missed. There was a sense of drama, a tensity in the atmosphere, when McHenry came out for a great race, one particularly upon which a fortune depended in wagers, as was often the case, which resembled the feeling that broods over a battlefield just before the commanders give the order to open fire. Or, again, like that which precedes the breaking of a thunder storm. McHenry was a short and, in the early years of his fame, slight, light man, but for his stature of prodigious strength. He had not the slightest particle of fear of the biggest, stoutest, most obstreperous horse that ever was hooked into a sulky, but dominated them one and all as if by force of some daemonic power.

A thrilling incident of this kind was his handling of the pacer Bonnie Direct 2:051/4 the day he won the former classic Chamber of Commerce event at Detrolt in 1900. There were fifteen starters. As was invariably the rule, an enormous amount of money had been bet on the race. Bonnie Direct was the class of the field but was a very headstrong stallion, self-willed and bad-mannered. He should have won in straight heats, but instead it required six for him to pull off the victory, and I doubt if any other man but McHenry could have won it with him. He was in a tigerish temper all afternoon and acted again and again as if he was on the point of kicking his driver out of the sulky and "stringing things." In the first three heats he finished 9-5-8 and but for the fact that in those days all starters not distanced or drawn staid in to the bitter end, would have finished far down in the summary. When he came out for the fourth heat, Bonnie Direct was acting worse than ever. Those who were watching him held their breath in anticipation of something dire. It came, but was not what they had been fearing. After scoring down a couple of times, and the horse acting like a wild one, McHenry steered him over to the outside of the rail on the lower turn and without a. moment's warning (up to that time he had been all patience with him) the "Man from Freeport" began to rain blows upon the black stallion's satin sides so fast that one could not count them. The pacer was taken so completely by surprise that he appeared dazed. It only lasted a couple of moments. Then with a sharp word of command, "Mac" wheeled the horse up the stretch and rejoined the field, be scored down perfectly, went away like a machine and won the next three heats and the race.

This was only one instance of a myriad that might be related, and no two of them would be alike. Of all great reinsmen, Myron McHenry was the one of most "infinite variety." His mental processes were lightning-like and with him to think was to decide and to act with similar rapidity. Competing drivers used to complain that he had eyes in the back of his head and knew and saw everything that was happening behind as well as in front of him. Though he was active at a time when fields were far larger than at present, I have no recollection of his ever being involved in an accident of any account. In fact, if an accident happened in a race, you could safely wager that he was not in it, seeming to have an uncanny faculty of keeping out of them, though no hole was too small for him to drive into or out of.

What would I not give to again see McHenry drive a great race! But nature, which had endowed him with such superlative abilities as a reinsman, had neglected to blend with them the others necessary to round out such a career as that of a Geers or a Doble. The red hair and square, stern jaw, the glittering eyes and keen, curt speech of the man betokened his own violent, ungovernable temperament. As he grew older, instead of mellowing and steadying, he went the other way, deserting the wife he had worshiped and who worshiped him, alienating one after another of his oldest, closest friends, lashing out vindictively at those who had stood by him the most staunchly, and sinking prematurely into a grave that would to this day be unmarked but for the stone which an admirer of his genius has caused to be erected there.

For all the intensity of my appreciation of his reinsmanship, I never sought or wished any intimacy with McHenry, remaining content to watch and study him, to be an acquaintance of old standing, long familiar, but nothing more. There was little to attach one to the man and I often had occasion to observe the fact that many of his brother drivers seemed almost to fear him-took pains to avoid giving him offense. It was difficult even to jest with him unless very sure of your ground and even then he had to be in a good humor or else you might repent it. On the other hand, if he chose he could be most companionable and he had the manners of a natural gentleman, being at ease in any society, quiet rather than talkative and immediately placing himself upon a plane of equality with persons the most distinguished, not through assurance but the power of his personality and his well-bred self-containedness.