by David Mattia, USTA Web Newsroom Senior Correspondent

New Brunswick, NJ — It’s been 15 years since Alf Palema slipped through a hole on the rail and defeated his stablemate King Conch in the 1992 Hambletonian final. King Conch was the much more highly regarded part of the Per Eriksson entry in that race, but somebody forgot to tell that to Alf Palema and his driver, Mickey McNichol. That pair walked off with American harness racing’s Grand Prize, and left a lot of people convincingly surprised — especially Per Eriksson and Mickey McNichol.

We caught up with McNichol as he was making preparations to head to Lexington’s Red Mile where he will be driving in August and September.

Mickey McNichol fondly recalls his 1992 Hambletonian victory with Alf Palema.

“I’m leaving for The Red Mile in a week or two and I’ll be driving there almost exclusively. I had a great season last year at Lexington, but wherever I go to drive, I always think about that day I came up the rail and beat King Conch,” said McNichol. “It was the greatest day I had in the business, and when I crossed the finish line and slowed down into the first turn to come back to the winner’s circle I was in shock. I couldn’t believe it that I’d won.

“Not to take anything away from Alf Palema, but I would have been 99-1 if I wasn’t coupled with King Conch. Per Eriksson asked me the week before if I’d drive him in the Hambletonian, and frankly I think I’d never even heard of the horse prior to that. Maybe I did, but he wasn’t the kind of horse that was on my mind for any reason. Per told me he was a good, strong horse but not Hambletonian material, but with any luck I would have a chance for some money — and look what happened.

“He was absolutely the luckiest horse that day, and in all probability King Conch was the best horse that day,” recalls McNichol. “Through the stretch Sonny Patterson looked pretty comfortable on King Conch but when he drifted off the rail I just pushed my horse through. I never had to do anything but urge him the last 100 yards. I never left the wood from the start. I left but I got away third or so and the rest of the race just came to us. Alf Palema was a good horse, don’t get me wrong, but that day he was as lucky as I was.”

In his poem, Fog, the poet Carl Sandburg wrote, “The fog comes on little cat feet.” In the case of the 1992 Hambletonian, the “fog” was Alf Palema. He is quite likely the only horse to win the Hambletonian barefoot. Perhaps King Conch didn’t even hear him coming, or maybe he was just good at traveling shoeless. McNichol, on the other hand, puts the whole thing in a rather unique and humorous perspective.

“The Eriksson people were so high on King Conch that before we went on the track for the final they never said anything to me — no instructions or anything like that. So I’m scoring down, and I look down and notice that he’s missing a left front shoe. I started to head back to the paddock to get a repair and then I saw that he was missing his right front shoe too. Now, I might miss a horse throwing one front shoe, but there’s no way I’m going to miss one throwing both. Then I figured out he had no shoes on any of his feet. If I had gone back to the paddock I would have looked like a complete idiot, but nobody even bothered to tell me that they’d pulled all the shoes off!”

McNichol continued, “It never entered my mind that I could win that Hambletonian that day. King Conch was so good and there were a few others as well who figured to have a lot better chance than my horse. It was just one of those things that happens and that’s it. I had an infant daughter at the time and if I had even an inkling that I could win I would have been certain to have my wife bring her along, but we decided to keep her home. It would have been nice to have her there to complete the family picture.

“I had luck in 1982 with Jazz Cosmos (he won an elimination and was second in the final), then I won with Alf Palema in 1992, and then I won a heat with Taurus Dream (fifth in the final) in 2002. So, I guess I’m due to pop up in the Hambletonian every ten years.”

While this was said in jest, don’t be surprised to see McNichol win some top notch events at The Red Mile this year, and in 1992, this far from the Hambletonian, he was still without a drive.

USTA/Ed Keys photos

Alf Palema’s Hambletonian victory lifted him to 1992 Trotter of the Year honors.

After the Hambletonian, Alf Palema won the World Trotting Derby with McNichol aboard, and he was voted Trotter of the Year by the U.S. Harness Writers’ Association. He finished up his career with $1,106,842 in the bank and a lifetime mark of 1:54.3. At the time of his Hambletonian win, Karl-Erik Bender and his trainer Per Eriksson owned him. He last raced on September 25, 1992 at Rosecroft Raceway where he made a break and finished third.

Alf Palema was the first and only Hambletonian winner bred by George Alexander, who was a noted breeder of trotters and the owner of the celebrated Chestnut Farm. Sadly, Mr. Alexander did not live to see his Hambletonian victory. Mr. Alexander died in 1988, and the mare Highland Bridget, as part of a dispersal of Alexander’s stock, was sold privately while in foal to Speedy Somolli; carrying the foal that was to become Alf Palema. It would have been a tremendous thrill for Alexander to see the fruits of this breeding especially because he had been a director of the Hambletonian Society and was on its executive committee for many years.

Alf Palema was foaled in Lexington, Kentucky on May 25, 1989. His sire was the outstanding Speedy Somolli, and his dam Highland Bridget was a tough race mare and a daughter of the immortal Super Bowl. Highland Bridget had earned $313,427 in a career that found her winning 19 of 103 starts. As a broodmare she will, of course, always be remembered as the dam of Alf Palema.

Currently Alf Palema is standing very successfully at stud in Sweden, and presently he is the sire of the outstanding and stakes record holding Vala Boko, who is considered by many to be the finest trotting mare in Scandinavia and perhaps all of Europe.

Mickey McNichol offered a postscript to the somewhat curious story about how he and Alf Palema won the 1992 Hambletonian and how he prioritizes it in his life.

“Whenever I’m at The Meadowlands and I’m not in a great mood, I go to the replay center and watch that 1992 Hambo. I look at that and I’m in a good mood,” laughs McNichol. “I remember that a network news guy interviewed me in the winner’s circle and asked me how it felt for a kid from Brooklyn to win the Hambletonian. I told him I was from the Bronx, but it didn’t matter where I was from, the whole thing was a dream come true and, besides the births of my children, it was the greatest day of my life.”

To view a replay of the 1992 Hambletonian, please click on this link. Thanks to Dom Rebelo for providing us with the link to the replay and to Dennis Crane and his Web site www.harnessracing.ws for hosting the video and allowing us access to it.

Editor’s Note: For the most complete Hambletonian coverage on the Web, be sure to visit www.ustrotting.com beginning next Monday and head to our Hambletonian mini-site for all the news and exclusive features pertaining to the sport’s greatest trotting race!