by Charlene Polk, USTA Web Newsroom Senior Correspondent

Charlene Polk

Snow Hill, MD — It may not have been Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with the revolver, but Colonel Mustard has been responsible for knocking off his competition at Dover Downs lately.

Just as Colonel Mustard is one of the prime suspects in the classic game of Clue, Maryland’s Colonel Mustard has become one of the prime suspects for local bettors.

The 4-year old son of Matt’s Scooter-Mustard Hanover has won two of his last three starts at Dover, the first in an impressive 1:52.2 lifetime best and the second in an easy 1:54.

“It think he’s got even more ability than we’ve gotten out of him so far,” trainer George Lee Clayville said. “He’s beautiful on the racetrack.”

Co-owner/trainer George Lee Clayville readies Colonel Mustard for a workout.

While Clayville and partner Billy Laws have owned horses together for nearly a dozen years, Colonel Mustard is the one that has put them on the map. The $7,000 yearling purchase has won eight races with three seconds and ten thirds in his relatively short career of just 40 starts. Although Colonel Mustard hasn’t attracted much notice until recently, Clayville and Laws never had any doubt he’d turn out well.

“We qualified him at Ocean Downs (in 2007) and he did everything we wanted him to do,” Clayville said. “He won the qualifier and since then people have been trying to buy him almost weekly.”

Offers have come from as far as Canada, but Clayville, a farmer, and Laws, a retired state highway employee, have no desire to sell their only racehorse.

“He’s the best horse we ever had,” Laws said.

Clayville added that if they were to sell their horse, they’d just have to pick out another and spend time and money getting it to the races in hopes that it’d be half as good as their current pacer.

“Why not just hold on to what we have,” Clayville said. “We love racing.”

They’re not the only ones. Colonel Mustard himself, while he is quiet and easy to work with at the farm, turns into a different animal when he gets off the trailer at the track.

“He’s not got anything here but the cats,” Clayville said, “so going to the racetrack is like a social event for him. He talks to the other horses and enjoys himself. He’s one of the most recognized horses at Dover because of his personality.”

In spite of his exuberance in the paddock, when Colonel Mustard steps onto the track for the post parade he knows what he is there for.

Although his two latest wins were very impressive, regular driver Corey Callahan says Colonel Mustard has been a good horse all along.

“I’ve just gotten the chance to showcase him more recently,” Callahan said. “He’s one of those horses that’s good on the front end but you can’t always get him there.”

Charlene Polk photos

Co-owner Billy Laws and Colonel Mustard, who has banked $48,812 in his career.

A recent shoeing change has helped a bit with that, as after noticing that Colonel Mustard wore his steel shoes down to nearly nothing after just two races, Clayville decided to try him in aluminums. While he wouldn’t quite call it a miracle cure, it has helped significantly.

“The first start (on Feb. 4) he went out there and just opened up,” Clayville said. “The announcer said Colonel Mustard by two lengths, then five, then nine and 13. He ended up winning by 22 lengths.”

Colonel Mustard’s success is like the cherry on top of Clayville and Laws’ harness racing partnership.

“We’ve been lucky,” Clayville said. “Everything we’ve bought we’ve gotten to the races.”

Of course it’s not as if the two are newcomers to the sport. Clayville has had horses for more than 40 years while Laws has been an owner for more than 30, but both still vividly remember their early Standardbreds.

Laws started with Marsh Blossom, a 1972 daughter of Royal Domain, who achieved what was then a respectable mark of 2:03.1h at the age of seven and surpassed $21,000 in earnings.

Clayville, who was introduced to harness racing through a friend who raced trotters, bought his first horse at a yearling sale in 1968. That was Miss Coppi, the daughter of Jug Chief and Starlite Princess. While she only obtained a record of 2:09.1h and earnings of slightly more than $2,500, she was the horse Clayville sat behind to get his driver’s and trainer’s license, and she went on to become the matriarch of his broodmare band.

“Once I started I couldn’t get away from it,” Clayville said. “When we haven’t got one we feel like we’re in the lurch.”

The demise of racing in Maryland, however, prompted Clayville to scale back his operation dramatically. Nevertheless he and Laws always have a horse or two between them to enjoy in the summers at Ocean Downs and now at Delaware’s racetracks.