Fryeburg, ME – Here’s the inside story of a mad dash against the clock 51 years ago at the Fryeburg Fair in Maine – and how a great pacer saved the day for his young driver.
The date was Oct. 4, 1974. Around the country, Frank Robinson had just been named the first black manager of a Major League Baseball team, the Indians. The top song was “Then Came You,” with Dionne Warwick and the Spinners. “The Gambler,” starring James Caan, was in the theaters.
And at Fryeburg, the gamble was whether a hometown hero, Mountain Skipper — the GOAT of New England harness racing — could pace a magic mile under 2 minutes, a feat never before accomplished over the state’s half-mile tracks.
Just six days earlier at Yonkers Raceway in New York, Mountain Skipper won the Saturday night feature before 19,000 roaring fans.
For perspective, the mile at Yonkers, one of the top tracks in the nation, was timed in 1:59.2. Could a similar time be paced over Fryeburg’s oval, where the surface could be axle deep to a Ferris wheel, to use a saying of the era? Not likely.
It also seemed unlikely considering the choice to drive Mountain Skipper. John Nason, a red-haired 18-year-old with a big, wide smile, was in just his fourth year of driving. But to race fans and horsemen there that day, the choice went right to the heart.
Mountain Skipper was about to be retired by John’s father, Arthur Nason, who had bred and raised the bay horse on the family farm in Effingham, N.H., just down the road and across the state border from Fryeburg.
In the Cumberland Fair paddock the other day, we asked 92-year-old Don Richards, revered as the dean of Maine harness racing, if Mountain Skipper was the real deal. “(That’s) right he was,” said Richards, with a bit of a glare.
From humble beginnings, Nason turned his homebred pacer into one of the era’s greatest. In May 1970, Mountain Skipper gained immediate attention by winning his first start at Scarborough Downs.
The Lewiston Daily Sun boldly predicted “an outstanding career” for the 2-year-old, based on the maiden win in 2:07.3. After his second race and second win, in 2:06.1 at the Downs, the pacer was deemed “a colt every horseman dreams of owning” by the Portland Press Herald.
The horse was the Cooper Flagg of harness racing; five-figure offers were made to buy Mountain Skipper, but Nason wouldn’t budge. Sired by Dale Frost, who had sired the great Meadow Skipper, Mountain Skipper’s dam was Sadie Tass, a slow but game bottom-claiming mare that Nason owned.
“I raised the colt, and I am going to race him,” Nason told the newspapers.
After those two Scarborough wins, Mountain Skipper hit the road. A few weeks later, he got a standing ovation from a crowd of 10,000 at Foxboro when he set the track record for rookie pacers.
From 1970 to 1974, week after week, Arthur Nason and Mountain Skipper trucked to the era’s best tracks up and down the East Coast — Yonkers, Roosevelt, Liberty Bell, Laurel Park — and as far west as The Red Mile in Kentucky and Scioto Downs in Ohio, capturing weekly features, free-for-alls, and invitational races.
By my count, the duo raced at 20 different tracks, winning at 13 of them. A racing writer said it was like a sports team never having a home game.
Up to the Fryeburg race, Arthur had driven his pacer to all but one of his lifetime starts, the exception being earlier in 1974 when son John, by then old enough to drive, piloted the pacer to a win at Foxboro. So, by racing his prized horse at Fryeburg on the eve of retiring, Arthur Nason gave both the local fair and his teenage son a gift, passing the torch to John through the family’s famed horse.
Over his career, Mountain Skipper won 45 races in 115 lifetime starts, with earnings of $304,376. The pacer’s many honors included being named the nation’s older Pacer of the Year in 1973 by the U.S. Harness Writers Association.
“He wasn’t a Maine champion. He was a national champion,” said Richards.
“He was a freak,” said John Nason, now 69 years old, as he prepared Maplewood Slugger for a race at Cumberland Fair the other day, having trucked the trotter from the historic family farm in Effingham.
With Mountain Skipper having long outgrown competition in Maine, the race at Fryeburg was a time trial: one horse against the clock, where it falls to the driver to judge and set the right fractions. Too fast early, and the horse runs out of gas. Too slow early, and he needs to sprout wings.
The win at Yonkers the week before Fryeburg was classic Mountain Skipper, quickly seizing the lead before Arthur slowed his pacer, loping to the first half in 1:01.2. Then came the afterburners, and the duo blazed the second half in 58 seconds. As Arthur Nason once told a Philadelphia racing writer, “He’s a fast booger.”
The Yonkers win reflected a race-winning strategy — but not a time-trial strategy, where the only goal is a fast mile, and at Fryeburg, the goal was sub-2-minutes. To hit the mark, Arthur wanted John to ask Mountain Skipper for more early speed before dolling out the pacer’s high speed in the second half.
The day of the time trial had typical Fryeburg weather, breezy and in the 50s. Midway through the race program, John Nason and Mountain Skipper took to the track and went behind the starting gate. As the gate sped away, Nason and Mountain Skipper accelerated into the first turn and swept up the backside to the quarter pole, where the teletimer flashed the first quarter time.
The goal was to hit the quarter in around 30 seconds and the half in 1 minute. “But I missed,” said John. The opening quarter was slow, at 31.1 seconds. John picked up the pace in the second panel, but the teletimer didn’t play along, flashing 1:01.2 as John and Mountain Skipper sped by.
When asked about the fractions, John Nason smiled and shrugged. “I hadn’t driven a lot, and then to try to hit fractions like that — it’s tough. It takes a few years to get it where you want them.”
The duo picked up the pace a bit during the next quarter (30 seconds even), but even so, the three-quarters time was a slow 1:31.2. To achieve a sub-2-minute mile off those soft fractions, Mountain Skipper would have to reel off an unimaginable 28.2 final quarter.
Donnie Richards was there that day, standing along the Fryeburg paddock fence. As track announcer Ernie Cobb called out the fractions, Richards turned to a fellow horseman and said, “He ain’t gonna get 2 minutes today.” From the announcer’s booth, Cobb set the crowd up for disappointment. “It’s a windy day and I guess we’re not going to get a record today.”
But then came the Mountain Skipper magic.
As the duo hit three-quarters, John let out one of his famous yells, a primal combination of a whoop and shriek, and Mountain Skipper knew it was time to go to work. Richards saw it: “John tapped him, hollered at him, and (he) took off.” And John felt it: “A good horse like that, you just feel them shift gears. Bad ones, they come back into your lap.”
Heading for home, Nason knew his horse was all-out, so he didn’t go to the whip. “I was mostly hand-driving him, ’cause he was just digging.” With Mountain Skipper digging and the crowd roaring — “It was LOUD,” said Nason — they crossed the finish line, and John saw four blessed numbers on the teletimer: 1:59.4.
“He kicked home in :28.2 — and saved my life. I was off the hot seat.”
The :28.2 final quarter, capping off the magic mile, was like Bob Beamon jumping 29 feet at Mexico City in 1968. On the day of Mountain Skipper’s time trial, the average winning time at Fryeburg was 2:13.
After the Fryeburg time trial, Mountain Skipper raced one more time, at Rockingham Park, winning in 2:00.2 on Oct. 12, with John aboard for the final race.
Mountain Skipper went on to a productive career as a stallion; he died in 1995 and is buried on the farm. A lifetime horseman, John drove many horses with Mountain Skipper bloodlines over the years. Arthur died in September 1990 at age 65. His widow, Nettie, John’s mother, lives on the family farm in Effingham, where trophies galore still grace Arthur’s old study.
As for John, he’s grateful for all he’s been given by his family. “When I turned 18, you either went off to college or went to work in a mill. Me, I got to become a professional harness driver. Because of my dad.”
It would be another seven years after the Fryeburg time trial that Maine racing achieved the first magic mile in competition. In July 1981, The Andover Story, trained and driven by Richards, paced Scarborough Downs in 1:59.4. (Five years after that, it was Richards aboard the first pacer to go a sub-2-minute mile at Fryeburg in competition when he teamed Bret’s Caliber to a 1:59.4 mile in 1986.)
We asked Richards how The Andover Story would’ve fared against Mountain Skipper. If both could go in 2 minutes, might it be a fair fight? “No,” said Richards. “Mountain Skipper would have (crushed) The Andover Story.”
The GOAT indeed.