OklahomaHorses Magazine March 2023

26 OklahomaHorses • March / April 2023 Oklahoma Family Continues Its Racing Legacy by Rowena Mills W hen three-year-old filly Cherokee Gift easily won the fourth race at Will Rogers Downs on October 10, 2022, she didn’t just come in first that day — she continued an Oklahoma family’s tradition going back for more than 150 years. Cherokee Gift, a quarter horse owned by John Adair of Broken Arrow and trained by John Brasseux, completed the 550 yards on a fast dirt surface, ridden by Alonso Rivera. She has a speed index of 93. Now four years old, Cherokee Gift — out of Lady Katherine and sired by Prized Wagon — is one of the latest racehorses be- longing to members of the interconnected Starr and Adair families, whose Cherokee ancestors came to Indian Territory in the nineteenth century. Like many American Indians in the territory and in nearby states, they owned and raced horses at local tracks. Native Roots Horse racing has been a significant economic activity in Indian Territory and Oklahoma for two centuries. Most native people practiced racing as necessary training for life activities and as a sport. By the end of the nineteenth century, horse racing was the most popular sport in Indian Territory. Private matches or race meets were frequent. Notable racetracks were established in Indian Territory at Parris Prairie near Westville and at Muskogee, Checotah, Fairland, Stilwell, and Yorktown. In 1899, the Yorktown track offered weekly races. Small venues might use straight tracks or just a section of a country road. Other facilities were more elaborate, such as the one-mile oval track built in Muskogee in 1910 to host standardbred harness races and thoroughbred flat races. Events throughout the United States included driving or harness racing, in which a trotting horse pulls a sulky with a driver, and flat racing, also called speed or running racing, in which a rider is astride a galloping horse. Either type of racing could be a simple match between two horses or a more complicated event involving distance and time. Races were well-organized entertainment events in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Horse owners formed driving clubs and racing associations and traveled a circuit of towns in Indian Terri- tory, Texas, and Kansas. Spring, summer, autumn, and holiday racing meets were held. Local, county, and state fairs, usually held during autumn harvest time, also included racing. Those were major events that drew large crowds. Horse racing surged in popularity after World War I and continued to grow in the 1920s. During the economic depression of the 1930s, racing was a popular diversion, with brush or bush circuits that held races regularly. In the first quarter of the twentieth century, harness racing of standardbred horses predominated at larger tracks, but thoroughbred match races and dog races I N T O T H E F U T U R E Cherokee Gift, owned by John Adair, continues the prizewinning racing tradition of the Starr and Adair families. Photo courtesy of John Adair.