OklahomaHorses Magazine March 2023

March / April 2023 • OklahomaHorses 27 also were held. At about the time of World War I, thoroughbred flat racing took precedence. After World War II, quarter horse racing was added to the mix of racing meets, and Oklahoma became a national center for quarter horse breeding and race training. The Starrs and Gray Alice The Starrs and Adairs were part of the evolution of racing in Indian Territory days and after Oklahoma statehood, and some of their early racehorses were famous. George Harlan Starr (1806–1879) always tried to upgrade the breeding of horses. When he moved back to the Cherokee Nation in 1867 after 15 years in Texas, he brought most of his horses with him. Shortly before his death, he gave a filly named Gray Alice to his son Samuel Jesse Starr. Samuel and his brother, Caleb Ellis Starr, took care of her and soon engaged an outstanding Cherokee horse trainer, Foster Barker. Gray Alice grew into a beautiful animal with great speed. She was a large mare, 16 hands high and weighing 1,200 pounds. During her lifetime, she ran at least eight match races and was never defeated. She ran at a straight track near Paden Springs in Indian Territory and at Fort Smith, Van Buren, and other places in Arkansas. She was photographed at a race in Van Buren. At Siloam Springs, Arkansas, in the fall of 1884, the Starrs challenged John Har- grove, a founder of the town, to race his fine horse named Ruins against Gray Alice. They instructed their jockey to let Gray Alice win by just a neck. Hargrove thought Ruins had not got off to a good start and wanted to run the race again, which result- ed in heavy betting. In the second match, the jockey did not hold back, and Gray Al- ice ran off from Ruins — and losing those bets reportedly ruined Hargrove. Gray Alice’s racing prowess was recog- nized throughout the Southwest. She was so valuable that she might have attracted the attention of the James outlaw gang. Rumors floated around that they intend- ed to steal her. When several well-armed strangers showed up at the Starr farm, a ser- vant hid Gray Alice in the mountains, and the strangers eventually gave up and left. The Starrs raised many outstanding horses and always tried to continue the improvements that had been George Harlan Starr’s goal. At about the turn of the twentieth century, the Starrs sold most of their horses to Watt and Coke Blake of Cane Hill, Arkansas, and Pryor, Indian Territory. Many of the outstanding Blake horses were part of the foundation stock of the American quarter horse breed and can be traced back to the Starr horses. Gray Alice, a famous mare owned by the Starr family in Indian Territory in the 1870s and 1880s, never lost a race. She is shown with Foster Barker (her trainer) and another man. Photo courtesy of John Adair. Above, Oscar Adair, who established one of the first racetracks in the Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory, shows off one of his last racehorses. Photo courtesy of Mary Adair.