Summer is less than a month away and we want to remember one of the crazier summertime antics that used to be held in the Rochester area — ostrich racing.
The races were held annually at the Monroe County Fairgrounds and occasionally at other local sites. The large birds were harnessed and pulled carriages (known as sulkies) with riders who had no “brakes” or ways to steer except brooms placed beside the ostrich’s head.
It was all in the name of fun, but riders — often, members of the media — sometimes were tossed about and freaked out. The spectacles were held in conjunction with stock-car racing at the fairgrounds and/or as part of the Monroe County Fair.
A man named Gene Holter brought his ostriches and other animals to Rochester as part of a touring carnival show. Bill Beeney, who participated in the races, described the action in a 1954 Democrat and Chronicle story.
“You just sit in the sulky while they fit the ostrich between the traces and when they line up the ostriches across the track and remove the black blindfold from the ostrich’s eyes, away they go,” Beeney wrote. “You just hang on to the sulky. If you think this rein-less arrangement makes matters difficult, you are right.”
Holter’s ostrich races started here that year, 1954. The stock-car racing had already been held at the fairgrounds’ half-mile oval track the past six years. Ed Otto, an early NASCAR official, promoted the stock-car racing shows, which were held regularly during the summer months and drew crowds of 3,000 or so, according to news accounts.
The stock-car shows featured top local racers like Lee Bliss of Rochester and Dutch Hoag of Penn Yan. Racing animals seemed a logical follow-up, as Beeney wrote in that 1954 story.
“The people who promote the stock-car races hit upon the idea of having an ostrich race, apparently figuring that people who like stock-car races will stand for anything,” he wrote. Holter’s show was the perfect complement. Holter reportedly accumulated 1,000 animals of various breeds at his California farm and brought more than a dozen of his “giant pets” on tour to carnivals and fairs around the country.
The show included camel races, tiger wrestling — yes, those were indeed different times — and appearances by animals like Lisa the Elephant and Herman the Hippo. Holter provided animals for Hollywood movies like “Swiss Family Robinson” in 1960 and TV shows like “The Beverly Hillbillies.”
But back to the ostriches. News accounts stated the animals were the largest breed in the world, 8 feet tall and more than 300 pounds. Early race participants, along with Beeney, included newspaperman Charlie Wagner, Bob Mills of local radio and TV fame and Jerry Flynn, who later became known as Rochester’s toastmaster supreme.
Beeney wrote of the haphazardness of one of the races in a 1979 Democrat and Chronicle column. “I remember that Jerry Flynn’s ostrich took off and went into the infield and damn near tipped over Jerry’s cart, which would have busted him up good,” Beeney wrote.
“Those things run something like 35 or 40 miles an hour when they are in full stride. It is a very ungainly, bumpy stride and you hope they do not get mad and kick, because they have powerful legs.”
The ostrich races continued to be held for years at the fairgrounds, as well as places like the Great Palmyra Fair (in 1956, at least) and the Caledonia Fair (in 1957). In those outlying areas, riders were apparently random volunteers. In Rochester, Holter displayed an about-to-hatch ostrich egg in an incubator at Midtown Plaza in the summer of 1965 to drum up business for the fairgrounds show.
As for the animals’ welfare, a 1971 Democrat and Chronicle story addressed the topic. The director of the Humane Society of Rochester and Monroe County said he heard of no negative reaction to Holter’s touring show, saying “most of these things are pretty well checked out these days.” Holter and his people said the animals were trained “with love…there’s no force training.”
The last year of the fairgrounds ostrich races appears to be 1972. Mandi Harris, a Democrat and Chronicle reporter, faced off against Don Alhart — that right, WHAM's Don Alhart — in one race and wrote about what she quickly learned.
“There’s no way to stop a galloping ostrich,” Harris wrote. “That may not seem very important if you’ve never been within a hundred yards of one of those huge birds. But it’s terrifying when you’re sitting in a dinky two-wheeled cart, being pulled by a runaway ostrich.” The only way to stop, she wrote, was with the help of four or five men “with strong arms and lots of guts” who jumped and tackled the ostriches by the neck.
What finally stopped the ostrich races at the county fairgrounds was Holter’s death from cancer in 1973. His wife, Margaret, kept things going for a while before selling the animals in 1976, according to news accounts.
Alan Morrell is a former Democrat and Chronicle reporter and a Rochester-area freelance writer.
This story was originally published September 2017.
Most Popular
Comments / 0