Dam of Hall of Famer Tom Bowling may be even better than she looks

The horse Tom Bowling was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame on Friday via the historic review process. His induction represented another impressive accomplishment for his dam, whose impressive record may be even brighter than it appears. The accomplishments of several of her foals are obscured due to name and breed registry changes that would be unheard of in modern racing.

Tom Bowling was a homebred for Henry Price McGrath. A son of the great Lexington, he won 14 of 17 starts, with important victories including the 1873 Travers Stakes, and was voted Horse of the Year that season.

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“He was assessed as the best son of the immortal Lexington, a group that includes Hall of Famers Harry Bassett and Duke of Magenta,” said Michael Veitch, chairman of the Hall’s historic review committee.

Tom Bowling was out of Lucy Fowler, a daughter of Albion foaled in 1857 in Tennessee for breeder Eli Odom and later purchased by McGrath. With limited record keeping in those times, her lineage is recorded as being out of simply “a Leviathan mare.”

Lucy Fowler also is the dam of 1875 Belmont Stakes winner Calvin. Her other stakes winners include Aaron Pennington, third in the 1874 Belmont. Aaron Pennington was later re-registered as a Saddlebred, based on a petition from 50 Missouri breeders who argued and certified that his progeny were generally of American Saddle Horse type.

Lucy Fowler’s son Clement was second in the 1867 Travers to the great filly Ruthless. Clement was later renamed Richard B. Connolly, and his name was occasionally abbreviated in official race records as R. B. Connolly. He was one of several of his dam’s foals to race under alternate names, making their accomplishments difficult to track.