| PEOPLE |
YEAR: 1970
 |
| Jack Litten, Caduceus & Marty Tananbaum |
The death last week of Yonkers Raceway president Martin Tananbaum removed one of trotting's world figures.
Mr Tananbaum, who died at his New York home of a heart attack, aged only 54, entered harness horsedom in 1956, he and his brothers Alfred and Stanley, buying the controlling shares in Yonkers Raceway. As Yonkers president, Marty (as he became widely known) quickly realised the great public appeal of international racing.
At the suggestion of former Aucklander Noel Simpson, now of NSW, Mr Tananbaum first visited NZ and Australia in 1960, and, after seeing the crack NZ pacer of the time, Caduceus win the Inter-Dominion Championship Grand Final at Harold Park, Sydney, he persuaded the horse's owners, the Moore brothers, and trainer-driver Jack Litten to race Caduceus in the first running of the now-famous International Pace Series at Yonkers. Caduceus performed with distinction in that series and in his subsequent American racing became a public idol, as he had been in NZ and Australia.
Every year after that Mr Tananbaum made his annual 'Down Under' crusade, scouting for talent for his Raceway. He did not buy. He merely offered enticements to owners of top horses to either accept invitations to Yonkers or sell to American owners who would. Apmat, False Step, Arania, Smoke Cloud, Cardigan Bay, Cardinal King and First Lee were among the better-performed NZ and Australian horses whose owners yeilded to the Tananbaum entreaties.
And the Yonkers chief was proudest of all about his accomplishment in persuading successful New Jersey horseman Stanley Dancer to buy Cardigan Bay as an aged gelding for $100,000 in 1964. It is now history that Cardigan Bay swept all before him in America to become the sport's one and only million dollar earner.
Convinced of the worth of NZ and Australia as breeding grounds, Mr Tananbaum in recent years shipped all of 20 fashionably-bred stallions to stand at stud on lease in this part of the world. It was his intention to breed and race young horses here before shipping them to his homeland for further racing and eventual stud service at his newly-established White Devon Farm in upstate New York. And, with this in view, he was a ready spender at various standardbred sales in NZ and Australia on his latest visit made only weeks before his death.
The $9500 he paid for a filly at the national sales in Christchurch earlier last month was a record. She was from Arania, a Roy McKenzie owned mare he invited to America in 1961 and who, before returning home, distinguished herself in no uncertain terms with a 1:57 time trial around the big Red Mile in Lexington, Kentucky.
In his brief time in trotting Martin Tananbaum pushed the sport along in grand style. Future generations will look back on his contribution as of great significance to this Dominion in its emergence as a world trotting nursery.
Credit: 'R B' writing in NZ Trotting Calendar 1Apr70