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Billings’ horses were trained by Charles “Doc” Tanner, a former New
York stable owner who became a permanent part of the staff. C.K.G.’s
position in the world of racing was assured when
The New York Times
wrote in June 1905, “The title of America’s Harness Horse King justly
belongs to C.K.G. Billings, the New York millionaire. As a gentleman
horse owner and amateur driver, Mr. Billings has no peer and his stable of
record-breaking trotters and pacers has never been approached either in
costliness or speed.”
When Billings published a book titled simply “Memories”
in 1927, he did not fondly recall family and friends or boyhood
adventures or even his time as the head of Peoples Gas Light
and Electric. Inside, the title page reveals that his memories were
“Memories of Blue and Gold: Days of Sport and Pleasure Enjoyed by
C.K.G. Billings with His Horses and His Friends on Both Sides of the
Sea.” What follows is a description of every notable horse he owned, its
pedigree and its records. In total, his horses “established 167 different
world’s records, official and amateur, of major significance” between
1899 and 1913, and one of his horses, Omar Khayyam, won the
Kentucky Derby in 1917.
Lou Dillon set 22 world records and her famous successor, Uhlan,
set 21. He bested Lou Dillon’s trotting record by half-a-second in 1912,
a record which held up until 1921. Billings took his horses to Europe
several times for exhibition races in Berlin, Moscow, and Vienna. In 1909
in Russia, Lou Dillon astonished the visiting dignitaries by trotting the
half-mile in 59 ½ seconds. In June 1912, Uhlan trotted an exhibition mile
in Russia that set a European record, 2:08 ½ minutes. Billings donated all
winnings from these European exhibitions to charity.
Estate Building
In 1907, Billings added a castle to his 25-acre horse farm at Fort
Tryon. Set on a promontory above the Hudson River, the French chateau
was designed by Guy Lowell, well-known architect to the rich and famous
of the East. The towers and turrets and conical steeples of
Tryon Hall
rose
high above the city and were surrounded by formal gardens. The two-
million-dollar estate included a 75-foot marble swimming pool, squash
courts, bowling alley and a yacht landing on the Hudson River where he
docked his palatial turbine steamer,
Vanadis
, the only one with an elevator
When C.K.G. Billings built a new family estate named
Farnsworth
at Oyster Bay (left), he became a member of the Oyster Bay Yacht Club (right)
C.K.G. Billings was a director of the World’s Colombian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. When the fair closed, he purchased a replica of a 12th century
stavkirke from the Norway Exhibit and had it shipped to
Green Gables
, his vacation estate at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
(Photos courtesy of the Library of Congress)