"If you've never been on your feet, you better get up now!"
Those words bellowed by Hall of Fame track announcer Roger Huston nearly 40 years ago remain as iconic as the performance it accompanied.
Before the Internet, before social media, and before memes, Falcon Seelster and Tom Harmer created a viral moment on Sept. 18, 1985 — 40 years ago tomorrow — when the three-year-old male pacer upstaged the scheduled main event at the Delaware County Fairgrounds.
At that time, there was no supplemental entry to the Little Brown Jug. So while the legendary Nihilator continued his dominant run through his division for the second straight year en route to U.S. Horse of the Year honours and becoming the first Standardbred to clear $3 million in earnings, fellow sophomore Falcon Seelster was relegated to an Invitational event on the Jug Day undercard.
"Charlie Day and I felt we had to showcase him to get his real value," Harmer told USTA's Hoof Beats recalling the lead-up to the race. "My idea was that we should go to the Jug and go in the Open, and try to break the [half-mile track] world record. At a good track like Delaware, with good weather, I knew my horse could do anything."
"I called the race office and asked if we could enter in the Invitational, and go for a world record. I said I wanted to go as close to the Jug as possible, so people wouldn't say it was the track or the weather was better. I wanted the conditions to be the same so we could be compared to the best horses in the country."
Nihilator did set a two-heat world record with his 1:53.1 and 1:52.1 straight heat Jug victory that day, but the talk of the town and harness racing world was Falcon Seelster and his 1:51h world record performance.
Winning by the length of the stretch, Falcon Seelster absolutely obliterated the world record for the division and the all-age mark on a half-mile oval. The fastest mile on a half-mile track, regardless of age, came courtesy Its Fritz at Louisville Downs when he paced in 1:53.3 in 1983. Canadian-connected sophomore pacer Legal Notice matched that mark in the 1984 Little Brown Jug.
Falcon Seelster beat those champion horses, essentially, by 13 lengths.
Perhaps even more impressive is that the world record on a five-eighths mile track at the time — which, ostensibly, should be faster — was 1:52.1, a mark co-held by Its Fritz and Marauder.
Sixteen years. That's how long it look for another sophomore to pace that fast on a half-mile track. On The attack matched the 1:51h mark in the 2001 Cleveland Classic on June 9, 2001 at Northfield Park. The record was then broken on Sept. 19, 2002 when Million Dollar Cam cranked out a 1:50.2 effort in that year's Little Brown Jug final.
The current mark for sophomores on a half-mile track came in 2023 courtesy Seven Colors, who smoked the Flying Turns at Northfield in 1:48.1h. This Is The Plan holds the all-age mark with his phenomenal 1:47.3h effort at Northfield in 2021.
(Standardbred Canada)