Julie Krone and Moni Maker - Horse Racing

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Moni Maker and Julie Krone

Dateline: 10/06/00

Hall of Fame jockey Julie Krone rode champion mare Moni Maker to a world record time for one mile for a trotter under saddle in Moni Maker's final appearance on a racetrack. The pair shattered the old record of 1:58 2/5 set in 1994 by Preferential by over 4 seconds with a final time of 1:54 1/5 at The Red Mile in Lexington.

Close up of Moni Maker warming up

Moni Maker, the richest mare of any breed with earnings of $5.6 million, was racing only against the clock but had two pacers with sulkies driven by her trainer and her regular driver plus two thoroughbred "prompters" to simulate a race to insure she would give her best performance. Her trainer speculated she may have trotted as much as a second faster had she not been wearing earplugs which kept her from hearing them yelling to urger her on.

The record time

An estimated crowd of 5,000 turned out drawn by the chance to see Julie Krone as much as to see the historic trot. The crowd cheered constantly from the time they stepped on the track and continued until after the record breaking trot was complete.

After the record setting effort, Moni Maker's shoes were removed as a ceremonial ending to her career. She was then paraded by the grandstand for a final time while the largest crowd at The Red Mile in many years took pictures and reached out to pet her.