Rough Stuff on the Fiesta Park Track

 

Shock, and the horse Rough Stuff, at Fiesta Park

The Fiesta Park racing season of 1910 had closed a week earlier, with a big 4th of July race meeting, but one final bicycle race was to take place before the summer shut-down (the infield would continue to be used for football, lacrosse rugby and other team games) - one of those novelty races that were common in the late 1800s. Albert Shock was no stranger to competition, though at fifty-three years of age, he likely had more competitive years behind him rather than ahead of him. Shock ran his first race or, rather, walked his first race during a pedestrian match in 1876. The first bicycle races he competed in were run on the old high-wheelers, and included a six-day race in 1883. In 1893 Shock rode in the first six-day race to take place on safety bicycles; held at Madison Square Garden, he rode 1600 miles and three laps, beating his next nearest competitor by more than 100 miles. His final six-day race took place in 1897, at Washington D. C.; in that race Shock rode for 142 hours, and covered a distance of 1766 miles.

The race in 1910 was Shock's first six-day race since the 1897 race. In this case, though, he would be racing against a team of horses, alternating their time on the track and resting. Clearly the horses would not be able to run on the steeply banked track so, instead, they ran around a six lap track on the infield. Racing would take place for eight hours each day, Shock doing all the riding himself, while horses would be changed out every mile and their jockeys every five miles.

Though the horses balked at keeping to the track during the first day, running off it entirely multiple times, either to the hay stack at one end of the track, or down into the subway, they ended the day with a near two mile lead, having ridden 139 miles and 4 laps, to Shocks 137 miles and 3 laps. The horse Tuck, ridden by John Coston, tangled itself in the fencing separating the two tracks at one occasion and fell, but was uninjured (the track management completely tore the fence down as a result). 

Shock was able to make up his deficit on the second day, as his ability to endure came into play, and he finished with 133 miles and one lap to the horses' 131 miles and 2 laps. "Tired and plastered with pulverized dust from the horse track," and having remained in the saddle for the full eight hours, taking no nourishment during that time, Shock none-the-less, "jumped from his wheel at the end of the eighth hour," in good spirits and "confident of beating the nags."

Discouraged by the unwavering monotony, the spectating public dropped to a mere twenty people watching from the bleachers on the third day. Citing a lack of public interest in the competition, and a "mutiny" by the horsemen, track manager Pickering, decided to call off the race with Shock having covered a total of 391 miles, and the horses running for 189 miles.