Scott Paul Harlan (February 4, 1864 - January 1, 1948) was an American National Champion Thoroughbred racehorse trainer and owner of Idle Dell Farm near Hatboro, Pennsylvania.[1]
During his career Scott Harlan trained for preeminent owners Walter Jeffords and the Greentree StableofHelen Hay Whitney. For Whitney he trained Untidy to a performance in 1923 that saw her being named retrospectively as the American Champion Three-Year-Old Filly. Harlan had four other horses owned by Jeffords which would be voted National Champion honors. [2]
In 1926 horses trained by Scott Harlan earned $205,681 which was the most earnings for any trainer in the United States. Among them, Scapa Flow earned American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt honors and Edith Cavell was named the American Champion Three-Year-Old Filly. Scott Harlan's third and fourth National Champion came with Bateau chosen the 1928 American Champion Three-Year-Old Filly then in 1929 American Champion Older Female Horse.
Scott Harlan had runners in five of the U.S. Triple Crown races with his best result a third in the 1926 Preakness Stakes with Walter M. Jeffords's colt Mars. [3]
Among Harlan's notable wins was in the 1926 Pimlico Cup with Edith Cavell. She was ridden by the talented but ill-fated young jockey Ovila Bourassa who guided the filly to a three-length victory in track record time while beating a field of horses of either sex age three and older which included two future U.S. Racing Hall of Fame inductees, Crusader and Princess Doreen.[4]
Scott Harlan died at age eighty-three on January 1, 1948. At the time of his death he had been living on his Idel Dell Farm in Hatboro, Pennsylvania.[5]
