LEWISTOWN — Historian and writer Catharine Melin-Moser is shining a light on a little-known piece of Montana history that once put the state at the center of American horse racing.
She has spent more than a decade researching and writing When Montana Outraced the East: The Reign of Western Thoroughbreds, 1886–1900, a book that explores how Montana-bred thoroughbreds competed with and defeated some of the most established racing programs in the eastern United States during the late 19th century.
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The project began while Melin-Moser was freelance writing, and was reviewing Montana newspapers from the 1880s and 1890s, where she repeatedly encountered brief mentions of Montana horses winning major races back East.
Those discoveries prompted deeper questions about how such success was possible in what was still considered frontier territory.
“I would come across little snippets of information that said a Montana thoroughbred had won a big Eastern race,” she said. “And I thought to myself, Montana was still relatively a frontier back then. And so I wondered how did that all come to be?”
What started as curiosity evolved into a years-long research effort after Melin-Moser realized the broader story had never been fully documented.
“This story had never been told before,” she said. “It took hours, days, months, years.”
She described the process as piecing together a historical jigsaw puzzle, pulling details from scattered newspaper accounts, turf guides and archives across Montana and beyond.
“I’ve been to Hamilton and Deer Lodge, Helena, the Keeneland Library in Lexington, Kentucky, and Twin Bridges,” she said. “Piecing that all together was like a big jigsaw puzzle.”
Her research highlights three influential Montana figures, Samuel Larabie, Noah Armstrong and mining magnate Marcus Daly, who invested their mining and banking fortunes into breeding thoroughbreds after recognizing Montana’s potential advantages, including native grasses, altitude and open grazing land.
Despite widespread skepticism from the racing establishment, the horses bred and trained in Montana quickly proved competitive on the national stage.
“Eastern traditionalists thought it was absolutely nuts,” Melin-Moser said. “Some predicted the horses would be slow-footed, stumpy, undersized, and some even predicted dwarfs would be the outcome.”
Instead, Montana horses captured victories in major races, including the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes, surprising racing insiders and generating pride across Montana communities.
“They raised beautiful thoroughbred horses,” Melin-Moser said. “They sent them back east and they did real well. People were just shocked.”
Newspaper coverage at the time often emphasized the regional significance of those wins, reinforcing a sense of statewide pride.
“There’s several instances where headlines would say ‘Montana horse wins a big race in the East,’” she said. “Those horses developed a sense of regional pride all across Montana.”
Melin-Moser said the success is even more remarkable when considering the transportation challenges and harsh conditions breeders faced while shipping horses across the country.
“I found incidents where trains were stuck on tracks for hours and even days because of blizzards,” she said. “When you think about what they overcame and that they were so successful, I think it’s just an amazing story.”
The book was published last year following more than a decade of research and has drawn positive feedback from readers, many of whom have expressed appreciation for the depth of historical detail.
“It’s been wonderful,” Melin-Moser said. “I’ve had people come up to me that I don’t even know and say they loved the book or were impressed by the research.”
She recently shared the history during a presentation at the C. M. Russell Museum, connected with the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame.
Melin-Moser said the research also uncovered compelling stories about trainers, jockeys and other figures whose experiences added depth beyond the well-known horse owners.
“Reading about the characters, researching them and then the horses as well, there was just so much material,” she said. “The jockeys and trainers had stories too, and they ended up becoming part of the book.”
While Montana’s prominence in national thoroughbred racing faded after 1900, Melin-Moser hopes the work helps restore recognition to a brief but influential era shaped by ambition, risk-taking and innovation.
The book is available in Great Falls at Cassiopeia Books, the Charles M. Russell Museum, and The History Museum.
Click here to visit Melin-Moser's website.
