Catch Driver of
the Sandhills
Along rhe rroil m Joyce Kilmer Forest No living
о»
deod thing moy be token hom the torest
and dedicated to the memory of Joyce
Kilmer, the young poel-w riter w ho had
died in France while lighting with the
Rainbow Division during World War I.
Kilmer, a journalist with the New York
Times, had w ritten his now -famous
poem ’’Trees” while he was a student
at Rutgers, celebrating a white oak
long since removed from the New Jer¬
sey campus.
Forest trails to scenic points as far
as seven miles from the entrance, and
rising to overlooks more than 5.0(H)
feet high, were laid by the Civilian
Conservation Corps. On the
eighteenth anniversary of Kilmer's
death, his former comrades in arms
journeyed to North Carolina to dedi¬
cate a bronze memorial fastened to a
huge boulder, curiously scored by
some ancient geologic violence. The
memorial stands at the foot of a group
of enormous hemlocks. Flsewhere on
the same three-quarter mile loop trail
most frequently visited by hikers is a
wooden sign bearing Kilmer's famous
poem, which concludes with the
words: "Poems are made by fools like
me. but only God can make a tree.”
Another earlier admirer of trees —
Henry Thorcau — once observed: "I
frequently tramped eight or ten miles
through deepest snow to keep an ap¬
pointment with a beech tree, or a yel¬
low birch, or an old acquaintance
among the pines.”
In the Joyce Kilmer Memorial
Forest of Western North Carolina.
Thoreau would only have to walk a few
steps — and seldom in the snow — to
keep an appointment with some of the
oldest, most awesome trees in the na¬
tion.
I In I he Vacation Guide.
see "Graham County"l
Del C ameron won the* first rare he» on-
te»red and hasn't stopped sinee.
By BETSY LI\n\L
To most people Pinehurst means
golf. Sure, there are fifty-seven miles
of greens and fairways in the Sandhills.
There are also six-and-a-half miles of
racetrack and "the best catch driver in
the business" of harness racing rides in
a sulky, not a golf cart.
Just about any morning in autumn,
winter or spring, before the sun gels
high (the earlier the better), you can
watch Del Cameron training his Stan¬
dard bred trotters and pacers at the
Pinehurst Race Track, smack in the
middle of the famous golfing resort's
five 18-holc courses and a short trot
from the World Golf Hall of Fame.
The only Cameron who’s a golfer is
Heidi, the Cameron dachshund who
sinks her putts with her nose.
Last June Cameron became the 19th
harness-racing driver inducted into the
Living Hall of Fame of the Trotter at
Goshen. N.Y.
Until 1975 he was the only living
driver to have won the Hambletonian
(run at Goshen and at Du(^uion. III.)
three times — twice as a catch-driver.
His close friend. Stanley Dancer got
his third Hambletonian win last year.
The Hambletonian. for trotters, and
The Little Brown Jug. for pacers, are
America's most prestigious harness
races. Del has won the Jug at Dela¬
ware. Ohio, twice — once as a catch-
driver.
"Right For Horses"
So. what on earth is Del Cameron
doing in Pinehurst when all of his rac¬
ing business is elsewhere? The same
thing he's been doing for 32 years,
training harness horses to win races on
the Grand Circuit.
Cameron was training and driving a
few horses on the New Fngland Circuit
in 1944 w hen Octave Blake, owner of
the Newport Stock Farm in Vermont,
hired him to come to Pinehurst to train
his trotters and pacers and to drive
them to wins on the Grand Circuit.
Sandhills climate is as right for
horses as for golfers. Surrounding
Pinehurst and Southern Pines are
breeding and training stables for
Thoroughbred hunters and racers.
Standardbred harness racers and.
most recently, quarter horses.
The Moore County Hounds, oldest
formal foxhunt in the state, hunts three
times a week from Thanksgiving to
April. In recent years the Sloneybrook
Steeplechase Races at Southern Pines
have draw n 25.000 or more spectators.
Del Cameron is not the only
noteworthy horseman in the area.
Michael G. Walsh, squire of Stoney-
brook Farm, has ranked near the top as
a steeplechase trainer since the ‘50's.
Dooley Adams, top ranked steeple¬
chase rider for five straight years in the
’50’s, also has a training farm in South¬
ern Pines; and Harley Walsh (no kin to
Mickey) is a former national rodeo
champion w ho has a retirement home
here.
Del and Miriam Cameron came to
Pinehurst from Harvard. Mas¬
sachusetts. w ith their two small sons.
Warren and Gary. As Del's father, a
trainer himself, had trained Del. so Del
trained his ow n sons.
Today Warren has his own stables
near Philadelphia and Gary is Del's
partner in their stables at Pinehurst.
The Camerons have a relaxed and airy
home in Pinehurst where Miriam gar¬
dens happily. When he has the time.
Del hunts and fishes.
Naturalized Tar Heel
His primary triumphs all have come
to Cameron as a naturalized Tar Heel.
He won his first Little Brown Jug three
years after the move to Pinehurst driv¬
ing a horse he trained for Blake. He
won it again in 1951. this time as a
ID
THE STATE, JUNE 1976
