Boralma the Racehorse

Boston stockbroker Thomas W. Lawson owned a racehorse, Boralma, who won $5000 in Kentucky’s Transylvania Stakes in 1900. The earnings were donated to the West End Nursery and Infants’ Hospital, with an amusing letter exchange between “Boralma” and “The Babies.”

Thomas W. Lawson, a Boston stockbroker, had a racehorse named Boralma who won $5,000 at the Transylvania Stakes in Kentucky in the fall of 1900. Boralma was one of only two horses in 1900 to achieve winnings over $10,000 (the other horse, according to The Horse Review that year, was named Cresceus). Boralma’s name appears to be a combination of his parents’ names, Boreal (the sire, or father) and Earalma (the dam, or mother). Lawson, who paid $17,000 to purchase Boralma in 1899 from Dr. J.C. McCoy in Delaware, regularly donated Boralma’s winnings to charity. The West End Nursery and Infants’ Hospital, on 37 Blossom St., was the beneficiary of Boralma’s $5,000 prize that October. The West End Nursery and Infants’ Hospital was one of many medical institutions in the West End since the 1890s, including also the Staniford Street Clinic and the Vincent Memorial Hospital on Chambers Street. 

Lawson’s gift to the West End Nursery and Infants’ Hospital was actually Boralma’s gift, in more ways than one: he wrote a letter presenting the gift from the perspective of the racehorse. On September 27, 1900, “Boralma” told the hospital that he could relate to the needs of infants for round-the-clock care, which motivated him to win the money:

Inclosed [sic] find check for $5000, to be used as in your wise judgment will bring the greatest amount of happiness to your charges. Upon the day I earned this money I was so ill I do not think it would have been possible for me to have performed the great task for which it was a reward if I had not been buoyed up by the thought of how much it meant to your babies, but by keeping constantly before me on that day the fact that I was working for those who, like myself, are absolutely dependent for all their comfort and all their happiness upon others, I succeeded.

Wishing you the full meod [sic] of success in your noble task, I beg to remain, 

Your four-footed friend, 

“Boralma”

On October 12, 1900, the West End Nursery and Infants’ Hospital graciously accepted the $5,000 gift with a reply, and a special gift in return, from “The Babies”:

Dear Boralma–We, the babies at the West End Nursery and Infants’ Hospital, send to you our sincere thanks for your efforts in winning the race which brought us such a generous check. 

We send to you our colors, and hope that when you wear our pink ribbon you will think of the little babies on Blossom St., whom you have helped to health and strength.

Very gratefully yours,

The Babies

Their X mark.

The Boston Globe reported that “The colors referred to in the nursery letter are two exquisite rosettes and a headpiece made of beautiful pink satin.” The color pink resonated in another way with Lawson himself, who in 1899 was reported to have paid a florist $30,000 for a carnation to be named the “Lawson Pink” for his wife, Mrs. Lawson. Boralma’s gift was not only an amusing story, but also an enormous benefit to the West End Nursery and Infants’ Hospital. $5,000 in 1900 was equivalent to about $160,000 in today’s dollars!