Audax Minor (1887 - October 8, 1979), the pen name of George F. T. Ryall, was a Canadian writer who worked as the

horse racing Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic p ...

columnist for '' The New Yorker'' for 52 years.Reg Lansberry, "The New Yorker's Audax Minor: A Legend Recalled," ''Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred'', November 2006. Born in Toronto, Ryall was sent to England to be educated in 1900. In England, he began working as a general reporter for the newspaper '' London Exchange-Telegraph'' and began writing racing reports from England for '' New York World''. Ryall afterwards went to New York City, and his first column for ''The New Yorker'' was published on July 10, 1926. ''The New Yorker'' had been launched on February 21, 1925. Ryall chose a

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

because at the time he was still writing for ''New York World''; he used this name in honor of Audax, the nom de plume of British racing journalist Arthur Fitzhardinge Berkeley Portman. (Ryall's full name was George Francis Trafford Ryall. His son, a horse-racing photographer, and grandson, an art photographer, both received the same name, designated as generations II and III.) He was the writer of longest record in the history of the magazine, and his column, "The Race Track," ran from 1926 to 1978. He wrote on various aspects of horse racing, from starting barriers to horse training, from the Saratoga Special Stakes to the names given horses. "Being one of those peevish fellows who believe that every horse deserves a good name (and you'll find that, on the whole, the better racers are well named)," Ryall wrote in 1960, "I'm sorry to say this year's crop of two-year-olds has fared pretty badly... Ambiopoise... Nassue... Rulamyth..." He also wrote for '' PM'', '' The Blood-Horse'', '' Town & Country'', '' The Sportsman'', ''

Polo Polo is a ball game played on horseback, a traditional field sport and one of the world's oldest known team sports. The game is played by two opposing teams with the objective of scoring using a long-handled wooden mallet to hit a small hard ...

'', and '' Country Life''. Ryall won the Walter Haight Award in 1972. Ryall also wrote on automobiles,

polo Polo is a ball game played on horseback, a traditional field sport and one of the world's oldest known team sports. The game is played by two opposing teams with the objective of scoring using a long-handled wooden mallet to hit a small hard ...

and men's fashions.Milestones, Times Oct. 22, 197

/ref> He died at Columbia, Maryland. His

obituary An obituary ( obit for short) is an article about a recently deceased person. Newspapers often publish obituaries as news articles. Although obituaries tend to focus on positive aspects of the subject's life, this is not always the case. Ac ...

in '' Time magazine'' described him as a "jaunty, tweedy Canadian." In 2013, Ryall was posthumously selected to the

National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame The National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame was founded in 1950 in Saratoga Springs, New York, to honor the achievements of American Thoroughbred race horses, jockeys, and trainers. In 1955, the museum moved to its current location on Union Av ...

's Joe Hirsch Media Roll of Honor.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Minor, Audax The New Yorker staff writers 1887 births 1979 deaths Writers from Toronto Horse racing writers and broadcasters Canadian sportswriters Canadian expatriates in the United Kingdom Canadian expatriates in the United States