Theodore Robinson Jr. donates a painting of Carleton F. Burke’s favorite polo pony, Scotty, by Franklin Voss, 1920
A phone call to the Carleton F. Burke Memorial Library started with “I’m the step-great-grandson of Carleton F. Burke. I have some of his artifacts. Would you like to have them?” When librarian Vivian Montoya relayed this to Foundation president Ada Gates Patton, Patton’s reply was, “ABSOLUTELY!”
Recently, Patton went to Palm Springs, where Theodore (Theo) D. Robinson Jr. resides, to pick up the donation of a silver platter and silver coffee pot with carved wooden handle, won by Burke; an oil painting of Burke’s favorite polo pony, Scotty, by the noted artist Franklin Voss; and an ink-well hoof with engraved silver. There she learned some family history.
Carleton F. Burke married late and had no children. But his wife, Myrtle Wood Hook, had lots of illustrious family. Her grandson, Theodore Douglas Robinson, is a descendant of the Astors, a governor of New York, and three U. S. Presidents: James Monroe, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Theo Jr. is her great-grandson and is a noted photographer and artist who divides his time between Palm Springs and the south of France.
Burke was born in Arkansas and moved with his family to Los Angeles, where his father prospered as a real estate and insurance entrepreneur. Carleton Burke also excelled in business, but his deep love was horses. He played polo, owned racehorses and a breeding farm, and served the polo and racing industry for decades.
In the period from the early 1930s to his death on July 29, 1962, Burke was the first chairman of the California Horse Racing Board, director of racing at Santa Anita, a founder of the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association, a trustee of the National Museum of Racing in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., chairman of the American Polo Association, a trustee of the American Thoroughbred Breeders Association, and donor of the Carleton F. Burke Library at the CTBA building in Arcadia, the largest collection of the history of racing in California.