<Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article needs attention from an expert on the subject . Please add a reason or a talk parameter to this template to explain the issue with the article . Consider associating this request with a WikiProject . (July 2015) </Td> </Tr> <P> Some authors have said that the song originated based upon the performance of the horse Lady Suffolk, the first horse recorded as trotting a mile in less than two and a half minutes . It occurred on 4 July 1843 at the Beacon Course racetrack in Hoboken, New Jersey, when she was more than ten years old . One author attributed the song to Stephen Foster, although the composer is usually listed as unknown . The archival evidence, however, is that the song originated a few decades later in the nineteenth century as a campaign ditty, composed as an epithet of Baltimore mayor Ferdinand Latrobe by Democratic Party (United States) political operative and appointee Thomas Francis McNulty . The book The Gallant Gray Trotter featured Lady Suffolk . </P> <Dl> <Dd> The old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be, </Dd> <Dd> Ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be, </Dd> <Dd> The old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be, </Dd> <Dd> Many long years ago . </Dd> </Dl> <Dd> The old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be, </Dd>

The old gray mare just ain't what she used to be