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LIBKAKY UNIVERSITYy
PENNSYLVANIA
FAIRMAN
ROGERS
COLLECTION
ON
HORSEMANSHIP
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2009 with funding from
Lyrasis IVIembers and Sloan Foundation
http://www.archive.org/details/americanthoroughOOmerr
The American Thoroughbred
BY
THOMAS B. MERRY
("HIDALGO")
PRINTED BY THE
COMMERCIAL PRINTING HOUSE
LOS ANGELES, CAL 1905
f\lP:.
NEW BOLTON CEMTER
r^xc -IPC
t^55'o
Entered according to Act of Congress in the Office of ttie Librarian of Congress on tlie seventeentli day of October, A. D., 1904.
Contents
Preface ----------9
Our Portrait Gallery ------- 12
Part I. The Origin of the Thoroughbred - - - 13
Part II. The Three Cardinal Lines - - - 23,
Part III. The Modern British Thoroughbred - - 35
Part IV. The American Thoroughbred - - - 71
Second Epoch — 1783 to 186 1 - - - - - 7^
Third Epoch — Close of Civil War to Date - - - 84
Our Imported Sires .__._-- 103
Our Native Sires - -- - - - - II7
Our Great Native Mares - - - - - - 1 26
Part V. The French Thoroughbred _ - - - 133
Second Epoch - ------- 143
Part VI. The Austro-Hungarian Thoroughbred - 151
Part VII. The Australian Thoroughbred - - - '59
The Bruce Lowe System of Breeding by Figures - - - ' 77
Converse In-Breeding - - - - - - -181
In-Breeding, Past and Present - - - - - - 185
A Heart to Heart Talk with Breeders - - - 189 Selling Races - - - - - - - - "^95
Spurious Pedigrees ------- 197
A Military Proposition ------- 201
Two-Year-Old Racing ------- 205
The Breeders' Handbook __-_-- 209
Some Representative American Stallions - - - - 211
The Burns and Waterhouse Farm ----- 24 1
A Home Production ------- 245
P r e f a c e
My only excuse for the appearance of this vohime is my firmly-rooted belief that such a book is needed by the breeders of thoroughbred horses in America. When one man can send into the sales ring a consignment of over three hundred yearlings and sell them at auction for something in excess of an average of $800, it is time for other breeders to wake up and begin to study the science of breeding as he has done. Most men are willing to pay a big price for a stallion, without grumbling, but when it comes to purchasing a really good mare, and the daughter of a great producing matron at that, for $1500 or $2000, they button up their breeches' pockets and say "Nay" to the man who has the mare to sell. It is high time for other men to follow the lead of Messrs. Belmont, Haggin, Keene, Camden and such men who see the necessity of excellence in both sexes.
Just twelve years ago, Col. Sanders D. Bruce, editor of the Turf . Field and Farm, issued a book entitled "The Thoroughbred Horse," which he modeled very largely upon the "Breeders' Hand Book," published by Mr. Joseph Osborne in England. Both those books were well written but badly edited. Mr. Bruce carried you back to the days of Waxy and Sir Peter and without any other intermission, dropped you down on the back of some old short-bred Kentucky mare like Picayune or Minerva Anderson, neither of which should ever have found a place in the American Stud Book^ save in an appendix. Now, don't understand me as seeking to elevate my own work by belittling a dead friend. Col. Bruce's services to his country were signal and varied. He probably did as much as any other man, living or dead, to keep his native State (Kentucky) from going out of the Federal Union ; and his Stud Book, which was the work of almost thirty years continuously, while it has its imperfections, was so far in advance of my expectations and of the expectations of others of his friends, that he deserves the high- est praise for it. With his steadfast work to bring order out of chaos, the labors of' his successors in that field have been comparatively easy. But the editorial portion of "The Thoroughbred Horse" was carelessly put together, no matter how well written ; and the same is true equally of Mr. Joseph Osborne's book, for in both cases the reader has to go through the whole editorial portion of the book in order to find what he wants to know concerning any given horse or family of horses.
I have endeavored to remedy that defect by a classification of the subject matter involved in these pages. I devote one chapter to the "Origin of the Thoroughbred" and deal chiefly with the three great lines which have survived all others — the Godolphin Arabian, the Darley Arabian and the Byerly Turk. If anybody wants the details of importation of Oriental horses into England, up to and including the reign of good Queen Anne, I must refer him to the works of Mr. Osborne and Col. Bruce, as giving details more minute than I could hope to embrace in this little book. The student of breeding cares nothing in this day for the fact that the Godolphin Arabian's great
lo Preface.
reputation grew out of Hobgoblin's refusal to cover Roxana. What he wants is facts and figures embracing the present day and date. The mere fact that Catton and Emilius were two of the best and most successful stallions between 1820 and 1840, has no bear- ing upon modern breeding because the male lines of those two once-famous sires are now wholly extinct, while that of the despised and calumniated Blacklock — in that era at least — is now at the head of the British turf, through St. Simon and his sons, two of which have already headed the list of winning sires though less than twelve years old.
Hence my only endeavors have been to bring this book down to date and modern- ize its contents so far as practicable. The great world is in a great hurry just now, and has but little time to devote to the perusal of ancient history. So I deal with horses of the last sixty years as much as possible, referring the reader to the works of Col. Bruce for the old days in Virginia; and to Mr. Osborne's work for the ancient occurrences on the turf in England and Ireland. They were both better writers than 1 am and had more extensive libraries upon which to draw for information. Hence I make no claim for any great amount of originality in this book, but I can claim truth- fully that its .construction is more orderly and methodical than that of any book that has yet been published on this subject, either in America or in Europe.
I naturally expected to make some money out of this book, but fear that 1 shall not have $1000 left after paying all the bills. 1 have received no support from Ken- tucky whatever and none of any extent except from Californians, counting ]\lr. James R. Keene as one. Col. S. D. Bruce's book contained advertisements of 94 stallions of which 68 were owned in Kentucky. In this book there is just one Kentucky stallion owned by a bona fide resident of that State. The truth is, that I am suffering for an- other party's misdeeds.
In igo2 a canvass was made for a book to be called ''The History of the Horse," to be published from the office of the New York Spirit of the Times. The brothers Le Berthon got about $42,000 worth of contracts on that book for which they were to receive 50' per cent, as commission. On this amount some $16,000 was paid in checks and turned over to the manager of the Spirit of the Times, who deposited them in the bank to his personal account and drew checks against it to pay the Le Berthons their commissions. No book ever has appeared nor ever will. The manager of the concern got away with a nice little stake and now, when I come to print a book that is needed, I get the frozen lip from men to whose interests I am doing an actual service. Mr. John Le Berthon lives in this city and is respected as a straight and upright man wherever he is known. I would risk my life on his honesty as I have known him nearlv twenty years. He is in no way to blame for the non-appearance of the ''History of the Horse." He did his work and got his pay for it, as was right. The other party who received the checks of Messrs. Whitney, Mackay, Belmont and others, and gave no value in return, is in pretty big luck to be at large and master of his own actions.
I have tried also to offend nobody while endeavoring to write impartially and in a spirit of honest criticism. As to what appears in the "Breeders' Hand Book" portion of this work, that is advertising pure and simple ; and the opinions concerning horses published therein are those of their owners and not of myself. Hence I cannot, in any spirit of fairness be held responsible for anything that appears in that part of my work. In the editorial portion of it, ranging from Chapter I to Chapter X, the opinions advanced are all my own and upon them I am ready to stand or fall, in the full belief that the right to applaud carries with it the right to censure as well. I seek to quarrel with no other man's opinions but will endeavor, as far as possible, to have my own respected. And to achieve that end I feel that I must write in a spirit of candor and justice, so that when the end comes to me as it does to all men, those who survive me may remember the injunction of the Moor and ".speak me fair in death — nothing extenuate nor set down aught in malice."
P r e f a c e ii
The reader who expects to find any such glowing pen-pictures in this book as are to be found in Mr. Porter's description of the great race between Wagner and Grey Eagle, will be disappointed. Nor will he discover in these pages any such crisp and elegant English as characterizes the works of J\Ir .H. H. Dixon, who wrote over the signature of "The Druid," for two reasons : First, because I am not competent to write in a flowery vein, even if I so desired ; and second, because this is a book that is largely technical in its nature and, therefore, all florid rhetoric should be avoided. It is written for the perusal of plain men ; it deals with plain and stubborn facts ; and for that reason should be couched in the plainest language nossible.
THOS. B. MERRY.
OUR PORTRAIT GALLERl
The object of every illustrated work of this sort, especially where the horses of various nations are given, is to give out the representative horse of each nation. I therefore give Persimmon as the representative stallion of England, not that I deem him so good a sire as St. Simon or Stockwell, but because he is the first stallion in English history to head the list of winning sires at nine years of age, as against eleven for Stockwell and twelve for Hermit. As the sire of the great filly Sceptre and that great cup horse, Zinfandel, Persimmon will always occupy a prominent place in English stud history.
Lexington is given the place, [^ar excellence, of all native American sires, having gotten more horses of absolute stake form in the same number of foals than any other horse in American history. He headed the list of winning sires for eleven seasons (six years after his death, be it remembered), while no other horse ever was at the top for seven years. His sons did not do well in the stud but his daughters built up repu- tation for at least ten of the best sires between 1870 and the present writing. In this respect the sightless hero of Woodburn is the nearest approach to Sir Peter (foaled 1784), of any horse, since the dawn of the nineteenth century.
Flying Fox is given as the representative horse of France, although foaled in England and never having raced in his adopted country. This is because he is the only sire credited with a winner of the Grand Prix de Paris in his eighth year. It is worthy of note that, though several highly approved mares were sent across the channel to him, most of his best winners are from what might be properly called French-bred mares. Mons. Edmond Blanc made no mistake when he paid the enor- mous price of $80,000 for Flying Fox.
Merman is given as the representative horse of Australia, for three reasons : First, because no portrait of Yattendon was ever taken ; second, because no picture of the Grand Flaneur was ever painted that could be called a good picture of the horse ; and third, because Merman is, so far as turf performances in England are concerned, a representative horse in the strictest sense of the term. He is the only Colonial-bred horse to win the Ascot Gold Cup ; and the third horse in the long space of eighty years to walk over for a Goodwood Cup, the other two being Stumps in 1826 and The Bard in 1886. Few horses retire to the stud with such a garland of laurels as have en- circled the beautiful neck of the deservedlv great ]Merman.
PART I.
THE ORIGIN OF THE THOROUGHBRED
^'■Who thundering comes on blackest steed With iron heel and hoof of speed? The ocean s rocky caves resound With stride for stride and bound for bound. "The foam that streaks the courser s side Seems gathered from the ocean tide.''
— Byron.
Origin of the Thoroughbred
1 have been freqnentlj' asked ''What is a thoroughbred horse?" and "Wherein does he differ from other horses?" Of course, such a question could only emanate from a person ignorant of the use of the word ''thoroughbred," as a generic term.
My answer to this query is that the thoroughbred horse is of Oriental extraction and an animal developed through centuries of cultivation by enlightened nations. You go out upon the hillsides in June and pick the wild strawberries, than which nothing could be of richer taste or more delicate flavor, but the fruit seldom has exceeded one- quarter of an inch in diameter, while under careful cultivation it often attains four times thp.t size. The Thoroughbred horse is the result of a similar degree of industry on the part of mankind. Good food, careful housing from stress of weather and ample care of mares during their period of gestation, have made the thoroughbred horse what he is today, while his Oriental prototype in Asia and Northern Africa is just what he was, so far as concerns size, power and liberty of action, five centuries ago. The stride of the average Arabian or Barbary horse is about seventeen feet, at the very apex of his speed, while almost any American or English thoroughbred will cover from twenty-one to twenty-three feet when fully extended. The famous Alabama mare, Peytona, so called from having won the $44,000 Peyton Stake at Nashville in 1843, ran on twenty-eight feet, but the effort was so great that she could not be relied upon to run more than two good races in any one year.
The first instance given us in history of any attempt to improve the breed of horses in England, which is just as much the cradle of the thoroughbred horse now as ever it was, was in the ninth century when Hugh Capet, King of France, sought the hand of the English princess, Ethelwilda, in marriage and sent some horses, bred in France from sires of Oriental nativity, as a present to her brother, Athelstane, then King of Great Britain. Later, during the reign of William the Conqueror, we find that Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, sent to Spain for stallions to breed cavalry horses on his estates at Powisland. It is almost certain that these Shrewsbury horses were bred from the "Barbs" introduced into Spain by the Moors, in the days of the "Cid Cam- peador." In the reign of the first Richard matches were run for large sums of money but there seems to have been a hiatus between that period and the reign of Edward III who, in 1326, received a present of two fleet coursers from the King of Navarre and bestowed some valuable gifts upon the messenger who brought them. It was not until 1509 that King Henry VTII (who was a victim to the matrimonial habit) conceived the idea of establishing a Royal Stud at Bushcy Park near where Cardinal Wolsey held forth in the zenith of his power. It is quite probable that the interregnum in the breeding of fine horses in England was caused by the "War of Roses" between the rival horses of York and Lancaster; and that the revival of breeding of high-class horses had its inception with the receipt of some mares by ''Bluff Hal" from the Duke of Mantua.
i6 '-The American Thoroughbred
It was not to be wondered at that King Henry's daughter, the "Virgin Queen" (who was a virgin if she did pull up her skirts to the French envoy, Bassompiere, and slap her thigh for his amusement) gave all possible encouragement to racing, for, while she had no horses trained or raced in her own name, she had additional breeding farms at Richmond, St. Albans, Windsor, Greenwich and Waltham ; and the sales of horses produced at those farms proved an important addition to the royal revenues. At her death and the succession of King James 1 to the throne, came the first royal endorse- ment of racing which caused it to be called the "Sport of Kings." It was said that several fine Moorish bred stallions had swam ashore from the wreck of the "In- vincible Armada" and landed on the coast of Scotland, from which had been bred some rapid horses ; and there it was that the young monarch, during his nonage, had acquired his love of racing as well as his superb seat in the saddle. The fact that James "pulled up stakes" at the London palaces and removed his court to Newmarket during the summer months, is the best proof that he was very fond of the big game. ( See the "History of Newmarket," written in the most graceful style by the late Mr. J. P. Hore.)
What impresses me most curiously (although it may not others) is that the young successor to Elizabeth should have taken such an interest in racing ; and that no pre- pared chronicles of performances on the turf should have been handed down from that era to our own. Although but few names have been preserved and those only in an in- cidental fashion, yet a few have survived the wreck of Time, for Mr. Gervase Markham mentions a horse called Grey Valentine who was never beaten, according to his say-so. Hence the bestowal of first honors in that direction to Childers and O'Kelly's Eclipse seems to have been a popular error. In Markham's chronicles, he mentions Pepper- mint, Franklin and Whitefoot as performers of great distinction, while Grey Dellaval, owned by the Earl of Northumberland, comes in for a still wider meed of praise. These are the first English turf horses, therefore, to receive any individual mention. Mr. Markham then goes on to quote from the Treasury records of King James' reign which show that "there were four boys annually apprenticed, on small stipends, to the King's jockeys and the Master of the Horse w^s held responsible for their good con- duct." No mention, however, is made of any horse owned by the nobles of King James court, although it is well known that the Duke of Buckingham, to whom Eng- land was indebted for the importation of the Helmsley Turk, was the King's favorite and one of the chief moving spirits at Newmarket. Many Eastern horses were im- ported during the reign of James I, but the only one accorded any special mention is the Markham Arabian for which the King paid the big price of £500, according to the Duke of Newcastle, but the royal records of expenditure place the sum at about one- third of that amount. For all the good he ever did the British Stud, this horse might as well have remained in Syria. At this time there were race-meetings held all over England, especially at Doncaster, Salisbury and Chester, where the Roodee was built for similar purposes by the Romans.
Charles the First succeeded James and it was during his reign that the first really valuable importation of Oriental blood took place. This was a horse first called the Buckingham Turk, but was sold by his noble owner to a Mr. Helmsley. whence he got the name of "The Helmsley Turk." As to whether he ever raced or not, history is silent, but as the sire of Bustler, Vixen and "Hutton's Royal Colt" (whose dam was a Sedbury Royal mare) he certainly placed himself on record. In Mr. Haggin's catalogues of 1904, containing the dams of .323 yearlings, I find no less than 19 tracing to a mare by Bustler, son of this selfsame Helmsley Turk. The English Stud Book, however, yields no information concerning Bustler other than that he was by Helmsley Turk, yet his blood comes down to the present day through Blunderbuss, Bolton Starling, Old Merlin, Bolton Sweepstakes and the "Blacklegs mare," which was the dam of Marske, sire of the unbeaten Eclipse, while from Vixen, also by the Helmsley Turk, are derived many of our best horses. Vixen's dam was an imported mare — the
The Origin of the '•Thoroughbred ly
dam of Dodsworth also, but she must have produced more than these two for she was twenty years old when she dropped Vixen. This Barb mare was one of the mares in the Royal stud formed by Charles II, on whose death she was sold to Mr. Coke, who bred Vixen from her.
When the war had subsided, several valuable importations were made, about the best of which was a white stallion imported by Mr. Place, who was stud master to Oliver Cromwell ; and there is hardly an English horse of note that does not show from one to four crosses of this horse, known as "Place's White Turk.'" He got Com- moner and Hautboy, both great performers in their day. It is a good strain of blood and is specially conspicuous in the pedigrees of Matchem and Woodpecker, as well as in the dam of Snap ; and is also to be found in Lady Thigh and "the Widdington mare," both as conspicuous in their day as are Pocahontas and Ellen Home in our own. His daughters were greater, however, as grand dams and great-grand dams than in the first generation, one of these being the grand dam of Grey Ramsden, Cartouch and Wynd- ham. They were also the ancestors of Whitefoot by Bay Bolton ; Torismond by Star- ling, Alcides by Babraham ; and Sweepstakes by The Gower Stallion. The Brimmer mare, whose dam was by Place's White Turk, was the dam of the noted Makeless, the grand dam being by Dodsworth (sire of Dicky Pierson) out of the Layton Barb mare, founder of the No. 4 family in Bruce Lowe's system, to which trace Iroquois, Belyidere, Kentucky and Sir Dixon in America ; and Alice Hawthorn, Thormanby, Kisber, Wen- lock and Apology in England.
The Royal mares purchased abroad by Sir John Fenwick, Master of the Horse to Charles II, at the King's personal expense, produced many good horses but the natural Barb mare which produced Dodsworth must have been clearly the best, for she gave birth to him shortly after her arrival and he therefore, not withstanding he was foaled in England, was manifestly an Oriental horse. If Dodsworth had never gotten any- thing but Dicky Pierson, that alone should have made him famous, for it was to the union of Dicky Pierson with the "Burton Barb mare," founder of the No. 2 family in Bruce Lowe's system, that we owe such equine wonders as Harkaway, Voltigeur, Martyrdom, Lord Clifden and last, but far from least, the Australian phenomenon Carbine, who won the Melbourne Cup with 145 lbs., two miles in 3 :28^. But beyond Dodsworth's dam there is but little account of these Royal Mares. Lord D'Arcy, about that time, imported two Turkish stallions, called the D'Arcy Turk and D'Arcy's Yel- low Turk. The former was located at Sedbury, whence he is often called the Sedbury Turk ; and it is to a union of this horse with one of the Royal mares at that place that we owe the origin of the No. 11 famil> of which St. Simon (premier sire of Eng- land for nine seasons) is the most prominent exemplar. The Yellow Turk, imported at the same time, was also a success in the stud, being the sire of the famous Brimmer, while from Lord Fairfax's Morocco Barb mare he got the equalh' celebrated Spanker. The student of pedigrees of noted horses foaled prior to 1750, will find these two ITirks very frequently.
During the reign of Charles 11 there were also two valuable importations, the Thoulouse Barb and the Curwen Bay Barb. These horses were brought over from France by a Mr. Curwen, of Cumberland, as a present to King Charles from "Le Grand Monarque," who thought more of his mistresses than anything else. They had been presented to him by Muley Ismail, King of Morocco ; and had been brought from Barbary in one of the King's war vessels, commanded by Admiral le Comte de Tholouse, who was one of His Majesty's "catch colts," as they say in Oregon. Another of the King's illegitimate offspring, the Comte de Byram, was Master of the Horse to the King at that very time. The Curwen Barb was just thirteen hands high, but all his progeny were larger, probably owing to such care as he never received himself when a foal. The best of his get was Mixbury, who became a great race horse but a very poor sire. His full sisters, however, were great matrons, one of them being the dam
1 8 The American 'Thoroughbred
of Little Scar, Partner, Soreheels and the dam of Crab ; while the other sister pro- duced Silver Eye, Hazard and Quiet. But it was in 171 1 that the Curwen Bay Barb most distinguished himself by begetting Brockelsby Betty from Mr. Leedes' Hobby mare by The Lister Turk, also called The Stradling. To this Brocklesby Betty trace, in female tail line such great performers as Songstress and Cyprian, winners of the Epsom Ocks ; Starke and Prioress, bred in America but great winners in England over forty years ago ; and last but not least. Domino and Hamburg, of our own day.
It was during the reign of James H that the Duke of Berwick, at the siege of Buda, in Hungary in 1686, captured the horse now known as "The Lister Turk." the Duke having sold him to Mr. Lister, of Lincolnshire, who bred many great ones from him. He became the sire of Coneyskins, Snake, Piping Peg and the Duke of Kingston's Brisk. Through Snake and Coneyskins this Lister Turk had become one of the leading Eastern factors in the British Stud; and "which I wish to remark," asjthe late Bret Harte would have put it, that while we claim English Eclipse (foaled 1764) as the chief and only surviving exponent of the Darley Arabian's male line, an examination of his pedigree will show that Eclipse had but one cross of the Darley Arabian, as against two of the Godolphin Arabian, five of the Lister Turk and nine of Place's White Turk. "Now will you be good?"
In the reign of William and Mary, during the war in Ireland where the "BaUk-" of the Boyne was fought, not far from the present site of Drogheda, Capt. Byerly rode an imported Turkish horse, to whom he was indebted for the fact that he was not capt- ured by the irate Paudheens. After "this cruel war was over" this horse was taken to England, where he became one of the pillars of the stud. His best sons on the turf were Spite, JBlock Hearty and Basto, sire of the great Soreheels. None of these were great sires, but his son Jigg got Partner, foaled 1718. Partner got Tartar, who was mated with Cypron by Blaze and produced Herod, the greatest horse of his day, foaled six years before Eclipse. Herod got Highflyer, Woodpecker, Anvil, Phenomenon (imported to America) and a host of other heroes. His get were nineteen years on the turf during which they won £201.505 in money (with racing prizes worth about one- eighth of their present value) besides nine gold cups and forty-three hogsheads of claret.
During the reign of William and Mary were imported into England the noted Barb horses Chillaby and Slugey, sometimes called Sloughby, a mare claimed by the Morocco people to be desired as a mate for Chillaby, to whom she produced Greyhound, a noted stallion of that day and sire of the Duke of Wharton's Othello. About the same time were imported the Selaby Turk, sire of the Coppin mare, to which trace Emilius in England and St. Charles, St. Carlo and all the descendants of imported Camilla in America. The Akaster Turk and the Harper Arabian were also imported about this time. The Akaster Turk was the sire of Chanter and Sister to Chanter, that mare being the dam of Lord Godolphin's gray mare Roxana, the dam of Lath and Cade by the Godolphin Arabian. Lath was the best performer and Cade the best sire, his line being still in existence, through Matchem, Conductor, Trumpator, Sorcerer, Comus, Humphrey Clinker and Melbourne, it being through the latter only that the line now exists.
The Honeywood Arabian was another importation during this reign. He came over to England as the property of Sir John Williams, for which reason he is often known as the "Williams Turk." but he was not a Turk at all. Mr. Honeywood put his Byerly Turk mare to him and the result of that union was True Blue, who proved so good a turf horse that Mr. Honeywood decided to purchase his sire, in consequence of which the horse was forever afterward known as the "Honeywood Arabian." True Blue beat Chanter and six others for the King's Plate at York in 1716, besides winning several other valuable prizes. As the result ,of this, the Byerly Turk mare was again mated with the Honevwood Arabian and that foal was called Young True Blue. While
The Origin of the T'horoughbred
19
there have been other successful turf families, there is no sire family anywhere near this No. 3 in the Bruce Lowe system, to which trace the following great sires of history:
Stockwell t Rataplan QD King Tom Flying Dutchman * Lanercost A Tramp D Isinglass *t Musket Alex Berserken Mast. Kildare CS
St. Patrick t Post Restante Kettledrum * Flatcatcher Elthiron CS Hobbie Noble W Pyrrhus I* Gen. Peel t Velocipede Galopin *
Van Tromp tQ Rayon d'Or tj Eothen
Slight of Hand Toxophilite GM Sir Peter * Eclipse Nuneham Quicklime CS
IMl'OKTED TO CALIFOR- NIA.
Conveth True Briton Abercorn (Aust.) Vanderdecken (Aust) Maribyrnong (Aust.) Ferryman (Aust.) KingofAnglers(Aust) Talbof the Hill (Aust)
Of the 31 stallions named above, 11 got winners of the Derby; 10 got winners of the St. Leger, and got 10 winners of the Oaks, the hardest race on earth for a three-year-old filly; 5 got winners of the 2000 guineas, and g got winners of the toco guineas. The two greatest sires from the dam of the two True Blues are Sir Peter, foaled in 1784, and Derby winner in 1787 ; and Stockwell, foaled in 1849, and winner of the Two Thousand Guineas and St. Leger of 1852. The reader is referred to "The Great Table," to be found in the latter part of this book, for further particulars as to what these great sires achieved in the stud. There is no mark placed after Eothen, imported into America by the late David D. Withers, but the interesting fact remains that he is, up to date, the only stallion, whether native or imported, to get two winners of the Realization Stakes at Coney Island, which is in nine years out of ten. the severest three-year-old race in all America. As for Abercorn, he was certainly the best race horse ever foaled in Australia and the handsomest big horse I ever saw.
Queen Anne succeeded to the throne of England in 1702 and to her, more than any other sovereign of that kingdom, the racing world is indebted for the presence of the thoroughbred horse of today. Shortly after her accession to the throne, a Mr. William Darley, living near New York, received a present of an Arabian stallion from his brother living abroad, the horse being a bay with a star and snip and four white feet. ( It was owing to his resemblance to a portrait of this famous horse that Dr. Elisha Warfield, of Lexington, Ky., gave the name of "Darley" to his bay colt, foaled in 1850, by Boston out of Alice Carneal by imp. Sarpedon but, after the colt had won all his stakes, he yielded to the persuasion of his friends and re-christened him "Lex- ington." And as such he goes down to history, the only stallion in the world to head the list of Winning Sires for eleven years ; and as the greatest sire of broodmares the world has ever known, being just as far ahead of Pantaloon, St. Albans, Mel- bourne, Orlando, Stockwell, King Tom and Hermit, as one horse can be ahead of another. It is to be generally regretted that none of his sons were able to perpetuate his fame ; and I confidently expect, from all present indications, that his male line, like that of Catton and Emilius, in the earlier part of the last century, will be wholly extinct by 1950.
The Darley Arabian is. of course, the male line ancestor of Eclipse, whose descend- ants have won two Derbys and almost three St. Legers to any other family's one. No Herod line colt has won the Derby since 1879; nor has any of this line won a St. Leger since Ossian carried it off in 1883. Sir Visto, by Barcaldine, was the last Matchem line horse to win either a Derby or a St. Leger, he absorbing both those races in 1895, but, judging from his subsequent performances, he was a very ordinary
* Won the Derby; t won the St. Ledger; A won the Ascot Cup; D won the Doncaster; G won the Goodwood; Q won the Queen's Vase at Ascot; CS won the City and Suburban; J won the Jockey Club Cup; N won tlie New Stakes, Ascot; GM won the Grand Duke Michael Stakes; Alex won the Alexandra Plate, 3 miles.
20 The American Thoroughbred
horse ahd fit to go into a class with Sir Bevys, Amato, Merry Hampton and Phos- phorus. All the rest have been a case of "Eclipse first and the rest nowhere." Yet the man who reviews the pedigree of Eclipse and that of his most distinguished great- grandsons, Whalebone, Whisker and Woful (full brothers) will find that the Godolphin Arabian is nearly four times as prominent a factor in those three great brothers as was the Darley Arabian ; and the same is true, but in a much smaller degree, of Eclipse himself. My own idea of the three great cardinal lines has always been. Eclipse for speed, Herod for quality and Matchem for substance.
In 1715 Mr. Childers had a favorite mare called Betty Leedes, by Careless, which he mated with the Darley Arabian, the produce being the horse called Flying Childers or sometimes "Devonshire Childers." This was by long odds the fastest horse seen on the British turf up to that time. In the following year she was mated with him again and produced "Bartlett's Childers," which was never trained, but proved to be the best sire of any of his get. Bartlett's Childers got Squirt (foaled 1732) from a sister to Old Country Wench by Snake. Squirt got Marske (foaled 1750) from a daughter of Blacklegs (foaled 1725) and Marske got Eclipse (foaled 1764) from Spiletta (1749) by Regulus (1739) he by the Godolphin Arabian. Eclipse's tabulation will be found complete in the chapter headed the "Three Cardinal Lines."
Nearly contemporaneous with the importation of the Darley Arabian, was that of the horse known as the Leedes Arabian, purchased from his importer by Mr. Leedes, of North Milford in Yorkshire, who was the breeder of Tartar, Careless and other good ones. This horse got many good ones but the best were Dyers' Dimple and Leedes, the latter's dam being by Spanker atid of a Morocco Barb mare, she being also the dam of Charming Jenny, who produced Betty Leedes, she being the dam of Flying Childers and Bartlett's Childers. Queen Anne had an enormous breeding establish- ment at Hampton Court and was herself a great patron of racing but no official racing record was published in those days. In 1714, a great racing meeting was being held at the Rawcliffe Ings, on the bank of the river Ouse, near York ; and Orton, in his chronicles of that day, states that one hundred and fifty-six carriages were on the ground, filled largely with representatives of the nobility. There were two races run that day, both at four-mile heats, one a plate of £40 for aged horses, won by Her Majesty's b. h. Star, he taking the third and fourth heats from Hon. Mr. Cecil's ch. h. Creeper, who won the second, and the Lord Chamberlain's Merlin, who won the first. The other race was also run in four heats and was for a gold cup of £100 value, the gift of Her Majesty. It was won by Mr. Childers" bay mare Duchess, ridden by R. Hesseltine, she taking the first and fourth heats. Mr. Pierson's bay horse Foxhunter won the second, and the third heat was decided, on account of some bad riding, to have been "no heat" and the horses were ordered to run again. The races were barely con- cluded when a messenger arrived at the course with the unwelcome news that Her Majesty was dead; and that the privy council had declared Prince George, of Hanover, as the nearest rightful heir to the vacant throne and had proclaimed him King of England under the title of George I.
Queen Anne did more towards fostering the breeding interests of England than all other British sovereigns combined, as during her reign, were imported twenty-four Oriental horses, consisting of nine Arabians, eight Barbs, six Turks and one Persian horse. The total number of importations, since the beginning was ninety Arabians, forty-six Barbs, thirty-two Turks, four Persians and two "foreign horses" whose origin could not be well authenticated, one being owned by Sir Thomas Gascoigne and the other by Sir W. Goring, and are always alluded to as such, in pedigrees wherein they may occur. In all, up to the accession of George I, the first of the Hanoverian dynasty that ended with Victoria, the only bright spot in the Hanoverian reign, there had been brought into England a total of 174 importations, of which the Arabians comprised over 50 per cent. Of these 174 horses, so imported, the male lines of only
The Origin of the Thoroughbred
21
Ihree are now in existence — those of the Darley Arabian, Byerly Turk and Godolphin Arabian, claimed by many to have been a Barb, but I was never a believer in that theory. I have not given a complete list of these Oriental stallions as I consider them to have been sufficiently exploited in the works of Mr. Joseph Osborne (Beacon) and Col. Sanders D. Bruce, the latter having enlarged upon them more fully than did Mr. Osborne ; and to such readers as may desire their amplification I refer their works. My book is to be more modern, if it can possibly be made so, and I have no time to thresh over old straw. The reader of today is desirous of becoming more familiar with the horses of today and few men are constituted mentally to become devout stu- dents of ancient history.
This becomes more evident as you converse with the younger classes of race-goers, many of whom can tell you, to a fraction of a second, how fast Highball covered Washington Park in the American Derby; or whether the track was fast under foot or muddy when Gold Heels won the Suburban, or when Irish Lad lugged off the Brooklyn Handicap. They can give you the names of the three placed horses in all the more important annual American events, together with the weights carried, and the sire and dam of each winner. But the grandsires and granddams, as well as the cardinal lines to which they owe their origin, are "All Greek" to them. The reader can therefore judge for himself why I have not expanded upon the Oriental importa- tions of stallions into England up to the coronation of the first of the Hanoverian Kings. The present generation cares but little for the history of honored antiques, es- pecially for horses like Catton, Muley and Emilius (great ones in their respective eras, to be sure), whose male lines have become wholly extinct. Emilius was the greatest sire of England from 1832 to 1848, but his last male line descendant died in Eastern Oregon a year or two ago. His name was Villard and he was by Lodi out of Rosa Mansfield by Rivoli, son of Revenue. The fact that the lines of the Darley Arabian, the Byerly Turk and the Godolphin have survived all others is the best proof of their fitness. The more modern exponents of these great Oriental sires, are Eclipse, foaled 1764, as the examplar of the Darley Arabian ; Herod, foaled in 1758, of the Byerly Turk ; and Matchem, foaled 1748, of the Godolphin. It is easily seen why the two first named should have outbred the last, for Matchem was sixteen years older than Eclipse, for which reason he could have covered but few daughters of Herod and none at all of Eclipse. The modern horse showed a superiority for Herod's line in the two first generations for, as much scientific breeding as we have since done. Sir Peter, foaled in 1784, is the only stallion in history to get four winners each of the Derby and St. Leger, and two of the Oaks. Waxy, an Eclipse horse, foaled in 1790, is the only other stallion in history to get four Derby winners and he never got one of the St. Leger. After 1810 the Eclipse blood began to assert its superiority and it has been in the stud as on the turf, "Eclipse first and the rest nowhere." No Herod horse has won a Derby since 1879, nor a St. Leger since 1883.
The Godolphin Arabian, the most noted of all the Eastern sires in his own day and generation, was a dark bay horse, almost brown, and believed (from his teeth) to have been foaled in 1724. It is said that he was rescued by a benevolent Quaker from the cruelty of a drayman in the streets of Paris by purchasing him and sending him over to England, where he became the property of a Mr. Coke, who then pre- sented him to one Williams, keeper of a Coffee-House in London. Some claim that he was a Barb but the Arabian groom who attended him all the time he was at Lord Godolphin's stud (Gog Magog) said he had known the horse in Arabia, where he was known as "Zenada" and sometimes called "Scham" (meaning the chief) by way o:5 compliment. Lord Godolphin made him a teaser to his stallion Hobgoblin, who was by Aleppo (son of the Darley Arabian) out of Mr. Brewster's "Old Hautboy" mare, foaled about 1730. On Hobgoblin's refusal to cover Roxana (by the Bald Galloway) the Arab groom let "Zenada" cover her and no further intercourse was necessary for.
22 The American Thoroughbred
in the following year, she produced a bay foal which Lord Godolphin called Lath from his having such flat sides, but a marvelously fine galloper. A year later she produced Cade, who was nowhere such a racer as Lath but outbred him completely, getting high- class racers from all sorts and conditions of mares. This subject will be dealt with more fully under the space devoted to Matchem in the section of this work entitled "The Three Cardinal Lines." The male line of the Godolphin Arabian is noted for heavier bone and more substance than the lines of the Byerly Turk or the Darley Arabian. It is now wholly extinct save through Melbourne, whose sire, Humphrey Clinker, who was probably the largest thoroughbred stallion ever foaled. He is said by those who saw him (for he died shortly after I was born) to have stood 17 hands, i^ inches high and to have measured 9^ inches around his forward cannon bones and 9H under his hocks. His line, thanks to the enterprise of Mr. A. Keene Richards, of George- town, Ky., who imported Millington (afterwards called imp. Australian) a ch. h. foaled 1858, is now more abundant and more successful than in England, France or Australia, which can only be regarded by intelligent breeders as a rare stroke of good fortune.
Some eighteen years ago, Mr. James B. Haggin imported from Australia a brown horse named Darebin, by The Peer, a son of Melbourne and a brother of the Oaks winner Marchioness. This gave us a new branch of the blood of ]\Iatchem which does not now exist in England. While Darebin has gotten no sire of great note, his daughters are as good broodmares as can be found in America ; and I must be allowed to express the belief that Darebin was a valuable importation, even if he had not gotten any great performers. I have more than once wondered what would have been his place in history had he been given as great opportunities as were accorded to Sal- vator, owned by the same breeder. He has certainly bred more bone than any other horse I know.
I opened this chapter with the question ''What Is a Thoroughbred Horse?" The reader of these pages, written at the patriarchal age of three-score-and-ten, must de- cide for himself as to whether I have answered this conundrum to his entire satis- faction.
PART II.
The Three Cardinal Lines
'■'■For what I am about to tell
Is true as that the De'il's in h — //
Or Dublin City!'
— Swift.
The Three Cardinal Lines
I have shown in the foregoing chapter, that the thoroughbred horse is simply de- veloped from the Oriental horse by centuries of cultivation and good treatment. As a proof of this I may state that the Godolphin x\rabian was the tallest of the three great surviving leaders of Oriental lines (being fourteen hands three inches high, while his grandson, Babraham, was the first horse of thoroughbred blood known, by actual measurement, to be sixteen hands high ; and very few Arabians of the present day (a large number of which were imported into Australia, lietween 1850 and 1885) were over fourteen hands high.
Having described the only three Oriental horses whose male lines are now extant — the Darley Arabian, the Byerly Turk and the Godolphin Arabian — the latter being much the strongest factor up to 1800, I now come to their more modern exponents, Eclipse, Herod and Matchem, all other lines from these three Oriental sires being now- extinct.
DARLEY ARABIAN BYERLY TURK. GODOLPHIN ARABIAN.
Bartlett's Childers. Jigg. Cade, 1734.
Squirt, 1732. Partner, 1718. ^latchem, 1748.
Marske, 1750. Tartar, 1743.
Eclipse, 1764. Herod, 1758.
By the above it appears that Eclipse and Herod were four generations removed from their fountain head while Matchem, ten years older than Herod and but sixteen years older than Eclipse, was but two. I therefore take up the eldest of the three first.
Matchem was a bay horse foaled 1748 and bred by Mr. John Holme, of Carlisle. He was not trained until five years old when he raced as the property of William Fenwick, of Bywell in Northumberland. He won his first race for the subscription purse of 160 guineas at York, beating Barforth Billy by Forester and Bold by Cade. He won six races without experiencing a single defeat, when he was beaten (at seven years old) by Spectator, but beat Drawcansir at four miles, a few days later. In 1758 he won the Jockey Club plate at four miles, but was subsequently beaten by Mirza, Jason third. Feather (favorite) fourth and Forester last. His last race was in that same year for a £50 plate at Scarborough, in which he beat Foxhunter and Sweetlips. He then retired permanently to the stud, at the low fee of five guineas, which was in- creased to ten in 1765, twenty in 1770 and fifty in 1775. He was then twenty-seven years old but got nineteen foals in that year. Matchem's get were on the turf just twenty-three seasons, during which they won £150,097. He died at the ripe age of 23 years in the spring of 1781.
Herod was bred by H. R. H. the Duke of Cuml)erland and was subsequently sold to Sir John Moore. He won his first five races, three of them matches of 1000 guineas each, and met with his first defeat in a match of 1000 guineas each against Sir James Lowther's Ascham, to whom he was giving 14 pounds. He then was beaten
26 'The American Thoroughbred
three straight races by Turf, Bay Malton (twice) and then wound up his turf career by beating his old antagonist, Ascham, for looo guineas aside, over the Beacon course (four miles) at Newmarket. Herod retired to the stud in 1770. He never got a Derby winner but got two winners of the St. Leger and three of the Oaks. The best of his get were Anvil, Phenomenon, Highflyer, Florizel, Bagot, Fortitude, Woodpecker and Telamachus. Considered as sires. Highflyer, Woodpecker and Florizel were his best three. His get were on the turf nineteen seasons, during which they won £201,505 in money, seven cups and forty-three hogsheads of claret. He also showed himself a won- derful broodmare sire, getting the dams of Waxy, whose male line has won more of the classical events than any other sire ; and of Aimator, Gohanna and his brother. Precipitate, Gustavus, Beningbrough (St. Leger 1784 and sire of the great Orville) Calomel, Coriander, Dungannon (winner of 26 races, 13 at four mile beats), Imperator, Overton and Worthy, all more or less famed as sires. He also got the dam of Contes- sina (by Young Marske) from whom is descended, in female tail line, the great Isonomy. Herod's greatest fee was 25 guineas, but he obtained that in his third year. His male line now exists only through three of his sons — Woodpecker, Highflyer and Florizel, whose son, Diomed, was imported to America in 1799. Herod died May 12, 1780, aged 22 years
For the first two generations Herod's line was far in advance of all others through Highflyer and his great son. Sir Peter, whose fifth dam was the dam of the two True Blues, the founder of the No. 3 family in Bruce Lowe's system. The reader will also note that Sir Peter was conversely inbred to the Byerly Turk, that horse being his fifth sire and the sire of his fifth dam. The great Australian stallion, Chester, and the equally famous New Zealand stallion, Sir Modred, imported by Mr. James B. Haggin, and premier sire of America in 1894. were both conversely inbred likewise. But it was not through Highflyer and Sir Peter alone that Herod triumphed, for Wood- pecker got Buzzard in 1787 and he got the Oaks winner Bronze and the St. Leger win- ner Quiz. But Buzzard's honors did not end there, for from a daughter of Alexander (by Eclipse-Grecian Pruicess) he got those three great brothers, Selim, Castrel and Ru- bens, ranking as sires in the order named. Selim got 152 winners of £55.253> beside the Whip and 9 gold cups. Castrel was a "roarer" and was very much avoided by se- lect breeders on that account. Nevertheless he got 42 winners of £11,726 and six gold cups. Rubens was the youngest of the trio, all foaled in four years. He won seven races out of eleven and, at the stud, became the most popular stallion of his time, getting two Oaks winners and one of the Two Thousand Guineas. Castrel died at 26, Selim at 23 and Rubens at 25. Rubens got 231 winners of a total of £73-031, besides thirty-three gold cups. His male line became extinct more than twenty years ago, while Castrel's line sur' vives through Pantaloon, Windhound, Thormanby and Atlantic in France and Sir Mod- red and Cheviot in America. Selim's male line descends to us through Sultan, Bay Middleton, Glencoe, Vandal, Virgil, Hindoo, Hanover and his great sons, Hamburg, Handspring, Handsel, The Commoner and Buck Massie.
The blood of Florizel was strongly exploited in the United States through Diomed, the first winner of the Epsom Derby, who was imported into America in 1799 at the ripe age of 22 years. Diomed, old as he was, managed to get two great performers in Ball's Florizel (never beaten) and Sir Archy, the greatest sire of the first half of the nineteenth century. Ball's Florizel's male line soon became extinct. Orphan being the only good sire in all his get. But Sir Archy was the great premier of his era, getting forty odd good performers and ten or a dozen sires of whom several became premiers. Timoleon, Sir Charles and Virginian, Sir Charles heading the winning sires' list as late as 1839 when his son Wagner carried ofif the $20,000 Post Stake at Louisville.
Duroc, the =ire of the unbeaten American Eclipse, who raced till nine years old and lost by a neck the fastest heat of four miles ever ran up to that time (7:37/^) was also by imported Diomed. Eclipse got several good sires, the best of which was Medoc,
'The Three Cardinal Lines 2j
premier sire of America in 1840 and 1841. Medoc's daughters did a great deal towards building up the reputations of Wagner and Glencoe, the two most popular stallions in America between 1845 and i860. It was from i860 to 1877 that the blood of Florizel; through Diomed and thence down to Lexington, foaled 1850, had its greatest innings. Lexington outbred all horses of his day but his excellence ended with himself. He headed the list of winning sires for eleven seasons, no other stallion either native or im- ported, being able to cope with him save Leamington : and yet none of his sons were ever better than third on the list — War Dance — and he was only for one season. The late August Belmont (who died in 1890) imported over $25,000 worth of fashionably- bred English mares, in the hope of getting some son of Lexington that would equal the father^ but all in vain. His best sons were War Dance, Kingfisher, Norfolk and Wanderer ; and they were all good without any of them being entitled to be called great. The best horse that ever came from his male line was Grinstead, a grandson who was by Gilroy (Lexington-IVIagnolia) a full brother to Daniel Boone and Ken- tucky. He sufifered from being a private stallion and all his get were raced out of one stable — Mr. Elias J. Baldwin's, of Santa Anita, California. Had Grinstead's services been accessible to the public, or had Mr. Baldwin sold his yearlings at auction. Grin- stead's progeny would have had a much better showing to their credit. The only line of Diomed now extant is that through Boston and Lexington ; and if that line is in ex- istence by the year 1925, I miss my reckoning very badly.
Eclipse, foaled in 1764, was a chestnut horse by Marske, son of Squirt, he by Bartlett's Childers. His dam was Spiletta by Regulus, son of the Godolphin Arabian who died in 1753. Eclipse took his name from the great eclipse of the sun which pre- vailed on the day he was foaled ; and was bred by H. R. H. William, Duke of Cumber- land, who also bred Herod. At four years old Eclipse was broken to ride and sold to Mr. Wildman, who shortly afterwards sold one-half interest in him to a noted Irish gambler of that day, Col. Dennis O'Kelly. Eclipse won his first race at Epsom on the 3rd day of May, 1769, for a plate of £50 which he won with ease in a field of five. Gower, by Sweepstakes, was second ; Chance, by Young Cade, third, while Trial and Plume were unplaced. The scale of weights at that time was 118 pounds on five-year- olds and 129 on six-year-olds and aged horses. The next race he ran, O'Kelly offered to bet iijOoo that he could place the horses. On the wager being accepted, O'Kelly said, ''Eclipse first — the rest nowhere." He then instructed his jockey to ride so as to distance the field, which was obeyed to the letter and O'Kelly won his bet. He had already paid 650 guineas for one-half of the horse and now he became the owner of the other half for 1,100 guineas. Eclipse won nine races in all that year, including a gold bowl at Salisbury, two Town Plates and six Royal Plates. The next year he got a long list of winning brackets, some of which he won at odds of 10 to i ; and in his great race over the Round Course, against Pensioner Chigger and Diana, they not only bet 10 to I that he would win, but, after the first heat, bet 7 to 4, in very large sums, that he would distance Pensioner, which he did. Eclipse won nine races in 1770, making eighteen in all without a single defeat, and was then retired to the stud at 50 guineas per mare, whence came forth his progeny to conquer as he had done before them. His get won f 158,047 in twenty-three years, winning long after his death. Eclipse first stood at Clay Hill, near Epsom, where his fee was 50 guineas. He died February 26th, 1787, aged 22, years, at the Cannons, in Surrey, not far from Cobham, his fee being but 30 guineas for two years before his death. This goes to prove what I have already as- serted— that Herod's get surpassed those of Eclipse for the first two generations. Had the young Eclipses beaten the young Herods, there would have been no need of reduc- ing Eclipse's service fee, from £50 to £30, a shrinkage of 40 per cent.
But after the second generation of each horse had passed, then came the revulsion, which has never wavered for a moment. It became a rehearsal of O'Kelly's famous bet, "Eclipse first and the rest nowhere." Eclipse got three Derby winners to Herod's
2S
The American "Thoroughbred
none, one of the best of which was Sahram, afterwards nnported to America. Before leaving England, however, Saltram got Whiskey out of Calash by Herod, she being the dam of Paragon who won the St. Leger of 1786; and Whiskey was about the best stal- lion of that day. He got Eleanor, winner of the Derby and Oaks of 1801, who also beat the great Orville three times at cup distances ; and he was also the sire of Pelisse, winner of the Oaks, and other capital performers. Among the great broodmares got- ten by Whiskey were those two great sisters, Julia, dam of Phantom, who won the Derby in 181 1 and ran second to Soothsayer in the St. Leger; and Cressida, dam of Priam, who not only won the Derby of 1830 in a common canter Ijut also won the Goodwood cup at 4 years with 128 pounds and at 5 with 139 pounds without being ex- tended. Young Eclipse, also a Derby winner, figures in some good pedigrees but died too young to achieve any marked success. Of Eclipse's sons that were the sires of classical winners, we may mention Alexander and his full brother, Don Quixote ; King Fergus, sire of two St. Leger winners ; Mercury and Meteor, both sires of Oaks win- ners ; Volunteer, who got a winner each of the Derby and Oaks ; and last but not the least Pot-8-os, who got two Derb}' winners in Champion and Wax}-, the former being the better race horse and the latter the greater sire, by long odds. Other good sires by Eclipse were Boudrow, Joe Andrews, Dungannon, Jupiter, Hermes, Javelin, Soldier and Zodiac; and he got the dams of Bobtail (Chanticleer), Haphazard, John Bull (Derby winner). Master Bagot, Phenomenon (St. Leger), Oberon, Skyscraper, Scotilla, Stam- ford, Archduke and other great notables. Of all of Eclipse's great and worthy sons, both on the turf and in the stud, there are now extant only the male lines of Pot-8-os, King Fergus and Joe Andrews, all others having "gone a-glimmerin' thro' the gloom." Joe Andrews was nothing great himself but he got Dick Andrews, and Dick got the Oaks winner Manuella and her full sister Altisdora, who won the St. Leger in the very next year, as well as Cwrw, who won the Two Thousand, but the greatest of all of Dick Andrews" get was the stout little bay horse Tramp who won the Doncaster cup of 1814, when it was a far more important race than now, he being the first three- year-old to carry off that event. The distance of the Doncaster cup was then four miles, since reduced to three, then to two and a half, then to two and a quarter, and now it is just two miles. Tramp got Dangerous and St. Giles, winners of the Derby; Barefoot, who won the St. Leger and was imported to America ; Tarantella and Char- lotte West, winners of the One Thousand Guineas ; Zinganee, who won the Ascot cup and was also imported to America ; and the great Lottery who won the Doncaster Cup of 1825, beating two previous winners of the Derby.
King Fergus got two winners of the St. Leger, Beningbrough in 1794 and Hamble- tonian in the year following. Below is given the most prominent of the get of these two sires.
BENINGBROUGH
1791 Orville Octavius * Little John Frederick * Emilius * Priam
Plenipo Mango Poison Industry
HA^IBLETONIAN t Voltigeur
Lady Evelyn Miss Letty Crucifix W Surplice Cowl Beadsman
1792 Whitelock Blacklock Laurel D Flight mare Rhedycina Governess Brutandorf C Het. PlatoffN Cossack * Voltaire D
Vedette D
Galopin *
Donovan *t
Galeotia
Disreali
St. Simon AG
Diamond Jubilee *t
Persimmon
Florizel TI
St. Frusquin
and 5 Oaks winners.
' Won the Derby; t won the St. Ledger; .\ won the Ascot Cup; D won the Doncaster; G won the Goodwood; Q won the Queen's Vase at Ascot; C S won the City and Suburban; J won the Jockey Club Cup; N won tne New Stakes, Ascot; GM won the Grand Duke Michael Stakes,
"■The Three Cardinal Lines
2g
The line of Mercury (sire of Gohanna, the only horse ever known to beat Waxy) became extinct in 1890 and that of Beningbrough about l8g8.
From 1825 to 1840, the line of Beningbrough, through Orville and his two great sons Muley and Emilius, was at the head of the English turf, Emilius heading the list of winning sires for three seasons and Muley for one (1840) in which his son Little Wonder won the Derby, but never did anything else worthy of note. Another excellent son of Muley was Leviathan (who won two four-mile races at York under the name of Mezereon, brought to America a few years prior to Margrave. His daughters bred admirably to Glencoe and other stallions of the period between 1840 and 1855, but he never had a son that was better than third-class as a sire. The line of Muley became extinct in Ireland about 1890. but was gone forever, at least twenty years before that, everywhere else.
The line of Blacklock went down almost out of sight, every once in a while but always managed to "bob up serenely" when least expected. It was always said Volti- geur was a failure because he got only one classic winner, in Vedette, but the following- table shows that while he was never better than fifth on the lists of Winning Sires, he got some very good horses.
STOCKWELL VOLTIGEUR
Winners of the Ascot Cup 2 2
Winners of the Doncaster i 3
Winners of the Chester 2 i
Winners of the Epsom 2 i
Winners of the Gr. Yorkshire Stakes , i 4
Winners of the Cesarewitch Handicap 2 2
Winners of the Great Ebor Handicap o 3
10 16
Of course everybody knows that Stockwell surpassed all sires as far as the five classical events are concerned, but how any man of common sense can call Voltigeur a failure, after the above showing, passes my comprehension. People call Flying Dutch- man a failure because he never headed the li.st of sires, but he was four times second, twice to Orlando and once each to Newminister and Stockwell ; and third three times, once to Touchstone and twice to Stockwell. Such alleged failures are susceptible of in" vestigation.
P0T-8-OS, though only a moderate turf horse, was a good sire. He got Wax}', win- ner of the Derby of I793> with Gohanna (by Mercury) a good second; Nightshade, a winner of the Oaks; and Champion, foaled 1797, who was the first horse ever to win both the Derby and St. Leger, this in 1800 of course. Champion was a total failure in the stud and Nightshade produced nothing of note, but Waxy's male line has brought forth more classic winners than any other three. It has endured from one decade to another with more regularity than any other and while partiaHy overshadowed by the line of Hambletonian (through St. Simon and Galopin) since 1885, I am loth to be- lieve that the overshadowing is in anywise permanent. The following table shows the vast and far-reaching merits of Waxy as a sire, in every part of the world:
30
The American Thoroughbred
e w
a; ) IT)
I E PL,
<
O 1 =3 O
^ rt i_ ^
u
^ r Abercorn GMC* "t, I Dreadnought*A t^ ■( Carlyon CLA j= I Spice t ^ L Titan
*^ Merman G
S I Bravo M Patron M* Ruenalf MS
"§ First Flaneur
t- L rnsco S
O
rt' , be-)-
ni
<u
rarr, nO f Isinglass *
!- c'c >,! Common* — None Nicer f ^'-S c S^' ,,. , (Pretty Polly t qO^^o I Galhnule ]wildflower
^ [ Janissary — Jeddan* ^1 ^{ Elland A— Duchess of Malfi— Wagner imp
(Hampton DG Kettledrum *D — Lady Langden (Sir Bevys D
>
m I M, f „^ .,, c ■ c ij (Sanfoin* — Rock Sand*
^ ^ St. Albans-Springfield -; Watercress- Waterboy
^1^1 T31 • A.T 1 ^Silvio* (Wagner
y^\ Blair Athol -^ p,. charlie -^ Lochiel (Aust.) -^ j ( Salvator (Am.)
1^ i Ormonde* — Orme — Flying Fox*
L Doncaster— Ben d'Or* "^ i^^^^.l JGaltee More*
iK.nH.i iBlairfinde— Ard Patrick*
Q <
I c
-H I ^
Orlando' Surplice * Cotherstone*
I Kendal Feddington *D
r Adventurer
Newminstert i^
P
U
Hermif*
I. Lord Clifden
j Pretender* (Apology tA
(St. Blaise •j Shotover* (Lonelyt — Prisoner D
r Petrarch I Janettet
! Wenlockt
( Irist
Hampton
^l Ithur:el ] Longbow— Toxophilite— Musket
i Deceiver
1 Martenhurst
Merry Hampton^'
Ayrshire*
Ladas*
•o c; ' .^ ;:
(S [n
rt rt
I-
Australian Marks — A won Australian Cup; G won Goodwood Cup; GM won Great Metropolitan Cup; M won Melbourne Cup, 2 miles; MS won Melbourne Stakes, i }4 miles; S won Sidney Gold Cup, 2 miles; C won Champion Stakes, 3 miles; L won Loch Plate, 2 miles; *won Australian Derbys.
The Three Cardinal Lines ji
The real value of Touchstone, as a sire, is not to be computed by the number of classical winners descended from him, for in that respect he falls far below Stockwell, St. Simon and even his own grandson, Hermit. But in 1888. a writer in the London Sportsman showed that, after rejecting 8 per cent, of Touchstone's descendants for club feet and less than 2 per cent, of Birdcatcher's for a similar reason, the male line of Touchstone showed 924 liorses above the grade of selling platers to Birdcatcher's 887. Now there was just two years" difference between the ages of these horses; and that enabled many mares of Touchstone's get to be bred to Birdcatcher, while Artillery, who ran a dead heat for second place with Bonnie Scotland in the St. Leger of 1856, won by Warlock, is the only horse, within my knowledge, that was by Touchstone and out of a Birdcatcher mare.
It has always been a matter of dispute as to which was the best son of Touchstone — Orlando or Newminster. Judged by performances, neither was first-class, though one won the Derby and the other the St. Leger. Judged as sires, we find Orlando three times first on the list, three times second and twice third. Newminster was in front for but two seasons, twice second and three times third. He got winners of more money than Orlando, but he was by seven years the younger horse of the two and Newmin- ster's increase of winnings was due merely to the constant increase in the value of racing prizes in the meantime. Coming down to the next generation, Orlando (who was very deficient in sire blood himself) got no horse worthy of being called a sire, Boiardo, probably his best in this respect, having been sold to Australian owners. Newminster, on the contrary, is the only stallion since 1820 to get three premier sires, Hermit for seven seasons (consecutively) and Lord Clifden and Adventurer for one season each. Hermit's success was due entirely to the fact that his get were flashy and liked short races.
Of course, Eclipse is "first — the rest nowhere" — in summing up the results of the past century, being the male tail-line ancestor of all the best sires and most of the better class of performers. But Eclipse represents the male line of the Darley Arabian and had just one cross of him, while he had two of the Godolphin and even more of the Lister Turk. But as the male line of the latter horse is extinct by nearly two centuries, we will let him drop out and confine our attention entirely to those that have survived the wear-and-tear of Time. The following table shows the pro- portion of blood of the three cardinal lines in each of some forty odd prominent stal- lions of the nineteenth century, all of which have been sires of at least one classic winner :
3^
The American Thoroughbred
stallions' Names
Eclipse 1764
Herod 1758
Matchem 1748
Sir Peter 1784
Buzzard 1787
Selim 1802
Irish Escape 1802
Whisky 178Q
Gohanna 1790
Waxy I7Q0
Orville 1799
Whalebone 1807
Tramp 1810
Blacklock 1814
Touchstone 1831
Birdcatcher 1833
Harkaway 1834
Newminister 1848
Stockwell 1849
Weatherbit 1842
Sweetmeat 1842
Barley
Sires Arabian
Marske 1750 i
Tartar 1743 2
Cade 1734 0
Highflyer 1774 4
Woodpecker 1773 5
Buzzard 1787 6
Commodore 1787 14
Saltram 1780 3
Mercury 1778 4
Pot-8-os 1773 6
Beningbrough 1771 9
Waxy 1790 4
Dick Andrews 1797 11
Whitelock 1803 12
Camel 1822 16
Sir Hercules 1826 19
Economist 182 .s 1 7
Touchstone 1831 22
The Baron 1842 38
Sheet Anchor 1832 25
Gladiator 1833 32
|
■Crosses of- Byerlv Turk |
Godol- phin Arabian |
|
0 |
2 |
|
I |
0 |
|
I |
I |
|
4 |
I |
|
7 |
3 |
|
12 |
9 |
|
9 |
6 |
|
2 |
4 |
|
3 |
4 |
|
6 |
2 |
|
8 |
6 |
|
II |
5 |
|
10 |
16 |
|
10 |
15 |
|
^^ |
24 |
|
19 |
27 |
|
21 |
46 |
|
31 |
34 |
|
44 |
37 |
|
31 |
41 |
|
32 |
31 |
It is customary for some writers to claim a preponderance of the Godolphin's blood as a prerequisite for a great stallion. So far as bone and substance are con- cerned, they are right, but if the Godolphin's is the best blood, why has it now be- come the rarest, for it is now extinct save through Melbourne who was no part of any such race-horse as was Doctor Syntax who won the Preston Gold Cup four times and was second for it on another occasion ? And if the Godolphin's blood is the best of all, why was Harkaway, who was the strongest inbred to the Godolphin Oi any of the twenty-one stallions above given, such an ignominious failure at the stud? He was certainly 10 pounds better than Lanercost and 15 better than Mel- bouine, and probably 15 pounds better than Charles XII. (Whom he never met) and yet, if ever he got a horse that ranked above the selling plate class, I never heard of it. INIelbourne was worth a ten-acre lot full of Harkaways, so far as breeding was concerned. Harkaway had nine more crosses of the Godolphin than had INIelbourne, who saved the male line of the Godolphin from total extinction. If Godolphin blood was the sine qua non, Harkaway should have outbred The Baron, Touchstone and Birdcatcher very easily. As it is, his male line is very weak everywhere, there being no first-class stallion anywhere in the world from his line unless Dick Welles and his brother, Ort Welles, now both in training, turn out to be such.
"The survival of the fittest" is the proper term to apply to the unquestioned pre- eminence of the Darley Arabian's male line. Doctrinaires will overhaul the pedi- gree of Eclipse to show that he had more Godolphin than Darley blood, which is strictly true. But how is it that the Byerly Turk's male line has gotten not a single Derby winner since Sir Bevys won it in 1879; nor a St. Leger winner since Ossian defeated St. Blaise and a dozen others in 1883? And how is it that Sir Visto, by Bar- caldine out of Vista by Macaroni, was the first horse (in 1895) from the Godolphin's line to win a Derby since Blink Bonny carried it off in 1857, a lapse of 38 years ; and that Sir Visto and Kilwarlin were the only two Godolphin horses to win a St. Leger since West Australian went into the "triple crown" business, in 1853? Other races in England show a great proportion of victories for the Herod and Matchem lines.
The Three Cardinal Lines yj
but that of Eclipse holds an indisputable sway in the classics. In France, the scale has turned, since the death of Monarque, verj^ largely in favor of the Herod blood in point of class, if not in numbers. In 1878, Mortemer, from the Partisan branch of the Herod line, outbred everything there, so that Mr. Pierre Lorillard imported him to this country at a cost of $33,000 and just about got his money back. Mortemer was the sire of Verneuil (out of Regalia by Stockwell) the only horse to win the Queen's Gold Vase, the Ascot Cup and the Alexandra Plate (3 miles) during the same week, but his success in America was not equal to his unquestionable triumphs on his native soil. The most successful stallion in France since 1890 has been Le Sancy, a Herod-line horse whose sire was a very moderate performer in England — Atlantic — who won the Two Thousand Guineas in 1874 ; and he was by Thormanby, who won the Derby of i860 and the Ascot Cup of 1861, his dam being Hurricane by Wild Dayrell. It is blood, that in England, is considered good without being great. But it certainly has shown itself very powerful in France, as has also the blood of Flying Dutchman, whose sons, Dollar and Dutch Skater, left a very deep impression on France. England can now progress no further in breeding to the male line of Eclipse. She must have Herod stallions for outcrosses and, she will have to go to France for them, although I believe our own Hanover line superior to anything thev have in France. •
PART III.
The Modern British Thoroughbred
'■'-For if once we efface the charm of the chase From the land and uproot the stud, Then goodbye to the Anglo-Saxon race And farewell to the Norman bloods
— Adam Lindsay Gordon.
( "The Shakespeare of the Turf.")
o
CO _^
^ I
=5
The Modern British Thoroughbred
The close of the eighteenth centurj' witnessed a remarkable advance in the breed- ing interests of England. There were five stallions foaled in the last fifteen years of that century that were destined to perpetuate their names through the one hundred years next to follow, and these were :
Sir Peter, foaled 1784, by Highflyer out of Papillon by Snap. Won the Derby of 1787 and got four Derby, two Oaks and four St. Leger winners.
Buzzard, foaled 1787, by Woodpecker out of Misfortune by Dux. Got Bronze, winner of the Oaks in 1806 and Quiz, St. Leger of iSoi. Also sire of Selim, Rubens and Castrel, all great sires, ranking in the order named. Buzzard was imported to Virginia, where he got Hephestion and other good ones. Died in Kentucky in 181 1 at the age of 24. Bronze, was sister to Selim, Rubens and Castrel.
Waxy, Derby winner of 1793, by Pot-8-os (1773) out of Maria by Herod. Got four Derby and three Oaks winners, being the only horse in history to get all three placed horses in the Epsom Oaks, over 90 years ago. He got no St. Leger winners, but was sire of three great horses, all brothers. Whalebone won the Derby and got three Derby and one Oaks winner, beside one each of the Ascot and Goodwood Cups. Whisker got no Derby nor Oaks winners but got two St. Leger winners- — Memnon and The Colonel, the latter making a dead heat with Cadland for the Derby. Woful, the third of this marvelous trio, is but little heard of, even among men claiming to be pedigree students, but he got two Oaks winners and one of the St. Leger, Theodore, who finished on three legs.
Sorcerer, a black horse, foaled 1796, by Trumpator out of Young Giantess by Diomed, she being also the second dam of both Phantom and Priam, winners of the Derby; and the third dam of Langar, a noted sire who got Elis, St. Leger of 1836; and also got Felt, Chester Cup of 1830.
Hambletonian, brown horse foaled 1792 and winner of the St. Leger in 1795. He got no classic winners but was sire of Camillus, Anticipation (twice winner of the Ascot Cup) and Whitelock, sire of Blacklock, whose dam produced the three-legged St. Leger winner, Theodore. It is through Blacklock that the male-line of Hamble- tonian survives to the present date. Hambletonian was by King Fergus out of a mare (1782) by Highflyer; and King Fergus was also sire of Beningbrough, who won the St. Leger in 1794. For twenty-five years Beningbrough outbred Hambletonian as badly as one horse could outbreed another, for he got two Oaks winners and the mag- nificent Orville, that won the St. Leger of 1802. Orville got Octavius and Emilius, winners of the Derby; Ebor, who beat Blacklock a length for the St. Leger of 1817; and two winners of the One Thousand Guineas. From 1800 to 1830 the male-line of Hambletonian and Blacklock lay perfectly dormant, save in cup races at long dis- tances. Emilius, on the other hand, was the most noted sire between 1825 and 1840, getting Priam and Plenipotentiary, winners of the Derby; Oxygen, winner of the
j8 The American Thoroughbred
Oaks in 1831 ; Mango, the St. Leger winner in 1837 and probablj' as poor a horse as ever won it; Riddlesworth, winner of the Two Thousand Guineas, and three of the One Thousand Guineas. And for all that the male-line of Beningbrough, through Or- ville, Emilius and Muley is now extinct, while that of Hambletonian through Black- lock, Voltaire, Voltigeur, Vedette, Galopin and St. Simon, now stands at the head of the British turf, having headed the list of winning sires for fourteen years out of the past sixteen. History teems with revenge.
Therefore, the only three Eclipse lines now extant are those which come down to us through Hambletonian, Joe Andrews and Waxy; the only Herod lines are those through Sir Peter and Buzzard. And the only Matchem line that comes to us is that handed down through Comus, whose dam was by Sir Peter; Humphrey Clinker, whose dam was by a son of St. Peter; and Melbourne, but for whom the male-line of Matchem would now be extinct. The Gohanna branch of Eclipse blood became extinct in 1894, his last male-line representative being Warwick, by Hubbard, out of May- flower (dam of Joe Hooker, a really good sire) by imported Eclipse, son of Orlando. Gohanna was foaled in 1790 and ran second to Waxy in the Derby. He was subsequent- ly matched against Waxy at two miles and beat him. Gohanna got Cardinal Beaufort and Election, winners of the Derby. The best representative of this line in England was Catton and in America the game little Revenue, his grandson.
Waxy was undoubtedly the best exponent of Eclipse's male-line, for while that of Hambletonian was always considered good, it never became really great until the advent of Galopin and his great son, St. Simon. Waxy's line, on the other hand, was always great. He got four winners of the Derby in Waxy Pope, Whalebone, Blucher and Whisker, the latter being by far the handsomest of the quartette. From 1878 to 1892 the Whisker branch of Waxy blood was ahead, of the Whalebone branch in Australia, but not in Europe or America. The dam of Waxy Pope was Prunella by Highflyer; and she was the second dam of Whalebone and Whisker, as well as Woful, mentioned above. From this line of mares, in later generations, came Mid- dleton, Derby winner of 1825 ; Glencoe, who won the Two Thousand Guineas and Goodwood Cup at three years and the Ascot Cup at four; Bay Middleton (never beaten), who won the Two Thousand and the Derby of 1836; and Princess and Pas- tille, winners of the Oaks. No wonder Mr. Bruce Lowe made this the No. i family in his figure system. W^axy was the sire of Whalebone, a winner for six consecutive •seasons and sire of three Derby winners (conceding that he was the true sire of Moses), and Caroline, winner of the Oaks in 1820.
But none of Whalebone's Derby winners were of any account as sires. We had the misfortune to import one of them, Lapdog, full brother to Spaniel, who won the same race in 1831. The only sires that Whalebone got were Camel, foaled in 1822; Sir Hercules, foaled in 1826, and Defence, foaled in 1818. The male line of Defence, through The Emperor and Monarque, still exists in France, but is very weak and is extinct elsewhere. Camel was a very big and rangy horse with a decided verging to- ward coarseness ; and as far as I have been able to read, an inferior performer. Sir Hercules was gotten by Whalebone when he was eighteen years old and was about the last of his progeny, besides being his best. In conformation he was the direct antitheton of Camel, being barely fifteen and one-half hands high and the most compact horse ever seen in England up to this day. From the center of the breast to the hind part of the shoulder; from the hind part of the shoulder to the hip: and from the hip to the whirlbone, the three measures were exactly identical. Is it any wonder that he got two such great sires as Birdcatcher and Faugh-a-Ballagh ? Sir Hercules got Cor- onation, winner of the Derby in 1841 ; Faugh-a-Ballagh, winner of the St. Leger of 1844; Corsair, who won the Two Thousand of 1839; Lifeboat, winner of the Great Metropolitan ; and Hyllus, who won the Goodwood Cup, after having been second and third for it in the two previous years, together with two winners each of the Chester
The Modern British Thoroughbred ^^g
Cup, Cesarewitch and Cambridgeshire handicaps. No intelligent reader can say that he was not a sire among sires.
Camel got two St. Leger winners, full brothers, Touchstone in 1834 and Launcelot in 1840. The latter was as great a failure in the stud as his brother was a success; and he was as much handsomer horse than Touchstone as one horse could be handsomer than another. Camel also got Wintonian, brother to that great broodmare, Hester ; and Wintonian got Rhedycina. who won the Oaks of 1850. Camel's reputation, as a sire of sires, must therefore rest upon Touchstone entirely. Touchstone does not ap- pear to have been any great three-year-old, although he won the St. Leger, because he was twice beaten by General Chasse (by Actaeon), only a fair horse. But at four, five and six years old, Touchstone was one of the two best long-distance horses in England, Glencoe being the other. Touchstone won the Ascot Cups of i836-'37 and the Doncaster Cups of 1835-^36 ; and as Caravan, by the same sire, won the Ascot Cup in 1839, this made Camel sire of three Ascot Cup winners, a record equalled only by Sterling, a male-line descendant of Sir Hercules, about fifty years later. And here I must drop the Waxy branch of Eclipse, for the present, and crawl back to the Hambletonian line, now so famous in England though not so good here.
Hambletoni.\n, St. Leger winner of 1795, got two fairly good sires in Camillus and Whitelock. Camillus got Treasure, by long odds the greatest mare (considered as an ancestress, of course) in the whole No. 2 family; and he also got Oiseau, sire of Rowton, St. Leger winner of 1829, in which he beat Voltaire, who was worth a ten-acre lot full of Rowtons as a sire. Sir Hercules being third in that race. Of Whitelock I know nothing, save that he was the sire of Blacklock, second to Ebor in the St. Leger of 1817 and beat him afterwards, as well as nearly every other horse that started against him after he reached his fourth year. All accounts agree that Blacklock lost the great northern race through bad riding; and who. at this late day, ever hears of Ebor? Blacklock is described as a large and splendidly bodied horse with an ugly and fiddle-shaped head. Query, how long did it take the English breeders to find out that a horse does not run with his head?
Blacklock got Voltaire, who ran second in the St. Leger of 1829 and won the Doncaster Cup in the same week ; Brutandorf, out of Mandane { dam of the great Lottery), winner of the Chester Cup in 1826; Laurel, third in the St. Leger of 1827 and winner of the Doncaster Cup in 1828; and Samarcand, winner of numerous races that I have forgotten. From 1840 to 1865, ask any English breeding expert as to which was the best branch of Blacklock's line and he would answer "through Brutandorf" without one moment's hesitation. Since then the Brutandorf line has become almost, if not entirely extinct ; and the Voltaire branch, through Vedette, is now at the head of the English turf, Galopin heading the list at 25 years of age, while his son, the great St. Simon, heads the list for nine seasons, as against seven each for Stockwell and Hermit, the two best exponents of the lines of Sir Hercules and Camel. Never in the world's history did any other horse suffer so much calumny and persecution as did old Black- lock. That his descendant, St. Simon, should get five winners of the Oaks, as against three each for King Tom, Melbourne, Priam and Waxy, is honor enough, but he also got five of the One Thousand Guineas, as against three for Emilius, the only other horse to get three. Old Blacklock, if he were alive, could truthfully say that "Revenge is sweet." I must now go back to Joe Andrews and his great son, Dick Andrews, sire of that marvelous little horse, Tramp.
Joe Andrew.s, named after a noted prize-fighter of that era, was by Eclipse, out of Amanda by Omnium. He got Dick Andrews, a fair racehorse out of a Highflyer mare, from a mare by Cardinal Pufif. Dick Andrews got Tramp, the first three-year-old to win the Doncaster Cup, in 1814. when that race was run at four miles ; and Tramp's defeat at that distance, at five years old, by Prime Minister (son of Sancho) was one of the things that never could be explained. Dick Andrews got Alanuella, winner of
40 The American Thoroughbred
the Oaks in 1812 and afterwards dam of Belshazzar, imported to America and men- tioned at length m the American chapter of this book; Altisidora, full sister to Manuella and winner of the St. Leger in 1813 : and Cwrw, winner of the Two Thou- sand Guineas. Dick Andrews also got several good broodmares, but it is solely upon Tramp that his name must rest as a perpetuator of the Eclipse blood; and it goes without sayinp- that Tramp was by far the stoutest horse of that era for, at five years old, he beat the six-year-old Catton at four miles with 140 pounds on each. Tramp got Lottery, winner of the Doncaster Cup of 1825, in which he defeated the Derby winners of the two preceding years; Dangerous and St. Giles, winners of the Derby, the former sold to France and the latter imported into Alabama ; Barefoot, winner of the St. Leger and imported into Massachusetts ; and two winners of the One Thou- sand Guineas also. Tramp also got Liverpool, who beat the St. Leger winner, Chorister., in a match and afterwards got Idas, winner of the Two Thousand in 1845. Liverpool also got that great cup horse, Lanercost, who ran third in the St. Leger of 1839 and afterwards won a total of 28 races in 54 starts, including the Newcastle and Ascot, Cups of 1841, in both of which he defeated that marvelous mare, Beeswing. Laner- cost was sold to France at fourteen years old, previous to which he got Van Tromp, winner of the St. Leger of 1847, the Ascot Cup and Goodwood Cup of 1849 and second in the Doncaster Cup to Chanticleer (son of Birdcatcher) while conceding him five pounds. Lanercost also got Catherine Hayes, who won the Oaks of 1853 and by long odds the handsomest mare of her day. She was the dam of Belladrum, the best two-year-old that Stockwell ever got. One would naturally suppose that, if the line of Tramp bred on, it would be through Liverpool and Lanercost, but fate had decreed otherwise. The Lanercost branch still exists in Australia, but it is very likely to go out at any time. There is no male-line representative of Lanercost in America nor Eng- land and few, if any, in France. To give the reader an idea how stout a horse he was, I would mention that he won five races in twelve days, the last one being the Cambridge- shire at Newmarket, in which he defeated Hetman Platofif and nineteen others.
The line of Tramp, that is, whatever is worthy of mention, comes down to us through Lottery and his son Sheet Anchor, whose dam was Morgiana, sister to Monimia (dam of Hester and Wintonian) by Muley. Sheet Anchor was mated with Miss Letty, the Oaks winner of 1837, the produce being a little brown horse called Weatherbit who, in spite of his small size, was good enough to give Chamois, by Venison, 27 pounds in the Great Metropolitan of 1846 and run him to a head. Sheet Anchor got Colling- wood, winner of the Royal Hunt Cup at Ascot in 1845 with the top weight of the race. The Australians imported six sons of Collingwood on account of their great substance, but none of them got any sires. Weatherbit was moderately successful as a sire, being twice third to Touchstone and once to Melbourne. He got Beadsman, the Derby winner of 1858, out of the Oaks winner, Mendicant ; and also got Kelpie, re- ferred to in the Australian chapter of this work, as well as one winner each of the Cesarewitch and Cambridgeshire. He also got two mares that are already famous in American stud history — Cicily Jopson, dam of Waverly, who outbred every other son of imported Australian while he lived ; and Weatherwitch. dam of Fonso, who won the Kentucky Derby of 1880, as well as the second dam of the peerless Hindoo and the third dam of pretty little Firenze, so justly styled "the Beeswing of America."
Beadsman was a brown colt foaled in 1855 and winner of the Derby of 1858, with Toxophilite second and The Hadji third. He was a trifle under sized and hajd tucked thighs which indicate an inclination to run fast without regard to staying qualities. He retired to the stud at four and got Blue Gown, the win- ner of the Derby and Ascot Cup of 1868; Pero Gomez, winner of the St. Leger i86g; The Palmer, winner of the Liverpool Cup of 1869; and last but not least, Rosicrucian who, with 133 pounds up, defeated Musket, four years, 126 pounds, for the Alexandra Plate at Ascot in 1872, in the most furious finish seen on "the Heath" since
T^he Modern British ^Thoroughbred ^i
Camarine defeated Rowton for the Ascot Cup of 1831. The two leaders were never unlocked during the race, and the struggle was so severe that the Judge declined to place the third horse, Dutch Skater, who was nearly eighty yards away, and at least twenty ahead of Barford and Wheatear.
The best exponent of the Joe Andrews line, therefore, is Rosicrucian, now about seven years dead — with a possible exception in favor of the Australian horse Golds- brough, who is described at length in the Australian chapter of this work. Golds- brough and Rosicrucian both got great broodmares but no sons worthy of mention as sires. Althotas, oy Rosicrucian, got a pretty fair horse in Button Park, but the line is nearly gone in England and quite so in America. Vasco di Gama, a full brother to Pero Gomez, together with his sister, Arapeile, was sent to Australia, but achieved nothing of any great note. Tim Whififler was another Tramp horse sent to the land of the Kangaroo, after winning the Chester and Goodwood Cups of 1862. He was by Van Galen, son of Van Tromp, and he by Lanercost, out of Sybil by The Ugly Buck, son of Venison. Tim Whififler got the only filly ever to win the Melbourne Cup, and she also won the Victoria Derby in the same year ; and he was also the sire of Darri- well, a Melbourne Cup winner also. I have heard nothing of that line in Australia for the past ten years and naturally conclude that it is fully as weak in Australia as in England. And having disposed of the Joe Andrews branch of Eclipse's line, I come back to the earlier Herod lines that have survived up to the present writing.
Sir Peter was the best exponent of the No. 3 family, barring Stockwell, as he was covering long before the One Thousand and Two Thousand Guinea races were started ; and, consequently, the Derby, Oaks and St. Leger are the only means of comparison between the two. And here you see how they range up beside each other :
STOCKWELL SIR PETER
Winners of the Derby 3 4
Winners of the Oaks i 2
Winners of the St. Leger 6 4
10 10
So you see the Derby hero of 1787 held his own pretty well, being three points ahead of Melbourne and five ahead of King Tom in winners of the above races. Like Whalebone, who came twenty years after him, Sir Peter was very unlucky with his Derby winners. From Horatia by Eclipse he got Paris and Archduke, both Derby winners and of no earthy value as sires, while Stamford, a full brother to these two brilliants, is to be found in the pedigree of every great horse on earth, from four to a dozen times. He got the dams of Mameluke and Emilius, both Derby winners ; of Master Henry, a winner of the Whip and sire of that ?reat mare. Banter ; and the grand dam of Don John and Hetman Platofif, both horses of exceptional merit. And I have never been able to find any performances by Stamford, nothwithstanding I have been doing considerable reading in the past forty years on English turf history. Sir Peter got Walton, foaled 1799 and a sort of hard-luck horse; and his full brother, William- son's Ditto, winner of the Derby of 1803. I can find the latter horse only as sire of Luzborough, imported to this country ; and of Bacchante, dam of the great Sultan, who ran second to Tiresias in the Derby of 1819 and who is the greatest sire of extreme speed to the present writing, being the only sire with five winners of the Two Thou- sand Guineas to his credit, Touchstone and Stockwell having each four. Walton was a good racehorse and got Phantom, the Derby winner of 181 1, and St. Patrick, who won the St. Leger of 1820. Walton also got the noted stallion, Partisan, who ranks next to Sultan as a sire of extreme speed. Partisan got Mameluke, Derby winner of 1827 ; Cyprian, Oaks winner in 1836, and Patron, who won the Two Thousand. Phantom got two Derby winners in consecutive years, Middleton and Cedric ; Cobweb, who won the Oaks and One Thousand in 1824, and Pindarrie and Enamel, winners of the Two
42 'The American Thoroughbred
Thousand. Cobweb afterwards became famous as the dam of Bay Middleton. winner of the Derby and Two Thousand of 1836; and Achmet, also a Two Thousand winner, while her full sister produced Ibrahim, winner of the Two Thousand, and Princess, winner of the Oaks of 1844. It now becomes necessary to turn back to the beginning of the century, to see just what the Matchem horses did for the turf.
Sorcerer, a black horse foaled in 1796, got Soothsayer, winner of the St. Leger of 181 1 and sire of Tiresias, who defeated Sultan in the Derby; Smo- lensko, who won both the Derby and Two Thousand in 1813; two other winners of the Two Thousand; three whinners of the Oaks, one of which was the famous brood- mare, JMorel, and the great stallion, Bourbon, sire of that stout mare, Fleur de Lis, who won one Doncaster Cup and two Goodwood Cups. Smolensko got Jerry, the St. Leger winner of 1824. Even that early in the day the Matchem line began to show a falling-off. Sorcerer also got Comus, foaled in 1809, and he got Reveller and IMatilda, winners of the St. Leger ; and Gray Alomus, who won the Two Thousand and Ascot Cup of 1838. Comus also got an enormous brown horse called Humphrey Clinker, said to have been eighteen hands high and believed to have been the largest thoroughbred ever foaled. This big horse got Bran, second to both Glencoe and Touchstone in the Ascot Gold Cups of 1835-36 and afterwards sire of the Oaks winner. Our Nell ; Famine, a great winner in Ireland; and last but not least, that great, homely horse, Melbourne, who was no very great performer but good enough to beat — at a mere nominal difference of weight — such horses as Lanercost and St. Bennett (who had previously beaten the great Harkaway) in a race for the Palatine Plate at Chester. ^Melbourne was from the Tregonwell Barb mare (family No. i) and therefore was selected for such marcs of Touchstone's get as had a cross of Whisker on their dam's side. One of these was Mowerina, sister to Cotherstone, who won both the Two Thousand and Derby but was beaten a neck by Nutwith in the St. Leger. From this union of Melbourne and Mowerina came West Australian, the first horse in history to win the Two Thousand, the Derby and the St. Leger, this being in 1853 ! ''"d he also won the Ascot Cup of the following year, after a desperate struggle with King- ston, who carried 126 pounds to his 117, Rataplan being third with 117 pounds also. This has always raised a doubt in my mind as to whether West Australian was really a first-class horse for, had they run at the present scale of weight-for-age, "The West" and Rataplan would have carried 126 pounds each and Kingston 129; and as West Australian barely beat Kingston at nine pounds' difference of weight, it is very evi- dent that, under the present scale, Kingston must have won by about two lengths. As a sire West Australian w^as a signal failure. He got Summerside, an Oaks win- ner, from that great race-mare, Ellerdale, by Lanercost, who produced Ellington, the Derby winner of 1856; and from a daughter of The Cure he got The Wizard, who beat the Rap and Traducer (afterwards sire of Sir Modred and Lurline) and twelve others in the Two Ihousand Guineas of i860 and ran second to I'hormanby in the Derby. And it's a singular thing that his only three sons of any merit whatever, as sires, should all have been expatriated. Solon went to Ireland, where he got Barcal- dine and Arbitrator ; Ruy Bias was sold to France, where he got several great ones ; and Millington, afterwards knowns as "imported Australian," was brought to this country, where he got such cracks as Joe Daniels, Wildidle, Rutherford, Fellowcraft, Miser, Mate, Merodac and last and best of all. Spendthrift, w'ho is the only native stallion to get tw^o premier sires — Kingston and Hastings — in the past half-century. If I were a resident of Georgetown, Ky., I would cheerfully subscribe $100 towards a monument to be erected to the memory of Mr. Keene Richards, who imported Aus- tralian from England. He evidently "builded wiser than he knew," for six grandsons of Australian won big races in England, including the Derby and St. Leger of 1881. And now, having followed the ]\Iatchem line into the middle of the last century. I must go back once more to the Eclipse horses, having broken off at Van Tromp in
"The Modern British Thoroughbred zfj
1848. rhe following year saw the Flying Dutchman, who was by Bay Middleton out of Van Tromp's dam. carry off the Derby and St. Leger ; and had he lieen nominated in the Two Thousand (won by Nunnykirk, a brother to Newminster) he must have won that, too, for he was clearly the best horse of that year by ten pounds. The fol- lowing year saw the renaissance of Blacklock's line for all time.
VoLTiGEUR, a small brown horse, but powerfully built, was by Voltaire (second in St. Leger of 1829 and sire of Charles XII., who won that event in 1839) out of Martha Lynn by Mulatto, from Leda (sister to Arachne) by Filho la Puta. Voltigeur was own brother to Barnton, a moderate performer best known as the sire of that great cup horse, Fandango, who is the only horse in history to win the Stockbridge, Ascot and Doncaster Cups in one season. Voltigeur was owned by Lord Zetland and could not be gotten ready for the Two Thousand so his owner paid forfeit to the winner. Pitsford, by Epirus, afterwards sent out to Australia. Epsom came on with her glorious vista of buttercups and daisies ; and the little brown son of Martha Lynn won the Derby, with Pitsford second and Clincher thirds in a field of twenty-four. It was a heavy betting race for Boiingbroke and Pitsford had alternated as favorites during the past winter, while Voltigeur could easily have been had at 100 to 8 within five days of the race. At Goodwood and Ascot, "Volty" did not start in any actual race but walked over for the St. James Palace Stakes. Doncaster came on in Sem- teniber and Ireland sent over to the St. Leger the best colt she had raised since the days of Faugh-a-Ballagh. His name was Russborough and he was from the same line of mares that produced Tramp. When Voltigeur came on the track the whole Town Moor broke out into a frenzy of applause for he was the first Yorkshire-bred horse to win the Derby in several years, besides which the popularity of the Earl of Zetland was almost unbounded among the tykes. Voltigeur was ridden by El- nathan Flatman, who also had ridden him in the Derby and Orlando before him. "Nat" rode a waiting race and, on passing the Red House, found Russborough and Boiingbroke in front of him, so he put on all steam and passed Boiing- broke, but could not pass the Irish colt, who hung on like a mother-in-law. The judge hung out two cyphers for a dead heat, but Russborough was too badly distressed for another eft'ort, so "Volti" walked over for the stake.
Two days later came the deluge. The Doncaster Cup had 27 nominations, but only two came to the post, ''Volti," with 105 pounds and Flying Dutchman, with 124. who had won the Emperor of Russia's Plate at Ascot (then substituted for the Ascot Cup. with the same weights and distance) in such hollow style that the bookmakers laid 2 to I that he would win. Charles Marlow, who had ridden him in all of his races, was on the Dutchman's back and was ordered by Fobert, the trainer, to trail Voltigeur to the Red House and then come on. There were a lot of tally-ho coaches and drags in the reserve about 200 yards above the finishing post. The Earl of Eglington was in the betting ring, but as the pair went up the back stretch, his wife called to Lady Zetland and asked her if she could see the horses?
"Yes, and the Dutchman is two lengths to the good," replied Lady Zetland.
■'Then Voltigeur will beat him," replied Lady Eglinton, "for Dutchy can never make his own running and I know that Fobert has instructed Marlowe to ride a waiting race with him."
Her ladyship had prognosticated truly, for Voltigeur won by two lengths and the great Flying Dutchman was terribly distressed. Out of this grew the most famous match of the past seventy years, two miles at weight for age, only to be run at York, instead of Doncaster. The stake was £2,500 a side. That day saw Marlowe duly sober and on his best behavior. He held the ''Deutcher" back for a mile and a half and then let him come with his typhoon rush that no other horse of that day could equal. He won by three lengths, and the half of Yorkshire went "stone broke," But really, there was never a day nor an hour that Voltigeur had any license to beat
44 ^^^ American Thoroughbred
the Dutchman, whom, for reasons already given, I always shall believe to have been a better horse than West Australian and just about in the same notch with Gladiateur, who was one of the three best winners of the triple crown, Ormonde and Isinglass being the other two.
I read, about a year ago, in an English paper, where some writer spoke of "Volti" and the Dutchman and said "It is a most fortunate happening, indeed, that while these two horses were rank failures in the stud, their blood should have been so admirably united as to produce a first-class racehorse and a phenomenal sire in Galopin." I do not agree with that writer that these two stallions were in anywise "rank failures" in the stud. Considering that they were both in the stud simultaneously with Touch- stone, Melbourne and Birdcatcher, three of the ten greatest sires in the nineteenth century, though they were much younger horses, I can only regard their success as bordering on the phenomenal, for Flying Dutchman, while he never headed the list, was sold to France at a big price, previous to which he was four times second on the list, once to Orlando, twice to Stockwell and once to Newminster, who, between them, headed the list for an aggregate of twelve years. You certainly cannot call any such horse as that a failure. Now let us pass on to the little brown horse from the Zetland stable. Voltigeur's best year was in 1857 when his son Vedette won the Two Thousand Guineas, the Doncaster Cup and the Great Yorkshire Stakes, which placed Voltigeur fifth on the list. He was ninth in the next year when Vedette won the Doncaster Cup for the second time, the Northumberland Plate and the Great Ebor at York. My own belief is that Vedette, had he been nominated in the Derby and St. Leger of 1857, which was a ''mares year," would have won both those classics, placing himself alongside of West Australian; and that Blink Bonny and Imperieuse would never have been heard of, save as winners of the Oaks and One Thousand Guineas, respectively. Voltigeur died at Hampton Court at the ripe age of 27 years and was one of the first twelve on the list for no less a period than sixteen seasons.
Here is a comparison for you :
GOT WINNERS OF — VOLTIGEUR STOCKWELL
The Doncaster Cup 3 i
The Ascot Cup 2 2
The Great Yorkshire Stakes 4 i
The Great Ebor Handicap 3 0
The Cesarewitch Handicap 2 2
The Chester Cup i 2
IS 8
Of course Stockwell got 17 classic winners to Voltigeur's i, but you cannot ignore a horse that gets winners of such weight-for-age as the Ascot and Doncaster Cups and the Great Yorkshire Stakes, the latter race being run at the St. Leger weights and distance. Voltigeur got Sabreur, Vedette, Zetland and Skirmisher as winners of this race, Sabreur winning the Doncaster Cup once, Vedette twice and Skirmisher the Ascot Cup at three years old. beating Gemma di Vergy, Saunterer, Fisherman and Arsenal. How any sane man can call such a horse as Voltigeur "a failure in the stud" after such a showing as this, passes my comprehension. Skirmisher was also a full brother to the Ranger, the first horse to win the Grand Prix de Paris and sire of- the imported horse Uhlan who won the Doncaster Cup in 1873. I hold that the classic events are a good test of a sire's precreative powers but far from infallible. Nobody would think of calling Touchstone a failure, would he? Yet the interesting fact remains that Touchstone never got a winner of the Doncaster, Ascot or Goodwood Cups nor of the Queen's Vase, his only cup winner being Vanity who won the Chester Cup and that race is a handicap and not at weight for age.
In a similar way I have heard men say Blair Athol was a failure at the stud. In
'The Modern British 'Thoroughbred -/5
the name of candor if Blair Athol was a failure what was a success? Blair Athol headed the list for four seasons and was four times second, once to his own sire, Stockwell, and once each to Thormanby, Buccaneer and Lord Clifden. Stockwell got St. Albans and Doncaster, both of which reached second place but never attained the premiership; and he also got Citadel, Thunderbolt, Ostreger, Glenlyon, Breadalbane, Gang Forward, Bothwell and a dozen other good sires but none of them was ever better than fifth ; and it was not till Galtee More won "the triple crown" in 1897, that any horse whatever from Stockwell's line, outside of Blair Athol, attained the first honors of that year which went to Kendal. In 1899 Orme was premier through the victories of Flying Fox, that being the second time the male-line of Stockwell was ahead of the once despised line of Blacklock. If Blair Athol was a failure after four years of premiership and four years as the runner-up, what would you call the other sons of Stockwell? Now then, having disposed of "the accursed blood of Blacklock" up to the middle of the last century, let me hark back to the Eclipse and Herod lines since 1834.
Sultan was by far the greatest Herod stallion since the days of Sir Peter, one of whose sons was oultan's maternal grandsire. Sultan got Bay Middleton, Derby and St. Leger winner in 1836 and sire of the Derby winners Flying Dutchman and Andover, and the Two Thousand winner of 1853, The Hermit. This horse, not to be confounded with the Newminster horse that won the Derby of 1867, was out of Jenny Lind by Touchstone and also won the Royal Vase at Ascot, after which he was sold to Australia. Look over the achievements of all the great stallions of the nineteenth century and you will agree with me that the three great speed sires between 1820 and 1870 were Sultan, Partisan and Orlando, ranking in the order named. Give me Bird- catcher, Touchstone, Melbourne, Sultan, Sweetmeat and Blacklock, and you can have all the rest of the English Stud Book. Sultan is the only stallion in history to get five winners of the Two Thousand Guineas, run over the Rowley Mile. Partisan got just one great stayer in his whole stud career of seventeen seasons, the big and beautiful Glaucus, who won the Ascot Cup at 2^2 miles at 2:30 P. M. and the Eclipse Foot, 3 miles, at 4:15. He beat Rockingham and Samarcand in the former race and Consol (afterwards imported to America) and two others in the latter. The Eclipse Foot was an ink well made of the hoof of Eclipse, shod with gold and set upon a neat golden salver. I have heard nothing of this trophy in many years.
Orlando bred more speed than any other son of Touchstone and his preeminence as a sire — for he headed the Ust for three seasons against Newminster's two — was almost entirely due to the short races won by his get, all of whom came to hand early. Orlando got 4 winners of the July Stakes and 3 of the New Stakes, but none of the Champagne Stakes at Doncaster, run at a full mile up to 1870. Touchstone is the only horse to get 4 winners of the Champagne at the old distance, as against 3 each for Whisker, King Tom and Flying Dutchman ; and 2 each for Partisan, Sultan, Bay Middleton and Stockwell. Orlando got but one real stayer, Teddington, a little polo pony, that won the Derby and Doncaster Cup at three and defeated Stockwell in the Emperor of Russia's Cup at Ascot, carrying 129 pounds to Stockwell's 126. All the rest of Orlando's get were flashy, notably Fitz Roland and Fazzoletto, both winners of the Two Thousand. Orlando got this great gift of speed from his dam Vulture who was a marvel of speed and won at a mile with 136 pounds. Vulture was sadly deficient in sire blood which accounts for the fact that Orlando never got a premier sire while Newminster got three — Plermit for seven years and Lord Clifden and Adventurer for one each. Lord Clifden's branch seems now to be the strongest of the three, that of Adventurer having dropped away down and now in a fair way of extinction.
Rataplan^ brother to Stockwell and a much better race horse, though inferior to him as a sire, demands a few lines of space right here. He was quite as heavy a horse as Stockwell though not as tall and had such tremendous action that no 115- pound boy could ride him. He ran third to West Australian and The Reiver (brother
4^ The American Thoroughbred
to Hobbie Noble and Elthiron) in the St. Leger of 1853, which is the first of his performances that I have been able to find; and in the following year with 117 pounds up was third to West Australian and Kingston in the Ascot Gold Cup. Just one month previous to that in the Manchester Trades Plate, a handicap, Rataplan carried 130 pounds and won cleverly. Old Tom Parr (the man who "discovered" Fisherman five years later) declared that if the Ascot Cup could have been run with 130 pounds on each, so he could have gotten a "live weight" boy to ride him. Rataplan would have beaten the pair of them. Rataplan started in 71 races, of which 62 were above two miles and he won 42 times in all, not going to the stud until he was eight years old. Query, did that not lead up, very materially, to the fact that he fell far below his brother — and his half-brother, King Tom, as well, for that matter — as a begetter of great performers ?
King Tom, by Harkaway out of Pocahontas, was deficient (through his sire, of course) in sire blood and that is why I understand how his line has so suddenly grown weak all over the world. But when both were alive, King Tom's fillies were not only stouter than his sons but also stouter than the daughters of either Stockwell on Rataplan. King Cole (brother to King Lud) was sent to New Zealand where he got Nelson, who raced till he was nine years old and won seventeen cups ; and got many other good winners but no good sires. In this country, however, the sons of King Tom were more successful, consisting of the following good, though not great sires :
Phaeton, out of jMerry Sunshine by Storm, from a daughter of Falstafif (brother to Phryne and Flatcatcher) from a sister to Pompey by Emilius, from Variation (Oaks winner in 1834) by Bustard. Sire of Ten Broeck, Aramis, King Alfonso and King F"aro. King Alfonso was a true racehorse while Ten Broeck was merely a watch- breaker and the worst exaggerated horse in American turf history.
King Ernest, out of Ernestine by Touchstone, from Lady Geraldine by The Colonel. This horse was imported by the late David D. Withers and kept at Long Branch as a private stallion, otherwise he might have gotten a great many more winners than he did for he bred a great deal of class. His son King Eric (who died comparatively young) got Prince Lief, Dick Welles and Ort Wells, three better per- formers than generally come from one sire.
King Ban, out of Atlantis (sent to New Zealand) by Thormanby, from Hurricane by Wild Dayrell, from Midia by Scutari. This horse was the only King Tom horse I ever heard of with bad legs but he had them, even if he did belong to my good friend Barak G. Thomas, whom to know is to revere and love for all that is upright and manly. King Ban got Bamburg that won the Louisville Cup and Ban Fox, a great winner in the colors of James B. Haggin. He also got King Thomas, the only American yearling that ever brought $38,000 at public vendue but, to borrow the language of Mr. Kipyard Rudling, "that is another story.'"
Great Tom, a big and coarse chestnut out of Woodcraft by Voltigeur and there- fore a brother to the Derby winner. Kingcraft, was imported into Tennessee by General W. H. Jackson of Belle Meade. He was barely second-class as a racehorse although he won the St. James' Palace Stakes at three years old, for at five he ran third in the Champion Stakes to Springfield who gave him a year and thirteen pounds. But Jackson made no mistake in the importation of Great Tom for his mares were all light-boned and Great Tom had timber enough under him for a cart-horse. He got the dams of Proctor. Knott and about fifty other great performers and while he was a great broodmare sire, he also got some excellent performers, notably Mr. Chris Smith's mare Maid Marian and Thackeray, the latter (now probably forgotten) beinj^ the only horse to beat the famous Miss Woodford at three years old. He did not get so good a performer as either King Alfonso or Ten Broeck but he was, through his daughters, a much more useful horse in a general way than any other son of King Tom brought to these L-nited States of ours.
The Modern British Thoroughbred -//
The general decadence of King Tom's male-line, for it is much stronger here than in Europe or Australia ; and it is none too strong here, must be ascribed solely to the lack of sire blood in Harkaway; and yet, Harkaway and INIelbourne, both foaled in 1834, had more crosses of the Godolphin Arabian than any other two stallions of their -day and generation. We all know that Melbourne was a great sire and made the most vigorous outcross for the Touchstone mares of any stallion in all Europe until the great Stockwell appeared on the scene. Within the past two years another male-line descendent of King Tom has appeared in America and has gotten several good performers, after having been sold for the meager price of $45. His name is Free Knight and he is by Ten Broeck out of Belle Knight (dam of the great Freeland) by Knighthood, a son of the Knight of St. George who won the St. Leger of 1854 at odds of 12 to I. Free Knight is the sire of Elwood who won the Kentucky and Latonia Derbys of the past season, together with several good horses in the selling plater class.
The Herod horses from 1830 to 1870, were of very light timber in a general way. Ion, a good and consistent horse, for he ran second in both the St. Leger and the Derby of 1838, got Wild Dayrell. the Derby winner of 1835 and, by long odds the handsomest horse of that era. Ion was barely out of the third class as a sire in his day, but right now, he is to be found in the pedigrees of many first-dass horses, through St. Simon and Hermit, as well as through Buccaneer, a first-class sire ; Dan Godfrey, a good son of the exiled Musket; Favo, a good performer and equally good sire ; Herald, winner of the Steward's Cup at Goodwood and eight other races ; and Ocean Wave, Middlethorpe, Pepper and Salt, Petronel, Philamnon, Pirate Chief, Timothy, Torpedo, Tristan, and the flying filly Shotover, the third filly, in one hundred and two years, to win the Derby. Wild Dayrell got but one sire of any real merit — Buccaneer^sire of that great racehorse Kisber, who won the Derby and Grand Prix of 1876; Formosa, the wonderful filly of 1868, who won the Oaks, One Thousand Guineas, St. Leger, also dead-heating Moslem for the Two Thousand and last but far from least, that good filly Brigantine who won the Oaks and Ascot Cup of 1869, beating both Blue Gown and Formosa, the Derby and Oaks winner of the previous year. Outside of Kisber, who is dealt with at greater length in the Austro-Hungarian part of this work. Buccaneer got no very remarkable sires. Wild Oats, by Wild Dayrell, got some fairly good horses in England and his son Gozo got two winners of the great Melbourne Cup in Australia.
Pyrrhus the First, by Epirus out of Fortress by Defence, won the Derby of 1846 and ran third in the St. Leger to Sir Tatton Sykes. He is hardly recognized as a great sire in England, yet he got one of the greatest three-year-old fillies in history. She was called Virago and was out of Virginia by Rowton, from Pucelle by Muley. from the Oaks winner Medora who was also the grand dam of Ion. Virago won the One Thousand Guineas but went amiss and was "scratched" for the Oaks. But for this she made amends by winning the City and Suburban and the Great Metropolitan at Epsom, less than two hours apart, after which she went to Goodwood where she won the cup with loi pounds, Valeria, of her own age, being third with 79. Thence she went to Doncaster where she annexed the cup with 102 pounds, beating the great Kingston who carried 131, it being at weight-for-age. Pyrrhus the First got also a horse called Panmure who raced in Ireland and was sold to go to China. The ship was commanded by a Captain Snowden and the horse's name was changed to Snowden. Two -'■ears later he was shipped to Australia where he got Suwarrow, winner of the Victoria Derby and Canterbury Plate. He also got a very good sire called Swiveller out of a Yattendon mare and Swiveller's get were great horses in long distances. Epirus, the sire of Pyrrhus the First, was premier sire of England in 1850, being just f43 in advance of Voltaire who got Voltigeur, the Derby and St. Leger winner
^8 T'he American Thoroughbred
ni that year. Mr. Allison is palpably in error when he states that tyrrhus the First was imported into America.
Great Herod horses began to be scarce about that time but in 1858 a tall and ragged-looking three-year-old made his appearance and won the Queen's Vase at Ascot, carrying off the Ascot Cups of the next two years and about two dozen Royal Plates varying from two to three miles. His name was Fisherman and he belonged to a Mr. Starkey, who afterwards sold him to old Tom Parr. Fisherman was by Heron out of Mainbrace by Sheet Anchor (son of Lottery) from a mare by Bay Mid- dleton, from Nitocris (sister to Memnon (St. Leger 1825) from Manuella (Oaks 1812) from Mandane, the dam of Lottery aforesaid. Fisherman will be found at greater length in the Australian chapter of this work.
Phryne, by Touchstone out of Decoy by Filho da Puta, was foaled in 1840 and a full sister to Flatcatcher, who defeated Surplice in the Two Thousand of 1848 and ran second to him in the Derby. Phryne belonged to the Marquis of Westminster, who mated her four times with Pantaloon, producing Elthiron, The Reiver, The Hobbie Noble and Windhound. Elthiron won the City and Suburban and was sold to France ; The Reiver was second to West Australian in the St. Leger of 1853 ; The Hobbie Noble was a good deal the best two-year-old of 185 1 and was the all-winter favorite for the Derby of 1852, won by the little Irish pony, Daniel O'Rourke, by Birdcatcher. I have no performances of Windhound, but he was mated with Alice Hawthorn and was undoubtedly the true sire of Thornianby, who won the Derby of i860 in which so much was expected of the American colt, Umpire, by Lecompte out of ^-tlice Car- neal, dam of Lexington. I say this because I was told that Melbourne (given as one of the two sires of Thormanby) got no foals in that year from any of the mares with which he had been mated singly.
Thormanby was, beyond all cavil, the best horse that ever came from the male- line of the beautiful Pantaloon, whom Admiral Rous styled "The First Gentleman of Europe." Thormanby won five races off the reel at two years old, winning the Derby at three, but was defeated by St. Alban's (a great horse with an unusually bad set of legs for a son of Stockwell) in the Doncaster St. Leger. In the next year Thormanby won the Ascot Cup at weight-for-age, the three-year-old Fairwater being second and Parmesan third. A month later came the Goodwood Cup for which Thormanby was favorite at 9 to 4. He carried 132 pounds, The Wizard (winner of the Two Thousand and second to Thormanby in tlie Derby) 128, while Optimist, winner of the Ascot Stakes, had 112, and Starke (who had won the Goodwood Stakes of the year before) had only 122 and he six years old. A more severe race was never run at Goodwood, Starke winning by a neck from The Wizard, with Optimist third and Thormanby last. There was a good deal of crowing over this event in the American papers on account of two American-bred horses running first and third, but over thirty years later, I dined with Mr. Richard Ten Broeck as a guest of Flon. Harry Thornton, the Bayard of the California turf. In the course of conversation. Col. Thornton was speaking of Starke's victory when Mr. Ten Broeck replied :
"Well, sir, I have seen a good many races and I have seen a good many tired horses after the races ; and Starke was the worst distressed horse I ever saw in my life. Nothing but Fordham's wonderful riding saved him for the Wizard was giving him two years and four pounds and for an instant it looked as if he had Starke beaten.''
- Later on, somebody said something about Iroquois' Derby and St. Leger victories and Mr. Ten Broeck said :
"There has never been a first-class American horse sent to England unless Mr. Keene's Foxhall was one. If Iroquois had struck any such horses as Thormanby and The Wizard, he might possibly have finished third but no better. I have not yet taught myself to believe that Iroquois was any better horse than my Umpire, who was fourth
T'he Modern British Thoroughbred ^g
in Thormanby's Derby. Umpire won eighteen races in England and Iroquois won nine out of thirteen ; and any man who will take the trouble to read up the race for the Citv and Suburban of 1872, in which Umpire, a year older than Adventurer, gave him just thirty pounds and was beaten barely a neck, will arrive at the conclusion that if ever there was as good a horse as Foxhall sent from America to England, it was Umpire and not Iroquois."
So you can see what iNlr. Ten Broeck thought of Thormanby, who not only won a Derby but confirmed it by winning the Ascot Cup a year later. He never got a Derby nor a St. Leger winner but got two of the Two Thousand in Charibert and Atlantic (the latter a great sire in France) and Hester, a winner of the One Thousand, she being out of Tomyris, the grand dam of Prince Charlie. Mated with the latter horse, Hester produced Prince Rudolph, imported into British Columbia and the heaviest- boned horse that ever* crossed the American Continent. (A letter dated at Victoria, B. C, on the 29th of September, from Prince Rudolph's owner, tells me that the old horse broke his leg on the Mallowmot Farm in July and had to be shot. More's the pity.)
Thormanby and Buccaneer must therefore be put down as the only really good Herod horses in the British stud between 1850 and 1890. Several male-line descend- ants of the Flying Dutchman proved to be good sires in that period but they were all located in France. One of them was Salvator, brother to Salvanos, a French horse that won the Cesarewitch Handicap of 1872, being by Dollar (Goodwood Cup of 1864) out of Sauvagine by Ion, from Cuckoo by Elis. He had three Herod crosses straight on each side of him. Salvator is the only horse in history to win both the French Derby and the Grand Prix de Paris ; and so much was he admired by English breed- ' ers that several mares were sent across the Channel to him. One of these was Music by Stockwell out of One Act by Annandale, she being the mare which beat Fandango (by Barnton) a neck for the Chester Cup of 1856, carrying 76 pounds to his 123. From this union of Salvator with Music came Ossian, who won the St. Leger of 1883, with Chislehurst second and Highland Chief third. Ossian was sold to J. B. Ferguson, of Lexington, Ky., but the steamer encountered very heavy weather on the passage over and Ossian died of exhaustion before the voyage was completed.
I have mentioned "Old Tom" Parr several times as I went along in this work. He was a peculiar and a clear-cut character being, like many good trainers I have known in America, a man of next to no education at all. He was owner of such great cup horses as Rataplan, Fisherman and Fandango, winning the Ascot, Stockbridge and Doncaster Cups all in one season with the latter horse, all of which were discoveries of his save the first named, which he purchased from the estate of Samuel Thelluson, deceased. Mr. Parr also won the St. Leger with Saucebox, although Rifleman was clearly the best horse in the race and would have won but for a vexatious delay at the post. Parr had a mania for betting and, in spite of his enormous winnings, was always more or less in debt to the "bookies." At last he became "a back number" and his friends fell away from him. At the age of 79 he was committed to a workhouse in Staffordshire, where he died at the age of 94. A few hours before his death he was telling some of the other inmates about the Chester Cup race wherein One Act beat Fandango at his enormous concession of weight; and laughing as heartily as if the race had made him a millionaire instead of starting him "over the hills to the poorhouse," for he never recovered from the effects of that race.
Thormanby got but few good sires, Atlantic being the best. He was sent to France while Glengarry, who won the Prince of Wales' Stakes at Ascot, was imported into Tennessee, where he got some fairly good horses like Greenland, who won the Metro- politan Flandicap at Jerome Park when it was two miles. England seems to have been singularly unlucky about selling great sires. She sold to the United States, Glencoe, the best son of Sultan ; to France she sold Gladiator, who, as a stud horse, was worth
50 The American Thoroughbred
all the other sons of Partisan in one lot ; to Australia she sold Musket, the only son of Toxophilite, that was worth the price of his halter, as a sire; to America she soUd Leamington, the only half-way decent sire that Faugh-a-Ballagh ever got ; and to Austro-Hungary she sold Buccaneer, who not only got those two great fillies, Formosa and Brigantine, but also got Kisber, who won the Derby and was pronounced at least seven pounds better than Petrarch, who won the Two Thousand Guineas and St. Leger at three years and the Ascot Cup at four.
Right here comes the proper place to devote space to what I believe to have been the greatest sire the world has ever seen — Stockwell by The Baron out of Pocahontas by Glencoe. He was bred by a Air. Theobalds (pronounced ''Tebbals") of Stockwell and that is how he got his name. He was sold to the Marquis of Exeter, in whose colors he won the Two Thousand and the St. Leger ; and would probably have won the Derby but for the heavy rain and slippery track. Stockwell feally was not much of a racehorse or a littly pony like Teddington could not have beaten him at two-and-a- half miles with weight-for-age, carrying 131 pounds to Stockwell's 126; and he never on earth could have equaled the races won by his brother Rataplan, who, like Charles Xn. and Lanercost, was literally raced to death. But as a sire Stockwell has no parallel for several reasons. I suppose people will say that St. Simon is a greater one than Stockwell because he headed the list nine times to Stockwell's seven, but you might as well say Hermit was as good as Stockwell because he also held the premier- ship for seven years, whereas the get of Hermit, although racing prizes had increased greatly since Stockwell's time, did not come within £60,000 of winning what Stock- well's get had won. As for St. Simon, a cross of Stockwell — or of his brother, Rata- plan— is to be found in nearly all the best St. Simon horses. I place Stockwell above all other sires for the following well-defined reasons:
1. Because he is the only stallion to get six Leger winners, as against four each for Sir Peter, Lord Clifden and St. Simon.
2. Because he is the only one to get all three placed horses in a Derby (1866), to-wit : Lord Lyon first, Savernake second and Rustic third.
3. Because he is the only stallion to get all three placed horses in the Two Thousand Guineas (1862), to-wit: 1lie Mirquis, Caterer and Knowsley.
4. Because he is the only stallion to get the winners of over £61,000 in a single season (T866) and that in a period when there was no such a thing as a £10,000 race in England. St. Simon, in his best year, was over £1000 behind Stockwell's best year, although racing prizes in England are now worth nearly four times what they were in Stockwell's day.
5. Because he got three Derby winners to St. Simon's two. Of course St. Simon leads him and all others in the way of Oaks winners, having 5 to 3 for Melbourne, King Tom, Priam and Waxy. But that is because his fillies are stouter than his colts. It is a matter of history that St. Simon h<.d two winners of the Oaks and three of the One Thousand Guineas before he got one really first-class colt — Persimmon.
We imported several sons of Stockwell into this country, but only one of them — the unlucky Glenlyon — was of the least actual benefit. Canwell, out of May Bell; Hillsborough, out of the Lanercost mare imported by Mr. Keene Richards ; and Stock- dale, imported into Canada about the outbreak of the Civil War, were about as trashy a lot as could well be imagined. The six sons of Stockwell that Australia got were horses worth having, especially Ace of Clubs and Countryman, the latter being a full brother to Rustic, who ran third to Lord Lyon in the Derby and defeated him in the Grand Duke Michael Stakes. And as if nothing but bad luck was to be America's portion in this matter of Stockwell horses, Glenlyon had to lie down and die at the end of his first season. He was by Stockwell out of Glengowrie by Touchstone, out of Glencairne (own sister to Glencoe) by Sultan. I never heard of a better-bred horse than he.
The Modern British Thoroughbred 5/
Rataplan, StockwelTs younger brother, was a good sire though hardly a great one. He got Kettledrum, who won the Derby and Doncaster Cup and lost the St» Leger by nothing but careless riding. He also got The Miner out of Manganese by Birdcatcher (paternal grandsire of Rataplan, mark you) from Loup Garou's dam; and it was The Miner that beat Blair Athol in the Great Yorkshire Stakes. I have heard men say the Great Yorkshire is not any great race, but it is run at the St. Leger weights and distance ; and as it seldom has less than a dozen starters for it, you may reasonably infer that the Great Yorkshire is a fair test of a horse's powers, be- cause Stockwell and many other good horses are enrolled among its winners. Rata- plan also got Elland, winner of the Queen's Vase and four other cups in one season ; and he got the little Drummer, who ran third in the Derby and won the Great Metro- politan in Pretender's year. The Drummer was sent to Australia arid died at Mr. Frank Reynolds' place on the Paterson river. Rataplan is one of the world's greatest broodmare sires, however, and while his daughters have not dropped as many winners as those of Stockwell and King Tom. they have undoubtedly given to the world a stouter and more serviceable type of horses.
You will see a fine bit of in-breeding in the Australian horse King of the Ring, by the Ace of Clubs, just above mentioned. King of the Ring's dam was Rose de Florence by Flying Dutchman, from Boarding School Miss by Plenipotentiary, from Marpessa by Muley; and Marpessa was the great dam of Stockwell, the paternal grandsire of King of the Ring. That's the kind of in-breeding that is most desirable, for nothing could be bred further away from a horse than The Dutchman and Plenipo were bred away from Stockwell ; and Ace of Clubs' dam was bred still further away from all of them. Such in-breeding as that is always proper and should be tried whenever it can be made practicable.
Blair Athol was by long odds the best son of Stockwell, being the only one to head the list at all, which he did for four seasons. St. Alban's came next, having been second for four years and third for two. He was one of the few Stockwell horses that had bad forelegs for if any Eclipse horse approached Melbourne in the matter of bone, it was Stockwell. St. Alban's was a great racehorse and won the Chester Cup, Great Metropolitan and St. Leger at three years old. He was tried again at four but broke down just before the Ascot meeting. St. Alban's got Springfield, the best weight-for-age horse of his day and Springfield got Sanfoin and Watercress, the latter being as good a sire as can be found in America today. Savernake was full brother to St. Alban's and was second in both the Derby and St. Leger of 1866 to that lucky horse. Lord Lyon; and Custance (who rode the latter horse in all his races, as well as Thormanby and George Frederick) told me, in England, in 1901, that Savernake was a slow horse to get away and that had he been one of the first four to leave the post he must have beaten Lord Lyon, whom Custance did not consider so good a horse as Thormanby or even his own sister, Achievement. Lord Lyon was never very prominent as a sire, his best — by a long way — being Minting, who ran second to Ormonde in the Two Thousand and afterwards won the Grand Prix de Paris in very hollow style. Doncaster must rank as the third best horse of Stockwell's get for he won the Derby at three, the Goodwood Cup and Alexander Plate at four and the Ascot Cup at five with 129 pounds. At seven years old Doncaster was sold to go to Hungary ; and that is where he begat that mare Ira that was imported into the United States by my life- long friend, Simeon G. Reed, now deceased.
Thunderbolt was undoubtedly the fastest horse Stockwell ever got and no horse in Europe could beat him at six or seven furlongs, with from 125 to 135 pounds on each. He was out of Cordelia by Red Deer, from Emilia (imported to America by the late A. Keene Richards and dam of imported Australian, the nearest thing to a "double- liner" that we ever had) by Young Emilius. from Perisian by Whisker. Thunder- bolt got Thunder and Tonans, both great performers. Thunder won the City and
^2 The American Thoroughbred
Suburban Handicap and Epsom with 130 pounds ; the Craven Stakes at Goodwood ; the Queen's \^ase at Ascot with 129 pounds; and the Craven Stakes at Epsom, six fur- longs, with 152 pounds, and twenty other races of less general importance. Thun- derbolt got Krakatoa, sold to France and he, in turn, was sold to Hungarian owners who bred from him that speed-marvel, Dolma Baghtske, that defeated Matchbox in the Grand Prix de Paris, at odds of 40 to i. This horse will be found at greater length in the Austro-Hungarian portion of this book.
Breadalbane, brother to Blair Athol, was a very inferior performer, but, as the sire of The 111 Used, imported by the elder Belmont, he certainly is of interest to the American breeders. He was foaled the property of Mr. William 1' Anson, who also bred his dam and his brother ; and was, if anything, the more racy-cut colt of the two. He won the Prince of Wales" Stakes at Ascot, an event in which the owner of the mighty Gladiateur had neglected to enter him, but in the Derby, Two Thousand and St. Leger he ran unplaced, if at all. In the following year he started against the ragged Parley-vous and the Oaks winner of the previous year. Regalia, later on the dam of Verneuil, by Mortemer, the only horse to win the Ascot Cup, Queen's Gold Vase and Alexandra Plate, all in one week. After being nursed so carefully in the descent of the hill that he was over 400 yards behind when he struck the flat, the greatest horse that France ever saw, came on with a cyclone rush and won by forty lengths from Regalia who was ten more in front of Breadalbane. The latter colt, in spite of his brotherhood to Blair Athol, could not have been much in favor with Brit- ish breeders, as I only find him in the pedigrees of Friar's Balsam and Brilliant, a son of John Davis, he by Voltigeur.
Lord Lyon was, as I have said before, a very lucky horse, especially so to win the '"triple crown." His other performances were very mediocre, being beaten in the Grand Duke Michael Stakes by Rustic, whose dam was Village Lass by Pyrrhus I. Lord Lyon's two best sons were Minting, who ran second to Ormonde in the Two Thousand and, being scratched for the Derby, went over to France and won the Grand Prix de Paris in a field of nine starters, his price being even money. Lord Lyon also got Touchet, a noted winner and a fairly good sire. One of his sisters, the lanky and slab-sided Achievement, won every one of her two-year-old engagements, and the One Thousand Guineas and St. Leger at three (running second to Hippia in the Oaks) and won the Doncaster Cup at four in which she beat the great Hermit with ease and Tynedale as well. Another sister to Lord Lyon was Chevisaunce, which was never raced. Mated with Lord Clifden, she produced that flying filly Jannette, the pride of Lord Falmouth's heart, for she won the Oaks and St. Leger at three and galloped over a good field for the Jockey Club Cup at four, being second to Pilgrimage (afterwards dam of Jeddah, the Derby winner and Canterbury Pilgrim, winner of the Oaks) in the One Thousand Guineas and second to Isonomy in the Doncaster Cup with Glendale third.
It is about time that I was saying something about the Oxford branch of Bird- catcher's line. Oxford was foaled in 1855, his dam being Honey Dear by Plenipoten- tiary, out of My Dear by Bay Middleton, from Miss Letty, Oaks winner of 1837 and dam of Weatherbit, by Priam. I have at hand no record of his races but he hap- pened in luckily for his sire died when Oxford was four and The Baron, Birdcatcher's best son, had already been sold to France. Now there were three other sons of Bird- catcher, one the Derby winner Daniel O'Rouke; and the other two were Warlock and Knight of St. George, both St. Leger winners, but about that time along came Mr. Rich- ards of Kentucky and purchased the latter horse who had more of the blood of Sir Hercules in him than any other horse of that era. Oxford has been described to me as the best-boned and the best tempered horse that Birdcatcher ever got, for Saunterer and Rory O'More were perfect devils. Therefore it is easy to see why Oxford should have been selected as the breeders" favorite over these horses, more especially as
The Modern British Thoroughbred
DJ
Womersly, whose dam had produced one winner each of the Oaks and St. Leger, had been sold to France. The consequence was that Oxford got them a grand type of horses with legs like marble pillars. Among them were Chandos and Wilberforce, both sent to Australia ; and Sterling and Standard, full brothers, as well as Nuneham and Plaiyfair; the latter a winner of the Cambridgeshire, while Nuneham's fee was iso in 1883, which is all I know about him. Standard got Hambledon, who was quite a fine race horse and won the Doncaster Cup. As for Sterling, he needs mention at greater length.
Sterling was bred in the Yardley Slud by INIr. Graham and raced indifferently at three years, not having been trained at two. He was even a larger horse than his sire and a rich brown in color. He won the Liverpool Cup and several other races at four, but if he was good in victory, he was still grander in defeat. He had such a burst of speed that he was deemed dangerous in a short race like the Cambridgeshire, even at three years old so they stuck 123 pounds, with which he was beaten a neck by Sabinus, a well-grown four-year-old carrying 119, so he was giving him 17 pounds by the English scale. He was five years old when he started again in the same race with ^ii, being beaten two heads by the French horse Montargis, six years, in pounds, and the three-year-old Walnut with 92. He won the Liverpool Autumn Cup and several other good races, but destiny reserved for him the honor of becoming a great sire. He got one winner of the Grand Prix de Paris, three of the Two Thousand Guineas, one each of the Doncaster Cup and Cambridgeshire and three of the Ascot Gold Cup, be- ing the only horse since Camel, foaled in 1822, to achieve that distinction. Several sons of Sterling and one or two male-line grandsons have been imported to America, the best being Topgallant, originally imported into Canada but redeemed from unde- served obscurity by John B. Ewing, Esq., then a resident of Nashville, Tenn., but now domiciled in the heart of the Blue Grass Region. The next best is Atheling, owned by the Clyde Bros., of Philadelphia, sire of Short Hose and Bryn Mawr. Loyalist, brother to Paradox, is as good as any of the rest. Sterling died without any appar- ent symptoms of illness and so did his great son Isonomy, a few years later. I regard Isonomy as one of the greatest performers, as well as sires, that ever lived. The mere fact that Parole beat him in the Newmarket Handicap counts for nothing with me. You can handicap Eclipse till a jackass can beat him and Parole was never a first- class horse, one hour of his life. I know of instances in other years where leather- flappers beat great horses. Passenger beat Fashion at four miles and so did Wilton Brown defeat Boston; Thackeray beat Miss Woodford; Thad Stevens beat Joe Dan- iels at the Ocean House, the worst robbing race ever run in America ; and Congaree beat Fanny Washington.
Isonomy's career in the stud proved him to have been a great sire for he is the only horse in history whose get won over £42,000 in a single season without placing him at the head of the winning sires. This was in 1893 when his son Isinglass won the "triple crown" and in that year the great St. Simon beat him just £2,7- Isonomy is the only sire on record with two "triple crown" winners. Common, who won it in 1891, being the other. But neither Common nor Isinglass has as yet gotten a single classic winner. Other sons of Isonomy have done better. Janissary, out of Jean- nette by Lord Clifden, got Jeddah, the Derby winner of 1898; and Gallinule, out of Moorhen by Hermit will be England's premier sire by at least £2000 majority at the close of the current year. Gallinule got Wildfowler, St. Leger of 1898, and Pretty Polly, winner of the Oaks, One Thousand Guineas and St. Leger, besides eleven other races of less import, without one single defeat. Pretty Polly is just as far ahead of Sceptre as Sceptre was ahead of Crucifix or Crucifix ahead of anything else. Isonomy's reputation does not rest alone on Common and Isinglass, for he also got that great filly Sea Breeze, who won the Oaks and St. Leger of 1888, beating the Derby winner of that year, Ayrshire, in the latter race; and Sea Breeze was one of only five mares
5^ '^he American Thoroughbred
in fifty-four years to win the Coronation Stakes at Ascot as well as the Oaks at Epsom, her entire winnings for that season being £20,144. Isonomy was also the sire of Isling- ton, full brother to Isinglass, who stood two seasons in California and got that great handicap horse, Kinley Mack. The fact that Islington was allowed to leave California for the want of patronage does not say much for the intelligence of the breeders in this state. INIr. Haggin has Kinley Mack at his Elmendorf Stud in Kentucky and could have gotten Islington at about one-half of what he paid for his distinguished son. Bruce Lowe was here at the time and he "turned down" Islington, or Mr. Simeon G. Reed would have bought him to replace Martenhurst, who had just died here; and this, too, in the face that Islington was of the No. 3 family, tracing back to the Byerly Turk mare that produced the two True Blues. The daughters of Isonomy are breeding splendidly all over the world and the Oxford line of Birdcatcher is, for the time being, ahead of all others by a broad margin. So far as importations of this line into America are concerned. Topgallant was far-and-away the best son of Sterling: and Hermence, the only son of Isonomy worthy of any mention whatever, now that Isling- ton has been sent back to England. If Hermence had gotten nothing but Hermis, that alone should be enough to make him world-famous.
Galopin and St. Simon have occupied the center of the stage for fourteen years out of the past seventeen, St. Simon being premier for nine years, Galopin for three and Persimmon and St. Frusquin for one year each. Galopin is the only sire to head the list at twenty-five years, as against twenty-four for Touchstone and twenty-three for Melbourne ; and now at twenty-three St. Simon is second on the list with more money to his credit than Galopin had in his last year of premiership ; and that, too, with at least six weeks more before the season is finished. The most remarkable part of the whole business is that St. Simon has not a single classic winner to his credit, this year, while the large sum of money written opposite the name of Gallinule is almost exclusively the earnings of his wonderful daughter, Pretty Polly. We had about the same condi- tion of afifairs in America in 1893 when Himyar led all other stallions by nearly $80,000, and it was all due to the winnings of one colt, the big and beautiful Domino, who goes down to history as the only American stallion to get a winner of the Oaks at Epsom. Galopin's success was a very strong argument in favor of in-breeding, for his dam was by Flying Dutchman, a No. 3 horse, out of a No. 3 mare, Merope, by Voltaire. Of course, while the Dutchman and Merope each traced to the Byerly Turk mare that produced the dam of the two True Blues, it must be borne in mind that all other crosses were entirely dissimilar, as was also the case in the pedigree of Chester and Sir Modred, cited by 'me in the Australian division of this volume.
Mr. Allison in 1901 gave me his belief that England was virtually at the end of her tether, so far as breeding from Eclipse stallions is concerned. First it was Touchstone on Whisker; next Stockwell (and Rataplan, his brother) on Touchstone; then Newminstcr and Hermit on Stockwell; then Galopin and St. Simon on Hermit and Lord Clifden, also by Newminster. The male-line of Catton, Muley and Emilius now being wholly extinct, with that of Tramp so weak that it can barely stand alone, there seems to be no other recourse open to British breeders but to go back to Herod's line for sires. Matchem's line in England has been their only outcross for the last fifteen years, through Barcaldine, Kilwarlin, Morion and Winkfield ; and in a list of stallions registered in Mr. Joseph Osborne's book for 1896 I found only three Herod horses out of a total of eighty-seven. That they are already in need of Herod stal- lions in England, cannot be denied, but whence will they be shipped into the Land of Jonbool ? I pause for a reply.
It will not be long before the answer comes, in my belief. They have good Herod horses in France nobody can deny, but that they have anything as good as our Ham- burg I shall most strenuously deny until positive proof shall have upset my assertions. Nor do I believe there is anything much ahead of Handsel and Handspring. They may
T'he Modern British Thoroughbred ^^
have as good a horse there as Mr. Ferguson's old horse St. George that got Lucian Appleby, Aladdin and Grey Friar, but 1 am not even so sure of that. You hear a great deal about how much money certain French-bred horses win in a single year, but vou never hear about what class of horses they beat. Of course, the French breed a great many good horses but they have never sent but two to England that were strictly first-class — Gladiateur and Verneuil — unless tlolocauste, who broke his leg while running ahead of Flying Fox in the Derby of 1899, was one; and that he was the first horse around Tattenham Corner, there can be no reasonable doubt. ?\ly own belief is that the French horses are about like the early Virginia horses that ran four- mile heats outside eight minutes — just about fast enough to beat one another. Glad- iateur or Isinglass, one or the other, was next to Ormonde amongst the triple winners and I am not sure which, but the lanky Frenchman was whole town blocks ahead of all such horses as Rock Sand, Lord Lyon and Diamond Jubilee and you might throw in West Australian, too, for that matter. If the Ascot Cup of 1854 had been run at the present scale of weights "the West" would have been third in the race. The fact is that such French horses as Gladiateur, Vermouth, [Mortemer, Boiard^ Rayon d'Or and Verneuil, just appear often enough to prove exceptions to the rule that Eng- lish horses can beat French horses six days in every week. I say this in the face of the stubborn fact that in the Grand Prix de Paris, Vermouth defeated Blair Athol and Frontin beat St. Blaise. These beaten ones were both first-class as sires, but not as race horses, for St. Blaise never won anything but the Derby that was worthy of mention; and as for Blair Athol he was beaten by The Miner (brother to Mineral, the dam of Kisber and Wenlock) in the Great Yorkshire Stakes. Nor is there any reason- able doubt that Blair Athol was scratched out of the Ascot Cup rather than meet Scot- tish Chief and General Peel, both of whom he had already defeated in the Derby, even after his owner had positive assurance that no representative of the all-aged division would start in the race. St. Blaise and Blair Athol were great sires, beyond cavil, but they were barely out of the third-class as performers. There are Derby winners and Derby winners ; and the mere fact that a horse wins a Derby signifies nothing unless he confirms his three-year-old winning by winning the Ascot or Doncaster Cup at four or wins some other big race at three.
I have said comparatively little about Partisan and his descendants as yet and here I am on the last half of this long, but I trust not wearisome, chapter. Partisan was foaled in 181 1 and was by Walton out of Parasol (dam of the Oaks winner Pas- tille) by Pot-8-os, from Prunella (second dam of Whalebone and Whisker and third dam of Glencoe). Nothing of any great note showed from him till he was sixte-en years old when his son, Mameluke, won the Derby and was robbed out of the St. Leger through the rascality of the starter who kept the horses at the post (in the in- terest of the Bookmakers, of course) an hour and twenty minutes till Mameluke fret- ted himself into fiddle-strings and Matilda, a very inferior daughter of Comus, won the race. Partisan got a lot of speedy horses, in fact, he ranks next to Sultan in that respect, but nothing else classic came from him till Patron won the Two Thousand for him in 1829. From that to 1836 seemed a far cry but his really best year was then, for his daughter Cyprian beat Destiny (who had won the One Thousand) and Mar- malade in the Oaks of that year, in a common canter; and in the Derby his two sons Gladiator and Venison ran second and third respectively to the unbeaten Bay ]Middle- ton, which was as good as winning one-third of the Derbys that have been run. But his best son was Glaucus, foaled in 1830, who won the Ascot Gold Cup at 3 o'clock and the Eclipse Foot at 4. In the Ascot Cup Glaucus defeated Rockingham (winner of the previous year's St. Leger) and Samarcand, by Blacklock, all three carrying 114 pounds or 12 oounds less than horses of that age now carry in that race or any other weight-for-age event in England. Some very good horses came from this line, espe- cially in France whither Gladiator was exiled at nine years of age. being far-and-away
^6 T^he American Thoroughbred
the best stallion that has ever crossed the Channel up to the present writing. He got Mdlle de Chantilly, the first French horse to win the City and Suburban Handi- cap at Epsom ; and, before leaving England, got Prizefighter, who won the Great York- shire Stakes and started as second choice in the St. Leger, won by Nutwith, whose starting price was i6 to i, Cotherstone being second and Prizefighter third. In France he got Fitz Gladiator, sire of Compeigne, sire of Mortemer whom /i.dmiral Rous de- clared to be the only horse he ever saw that "was a race horse at any distance from six furlongs to four miles." Mortemer won the Ascot Gold Cup of 1871 with 131 pounds up, two and a half miles, defeating Bothwell, who had won the Two Thousand and Kingcraft, who had won the Derby of the previous year. He trailed the two four- year-olds for two miles and then made all the running of the last half mile. And in the next year another French horse — Flenry, by Monarque out of Miss Ion — accom- plished the same feat, beating the Derby winner Favonius and Hannah, by King Tom, who won both the Oaks and St. Leger of that year.
Gladiator got Sweetmeat also before leaving England. He was the property of Harry Hill, a well-known betting commissioner for the nobility. Sweetmeat I consider one of the six greatest factors in the modern British thoroughbred, the other five being Birdcatcher, Touchstone, Blacklock, Sultan and Melbourne. He won th^ Queen's Gold Vase at Ascot and the Doncaster Cup, after a terrific race with Alice Hawthorne, the third horse, Pantasa, being beaten over seventy yards. Sweetmeat got two Oaks winners in Mincemeat and Mincepie, two years apart. He also got that honest little horse Macaroni, who won the Two Thousand, the Derby and the Don- caster Cup, but paid forfeit in the St. Leger rather than risk a meeting with Lord Clif- den (whom he had already twice defeated) over a flat course like the Town Moor. Sweetmeat also got Parmesan, a brown horse out of Gruyere by Verulam, son of Lot- tery. Parmesan was a rather plain looking horse himself, but his get had a great deal of quality. He won the Queen's Vase and the Great Metropolitan Handicap at Epsom. On his retirement to the stud he got Favonius, who won the Derby and th*^ Goodwood Cup ; and in the next year another of his sons, Cremorne, won the Derby in the most hollow style, after which he crossed the Channel and defeated a field of nine in the Grand Prix de Paris. At four Cremorne was by long odds the best horse in all Europe at weight-for-age, winning the Ascot Cup with 126 pounds and the Alexandra Plate, three miles, with 129. Cremorne was a failure at the stud but got that flying filly Kermesse, the best two-year-old of her day. Cremorne also got St. George, im- ported into Kentucky by the late James Ferguson of Lexington, Ky., and St. Georee is the only son of Cremorne that was worth a ten-dollar piece as a sire. He got Gray Friar, Lucien Appleby and Aladdin, all stake horses beyond any doubt. Favonius got Favo, a good cup horse and sire of that great sprinter. Royal Flush, now located at Sacramento ; and he likewise got Madam du Barry, winner of the Goodwood Cup and many other good races. He also got Conveth, one of the only three Pocahontas horses in America, but the British Colony about Riverside turned him down and he never distinguished himself particularly although he got Formero, a two-year-old, for which an offer of $12,000 was refused, to my certain knowledge. Parmesan, sire of Cremorne and Favonius, also got Fetterlock out of Silver Hair (dam of Silvio, the Derby winner) but he was such an inferior horse that it seems idle to mention him at all. Two of his daughters were imported into California, but just why, the Lord only knows. The blood of Sweetmeat is considered great all over the world, for the best all-aged horse and the best three-year-old filly in Australia— Abercorn and his sister Spice— traced back to a Sweetmeat mare at the fourth generation, she being a full sister to the Oaks winner Mincemeat.
Sweetmeat's best known son, Macaroni, was a great broodmare sire, but did not figure extensively in the male-line. He got Macgregor, winner of the Two Thousand with Normanby and Kingcraft behind him, the latter winning the Derby a few weeks
'The Modern British Thoroughbred 57
later; and Macgregor got Brutus from Teardrop by Scottish Chief, going back to the famous Phryne and Decoy family, a branch of No. 3. Outside of Mr. Haggin's im- portations, no foreign-bred stallion has bred so well in California as has Brutus ; and his success, moreover, was not based upon fashionably bred mares, like most of Mr. Haggin's matrons, but on what we called "the old blood" of California, chiefly that of Belmont (Henry Williamson's) who was the first thoroughbred stallion to cross the plains on foot. Belmont got Langford (first called Vigilance) and he challenged all America to come to California in i860 and run four mile-heats for $10,000, the ac- ceptor to be allowed $2,500 for expenses. The Doswells would probably have ac- cepted in behalf of Planet, but deemed the stake too small for the risk to be incurred in a twenty-five days' voyage from New York to San Francisco, as there were no trans- continental railroads built until nine years later. Brutus' roll of honor is certainly interesting reading, especially when you come to compare it with the American Stud Book and see how he got good winners from mares that barely produced winners of saddle horse purses to the cover of other stallions.
Brutus' immediate predecessor in the Elmwood Stud at Milpitas was an imported horse called Hercules, brought to this country in 1861 by Shumway and Jenkins of Mountain View, Santa Clara county, in this state. I rode him several times while he was their property and he was certainly the fastest walker I ever threw my leg over. After Mr. Shumway's death the big horse was sold by the Probate Court and Mr. Boots got him for about $1,200, if I remember it all right. Mr. Williamson bid him up to that figure for me (I was living in Red Bluff at the time) and when he let go, I think Mr. Boots was the only other bidder. At all events, Mr. Boots got the horse and had only owned him a few days when Hercules broke his leg while playing m a small pad- dock. Dr. Jules Savidan, a French veterinary surgeon living in San Jose, was sent for and discovered that the fracture could be set and the horse saved. So Hercules lived to be about nineteen or twenty and got some good stock. Hercules was by Kingston (Goodwood Cup of 1852 and Northumberland Plate of 1853) out of Daugh- ter of Toscar by Bay Middleton, she being the maternal grand-dam of Gamos (by Saunterer) who won the Oaks of 1870, in which she beat that great fillv Sunshine, by Thormanby; and Sunshine was, in a general way, worth a dozen such mares as Gamos, for she it was who placed her sire at the top of the tree in the only year in which he was premier stallion of England.
The decadence of these great Herod lines in England has been of longer duration than in America for no Herod horse has won a Derby since Sir Bevys won it in 1879; nor has any Herod horse won a St. Leger since Ossian defeated Chislehurst and High- land Chief for that event in 1883. No such falling off characterized the Herod horses in America for little black Virgil was premier in 1886, though with the smallest amount opposite his name that was ever credited to any leader among sires. He got three winners of the Kentucky Derby — Vagrant, Hindoo and Ben Ali — a distinction achieved by no other horse, living or dead. Virgil got Hindoo, who, while he never was pre- mier, bred a great deal of class and got the beautiful Hanover who headed the pro- cession for four seasons and was second to imported Albert in the next one, by a mar- gin so narrow that it was hardly worth a line of mention. And so far from going back again into what an emaciated citizen of Princeton, N. J., called "innocuous desuetude," the male-line of Glencoe is now growing stronger than ever, for six sons of Flanover are now very prominent as sires, Hamburg having already gotten two win- ners and one second horse in the Futurity, while The Commoner, Handspring and several others are the sires of animals of undeniable stake form.
It is an open question whether Glencoe was not the best horse that ever came from the male-line of Herod. True, he was no such race horse as his unbeaten nephew, Bay Middleton; and with the latter's son, the dashing Dutchman, he would have been indisputably overmatched. r>ut review his racing record impartially and what do we
^8 The American Thoroughbred
find? That he won the Riddesworth Stakes, the 'J"wo Thousand Guineas and Good- wood Cup at three; the Ascot Gold Cup at four; and walked over for The Whip (four miles) at five. How many great race horses make such a showing for consistency as that? Then take him as a sire in America and you find that he headed the list of sires iive seasons, was seven times second and three times third, being third in 1861, four years after his death, having no two-year-olds and only two three-year-olds to run for him. And another thing, no horse that ever defeated him for a premiership of the American stud., ever held that distinction for more than* one year. Glencoe was quite as well entitled to be called ''the immortal" as w^as either Touchstone or Stockwell. They talk about the renaissance of Blacklock's line in England, after years of obscurity caused principally by calumny and persecution ; it is remarkable of course, but not half as much so as that of Glencoe in America, for in i860, you could hardly give away a son of Glencoe for stud purposes, while his daughters commanded all sorts of big prices for mating with the deservedly great Lexington.
The jNIatchem line in England, since the exportation of The Peer, Middlesex and Towton to the antipodes, is now represented solely through the lines of West Australian and Young Melbourne. The latter amounted to but little save as a broodmare sire, but his daughters were unquestionably great producers. Young Melbourne got Strafford, Pell Mell, Brother to Strafford, Rapid Rhone and Knight of the Garter, but I don's know of his lines being perpetuated through any of these, save Pell Mell, who got that great cup horse Carlton, who won the Chester, Manchester and Doncaster Cups ail in the season of 1887, besides running third in the Cesarewitch' in which he was giv- ing twenty-four pounds for one year to the winner, Humewood. Carlton got that de- termined finisher, Carlton Grange, now located in Kentucky as the property of that ambitious young breeder, Mr. James E. Clay. As Matchem blood is somewhat scarce in England, I cannot understand how they came to let so good a horse as Carlton Grange get away from them, especially when we consider his close relationship to Hawkstone and Prisoner in England ; and to that "gamest of the game" at the anti- podes, Australian Peer, who beat Abercorn whenever the pace was hot from the fall of the flag. Now we have another male-line of Melbourne in America, through imported Darebin (pronounced as if spelt "Dah-ray-bin." with the accent on the second sylla- ble) brought to this country by Mr. J. B. Haggin. The reader is referred to the Aus- tralian chapter of this book for further particulars concerning this enormous, and therefore legitimate, descendant of the mighty Humphrey Clinker.
Most all the Matchem blood now in England comes from the descendants of West Australian, through Solon, who got Barcaldine and Arbitrator, the latter being a good horse but in nowise the equal of the former. Arbitrator got Kihvarlin, who won the St. Leger after being virtually left at the post. Barcaldine, on the other hand, was a giant among giants. Following are some of his best performances, he winning twelve races, mostly with heavy weights and without a single defeat:
1880. Won the Railway Stakes, National Produce Stakes, Paget Stakes and Beres- ford Stakes.
1881. Won the Baldoyle Derby, Queen's Plate (2 miles) at the Curragh, Queen's Plate (three miles) at Roscrea and next day walked over for another Royal Plate at two and one-half miles.
1882. Barcaldine now '"carried the war into Africa" by going over to England, where he won the Westminster Plate at Kempton Park, conceding forty-one pounds to Lucerne, who ran third, Tristan being second. He next won the Epsom Stakes at a mile and a half, beating Witchcraft, Beauty, Picador and Retreat, giving the first named thirty-nine pounds. He then won the Orange Cup, three miles, beating Faugh- a-Ballagh (by Lord Gough) over sixty yards in a canter. He wound up that season by starting as second choice in the Northumberland Plate at Newcastle with 136 pounds up, at a mile and a half, which he won by two lengths from the favorite
'The Modern British Thoroughbred 5^
Shrew sbuo', five years, 119 pounds; Havoc, four years, 97 pounds, and Bonaparte and Victor Emmanuel unplaced.
In his first season he got Bartizan, Countess Thierry, Polynesia, Pippin, The Skip- per and Winkfield, the latter being the sire of that wonderful handicap horse. Wink- field's Pride. The next year he got Morion, winner of the Ascot Cup of 1891 ; in which year his daughter Mimi (afterwards dam of St. ^Nlaclou) won the Oaks and One Thou- sand ; and in 1895 Sir Visto added to his crown by winning both the Derby and St. Leger. Barcaldine was three times mated with the Oaks winner Geheimniss and got three horses called Odd Fellow, Grand Master and Free Mason, all since imported into America, the last two being in Canada and the former in Kentucky, where he is owned by Air. Christopher Chinn. 1 must say I was never worse disappointed than in him for, on his breeding, he ought to overtop everything in that state.
Barcaldine was a very coarse horse, to judge by the only picture I ever saw of him. It was a big oil painting, 8X5V2 feet, and hung in the rooms of A. J. C. in Sydney. There was once a horse called Tom Crib, by Gladiator, imoorted to this coun- try for the purpose of breeding high-class farm and coach horses, and said to b^e coarse enough for a bull, but if he was any coarser than Barcaldine, I am very much astonished. Barcaldine was very much inbred, his fourth dam — the Hetman Platofif mare out of Whim (Chanticleer's dam) by Drone — being also the third dam of his sire, Solon, who got Arbitrator, above mentioned. That is, to my notion, closer im- breeding than the examples of Chester and Sir Modred, given in the Australian chapter of this work. The daughters of Barcaldine, both here and in England, have bred well, with the solitary exception of Mr. Belmont's Kate Allen, whom I deemed the best of all his importations, she being a full sister to that good horse, Bartizan. But Kate was a disappointment and was sent to the auction block about two years ago. If she is still alive, it is to be hoped she will be mated with a St. Simon horse if one can be found that has a daughter of Hampton or Macaroni for his dam.
I have now progressed so far in this work that anything I say with reference to the English horse must be confined to the last twenty-five years. The leading stallions about 1880 were Galopin, Flampton and Springfield, just coming on, and Hermit and Blair Athol, just beginning to fall into "the sere and yellow leaf." Hampton was always belittled because his owner had bought him out of a selling race, while Spring- field was generally overrated and Galopin received his due meed of praise. Galopin was a dark bay pony, certainly not over fifteen hands and an inch high and tracing to the same tap-root as Stockwell and King Tom. His dam. Flying Duchess, by the air- exploring Hollander, had previously produced a mare called Vex that won the Stew- ards' Cu{) at Goodwood. The next dam was Merope (third dam of our imported Eothen) by Voltaire out of the Juniper mare, foaled 181 7, that produced Velocipede, by many deemed the best son of Blacklock. Now there was a pedigree hot enough to fry eggs with, and Galopin was clearly bred in sire-producing lines. Of his per- formances it is only necessary to say that he never was beaten at weight-for-age and never lost a race unless he was handicapped out of it. He won the Derby of 1875 in a common canter from Claremont (brother to our imported Stonehenge) and the colt by Macaroni-Repentance ; and in the fall of that year he was matched against the St. Leger winner, Craig Millar, in a race ''across the flat," whom he could not h''ve be:-. ten worse if he had been anchored. Next spring came the £2,500 match against Lowlander who was the fastest sprinter of that year. He was by Dalesman (brother to our im- ported Camilla) out of Lufra (dam of our dear little Midlothian) by Windhound ; and he had never been beaten at seven furlongs and only once at a mile, but Galopin "donkey licked" him, as they say in the Australian colonies. At the stud, Galopin got Dono- van, winner of the Derby and St. Leger ; Disreali and Galliard, winners of the Two Thousand; and two winners of the One Thousand.
But the greatest horse he ever got was St. Simon, who won ten races off the reel
6o "The American Thoroughbred
without one defeat. He was struck out of all his yearling engagements through the death of his breeder, Prince Casimir Batthyany, or he would have won beyond doubt "the triple crown" which has been won by nine horses, of whom at least six were man- ifestly his inferiors. As it was he won the Halnaker Stakes at Goodwood, the Maiden Stakes at the same place, the Devonshire Nursery with 124 pounds, and the Prince of Wales' Nursery Plate, in the last of which he carried 126 pounds and beat twenty others, of which Belinda with 109 pounds had the highest weight. Next year he was barred from the classics but he bagged the Epsom, Ascot and Goodwood Cups with most ridiculous ease, beating the great Tristan and three others at Ascot and Chisle- hurst at Goodwood. Frederick Archer said he had ridden four Derby and five St. Leger winners and St. Simon was the best horse he ever rode. On his retirement to the stud he got winners from the very bginning, among them that good horse St. Serf and the flying filly Signorina, owned by the Italian Prince Ginistrelli. As a sire of classic winners St. Simon goes down to history as the equal of Stockwell, be- cause, while he got only four St. Leger winners to Stockwell's six he got five winners each of the Oaks and One Thousand to Stockwell's one. The peculiarity of St. Simon, as a sire is that he not only has headed the list of sires for nine seasons but headed it in 1901 without a single classic winner to his credit ; and this year he is second to Gallinule under like conditions and ahead of his own son St. Frusquin, who furnished the Two Thousand and Derby winner, St. Amant. Moreover, he is the only stallion since Newminster to get two premier sires. Persimmon in 1902 and St. Frusquin in 1903, while another of his sons, Florizel II, who got both the Derby and St. Leger winners of that year, was second to him by a narrow margin in 1901. I saw several of his sons while in England in 1901 and liked Florizel best of all. Persimmon re- minded me very much of our pioneer California stallion, Williamson's Belmont, whom Colonel Gift so aptly styled the "Godolphin of the Wilderness;"' and has on him a hind leg that would be considered perfect by our more intelligent breeders of trotting horses. St. Frusquin is a trifle coarse to my eye but he gets some great horses. The following table shows what old St. Simon has done this year as the sire of winners, together with the achievements of his several sons up to September 15th:
NERS. HORSE AND YEAR FOALED. SIRE AND DAM. WIN-
St. Simon 1881 Galopin — St. Angela 9
St. Frusquin 1893 St. Simon — Isabel 8
Florizel i8go St. Simon — Perdita 18
St. Serf 1887 St. Simon— Feronia 12
St. Hilaire St. Simon — Dist. Shore.... 8
Tarporley 1890 St. Simon — Ruth 7
Desmond 1891 St. Simon — L'Abbess de J.. 6
£58,344
This is $282,968 in American money, computing by the bank rate of $4.85 for each pound, sovereign (or quid) of English money. Not a bad showing, especially when the reader stops to consider that the old horse is over $5000 ahead of the best of all his sons. His daughters are breeding well and throwing good winners to all sorts and conditions of sires. Only one son of St. Simon— Dunure, out of Sunrise— has been taken over to Austro-Hungary, but there were three sons of Galopin's covering there in 1900. These were Guerrier, out of St. Kilda ; and Ganache and Gaga, both out of Red Hot. The latter is a great favorite with the breeders and his fee is $500 tb mares owned by foreigners and $400 to those owned by natives of Austria or Hungary. He won the Derby at Vienna, a feat repeated in 1900 by his son Arulo.
That most intelligent of American breeders, Mr. J. B. Haggin, has imported sev- eral sons of St. Simon, Bassetlaw and Greenan being the most prominent. He has
|
LACES. |
AMOUNT. |
|
12 |
ii6.365 |
|
II |
15,286 |
|
28 |
12,327 |
|
20 |
6,746 |
|
16 |
2,916 |
|
9 |
2,.38i |
|
10 |
2,323 |
The Modern British Thoroughbred 6i
also imported several horses very closely related to St. Simon on the dam's side, Order, the sire of Ornament, being the best of the bunch. . Caesar Young, a bookmaker, who was killed in a cab in New York last June, bought a horse called St. Avonicus, and Mr. Edward Corrigan has one called Brantome, both sons of the great St. Simon. It is most sincerely to be hoped that some one of the three just above named will do better than the other sons of St. Simon that have preceded them.
Hampton, foaled 1872, was a horse that was always sneered at by the turf critics of his day, as "the little selling plater," but he was a horse of good class for he won the Goodwood Stakes, Goodwood and Doncaster Cups and Great Metropolitan Handi- cap with 120 pounds in the saddle, which does not look much like a plater's perform- ance. At the stud he got Merry Hampton, winner of the Derby ; Ayrshire and Ladas, both winners of the Two Thousand and Derby and, for another singular coincidence, both second in the St. Leger. Hampton was also sire of Reve d'Or who won the Oaks and the Jockey Club Cup; and Sheen, who was the best long-distance horse of his day, winning the Cesarewitch with 129 pounds, in a lield of 23, the third horse being a four-year-old with 98. For a while it looked as if Sheen were going to be Hampton's best son at the stud, for no other horse of that line ever got three such as Scintillant, (third in the St. Leger and a winner of the Cesarewitch) ; Batt, who was second in Jeddah's Derby, and Labrador, who lapped out Persimmon in his St. Leger. But in the last three or four years Ayrshire seems to have improved greatly with age, be- ing the sire of Solitaire, Dunlop, Tarbolton and the Oaks winner Airs and Graces. The first above named is owned in California and of his first offering of yearlings in New York two sold for $5,000 each, an almost unprecedented figure for the get of a stallion as yet wholly untried. Tarbolton, whom I saw in England and deemed every inch a hero, was imported to America, but died shortly after landing. Sheen, poor old chap, has become impotent, so they say, and he was sold at auction for £80 some months ago for that reason.
Springfield, by St. Alban"s, out of Viridis by Marsyas. from Maid of Palmyra by Pyrrhus the First (second dam of our own Kingfisher, by the way) was a horse that I hardly know how to place correctly. Not as a turf performer, however, for he was "a holy terror" for years, campaigning successfully for three seasons, winning nine straight races at three years old and five straight at four. He won three out of five at two years old, being defeated by Kisber (who won the Derby of the following year) in the Dewhurst Plate ; and in the Criterion Stakes b" Clanronald to whom he conceded six pounds. His greatest performance was, however, in the Champion Stakes at New- market, in which he carried 140 pounds, conceding twelve to Silvio, that year's winner of both the Derby and St. Leger; and twenty-one to Great Tom, Thunderstorm and Hesper, twenty-eight to Zuchero and thirty-one to Midlothian, the latter afterwards imported to California. Springfield got Sanfoin, winner of the Derby of 1890 and subsequently sire of Rock Sand ; Watercress, winner of the Prince of Wales' Stakes at Ascot, and third to La Fleche in the St. Leger; and Briar Root, winner of the One Thousand, besides some dozen other big stake-winners and about sixty horses in the "useful" class.
I say I do not know how to class Springfield as a breeding horse because Sanfoin is his only half-way successful son in England and his prestige is confined almost exclusively to the winnings of one horse. Rock Sand. Li America, Springfield has two sons that I know of — Watercress and Juvenal — the former of which I like very much. Juvenal has gotten one or two good ones, including Chacornac. who won the Futurity of 1900 and I saw him in a race in England afterwards. But I don't fancy Juvenal for the reason that 4ie is a Springfield horse and resembles Blair Atliol more than he does Springfield. When I buy a horse because his father was a great sire, I want him to resemble his sire and not his maternal grandiire; .md this, too, in face of my belief that Blair Athol was, by long odds, the best son of Stockwell. Now let
62
The American Thoroughbred
us see what Springfield's get won after he once became thoroughly established in the stud:
1882 i8.37i 1886 9,569 1891 4.7-^.^
1883 7,589 1887 21,607 1892 9,170
1884 7,786 1888 14.64.3 1893 8,415
1885 10.418 1889 13,341 1894 9.972
1890 17,228 1895 4.987
Total for 14 seasons '■ ii37.799
Springfield's best year was 1887, when he was third and the only time he was ever better than fifth. In that year Hampton was first with £31,454 and Hermit second with ^25,733, Isonomy being fourth on the list with £18,294, the once great Rosicrucian being twentieth with £5,145. His son. Watercress, has only had, if I am correctly informed, about half a chance at Rancho del Paso; and there seems to be a sort of "hard luck story" about him for he was a very hard horse to train and could not be gotten fit to race early in the season. I pin my faith to Watercress, once and for all, and if I can get hold of him. Sir James ]\liller may keep Sanfoin.
St. Alban's, the sire of Springfield, had very bad legs (something unusual for a son of Stockwell) and many breeders were afraid to patronize him on that account; and while his full brother, Savernake. was not so bad in the cannon-bones as St> Alban's, he was none too good, so he was sold to Hungary for a very low price. And my idea is that many people 'were likewise afraid to mate their mares with Springfield, lest he should breed back to his defective sire. If Stockwell, the heaviest boned horse of his day, got two bad-legged horses like St. Alban's and Savernake, why should not Springfield do the same? So I sometimes think Springfield was one of the neglected sires of England. St. Alban's was third in 1867 with £17,601 to his credit, as against £42,521 for Stockwell and £31,083 for Newminster in that year. I now give the correct list of the premier stallions of Europe who have held that po-^ition more than one year since 1850, together with amounts won in those years:
1851
1854 1858
1859 1863
i860 1861 1862 1864 1865 1866 1867
NEWMINSTER.
STOCKWELL.
.£12,181 1880
. 16,974 1 881
. 15,283 1882
1883
.£i7..3.38 1884
. 22,465 1885 1886 .£18.201
. 24,029 1852
■ .33..3.16 1856 . 28,708
. 33,.302 1870 . 61. ,391 1 87 1
■ 42.521
1853 1857
HERMIT. . . BLAIR ATHOL. £.30,907 1872 £14.537
27,223 1873 l8,.362
47,311 1875 19,704
.30,406 1877 28,8.30
29,418 GALOPIN.
30,737 1888 £30.21 1
22,817 1889 43,516
BIRDCATCHER. 1898 21,699
£17.149 ST. SIMON.
17,041 (Up to end of 1896.)
KING TOM. 1890 £32.799
£20,376 189I 26,890
18,116 1892 53.504
MELBOURNE.* . 1894 42,092
£21.299 1895 .30,469
18.206 1896 59,7.34
*Melbourne was first in 1846, but I have not the figures.
I have not the figures for the later years, but St. Simon was ahead again in 1900 through "the triple crown" won by his son, Diamond Jubilee; and again in 1901 w^ith a few pounds in excess of £60,000 without one single classical winner to his credit.
The Modern British Thoroughbred 6^
In spite of all this, the interesting fact remains that St. Simon has never reached the i6i,39i mark set by Stockwell in 1866. although the cash value of racing prizes, since St. Simon's get came on the turf, are twice what they were in Hermit's time and from three to four times what they were in Stockwell's, for there were no £10,000 races like the Eclipse Stakes or the Jubilee in the days when the big Exeter chestnut was mon- arch of the British Stud. For all that, however, we must admire and approve old St. Simon for he is, this year, second on the list without a single classic winner, as m 1901, Gallinule being ahead of him solely through the victories of Pretty Polly. St. Simon's son, St. Frusquin, is third on the list over £1,100 behind his twenty-three-year- old sire, Florizel II .being sixth, St. Serf ninth and Persimmon tenth. Now to do St. Simon justice, we must show, as in the case of Stockwell, wherein he differs from other horses :
1. He is the only sire in history to get five winners of the Oaks as against three for Sir Peter, Sorcerer, King Tom and Melbourne. No other horse ever got four. Touchstone and Stockwell having each one to their credit, which shows clearly that Oaks winners betoken a female-line horse. Touchstone got two premier sires and his son Newminster got three. Stockwell got but one premier (Blair Athol), but he was four times first on the list, twice second (to Adventurer and Lord Clifden), once third and twice fifth. Doncaster was never better than third and that for only one season.
2. St. Simon is the only stallion to get five winners of the One Thousand Guineas, as against three for Stockwell and Emilius.
3. He is the only horse in history to head the list of sires without a classic win- ner to his credit.
So impressed was I with the idea that St. Simon, being out of a King Tom mare, was a female-line horse like his maternal grandsire, that when Mr. E. S. Gardner Jr. wrote me from Paris in August, 1897, about buying a St. Simon horse, I wrote back as follows : ''Don't touch a St. Simon horse. He is a female-liner, like Melbourne, King Tom and Sorcerer, none of whom ever got a premier stallion." Right on the back of that old St. Simon "shifted the cut" on them and got Persimmon and St. Frusquin, both of which have since been premiers, besides being the sire of Florizel II, who got the Derby and St. Leger winners of 1901 — Volodyovski and Doricles — the former being second to Doricles in the Leger. Yet I contend that up to the time I wrote Mr. Gardner, my judgment was correct and fully warranted by "'the inexorable logic of events." For a horse that never was second on the list. Bend d'Or makes a mos't remarkable showing, whose get first appeared in 1884 with some £4,000 to their credit:
1885 £7,061 1891 12.84.^ 1896 5,017
1886 22,803 1892 17,892 1897 6,104
1887 7,158 1893 6,711 1898 7,720
1888 22,635 1894 3,985 1899 4,322
1889 • 6,200 189s 13,014 ■
1890 i7,(i27 Total £161,092
There were several horses running by Bend d'Or when I was in England, in 1901, but what races they won or what money, I do not know. The above amount given is equal to $781,295 in American money. My belief is that though Kendal and Orme are the only two stallions of Stockwell's male-line to head the list, since Blair Athol ; and that Bend d'Or was never at the top in any year of his life, I must rank Blair Athol as the best son of Stockwell and Bend dOr his next best descendant in male-line. I write this after a mature study of the case, because Bend d'Or is the sire of two premier stallions, Kendal in England in 1897 and Ben Strome in America in 1903, besides being the sire of Ornus, a horse that sold for $200 at auction and has already this year over $60,000 in purses and stakes to the credit of his son
6^ The American Thoroughbred
Oiseau alone. Didn't you hear me remark, a while ago, that American breeding- was a good deal of a lottery?
We have been singularly unfortunate in the importation of sons of Stockwell into America, Glenlyon being tlie only one of any real value ; and he died very young, hav- ing made but one season. His dam, Glengowrite, was the second dam of that good Australian stallion Wellington, winner of the Derby and Champion Race at three years old. But in male-line grandsons and great grandsons we have done exceedingly well. The following table shows what Stockwell's male-line descendants have donu in America this year, up to and including the 21st day of September last:
Meddler, by St. Gatien — Busybody $194,225
Ben Strome, by Bend d'Or — Strathfleet 93,570
Goldfinch, by Ormonde — Thistle 85,031
Esher, by Claremont — Una 59.356
Golden Garter, by Bend d'Or — Sanda 59>iii
Pirate of Penzance, by Prince Charlie — Plunder 51,271
Ornament, by Order — Victorine 47,424
$589,988
It goes without saying that the earnings of this batch of stallions will go over the $600,000 mark, and perhaps as high as $700,000, by the close of the year, as there will bi six weeks of racing at Los Angeles and Oakland (or Ingleside) before the end of 1904. The Touchstone horses have only done fairly well, Octagon having $66,230 to his name, of which Beldame contributes $49,995 ; and Requital has $64,200, of which $-7,825 came through English Lad and $26,335 through Mr. Madden's good colt Fly- back. The male-line of Don John, long since extinct in the old country, is about the strongest line in America outside of Stockwell's. Here is a sample of what it had won up to and including September 21st:
Ben Brush, by Bramble — Roseville $152,330
Clifford, by Bramble— Duchess 41,585
$193,915
The line of Melbourne, through West Australian, shows up stronger in America than in England, and witness the following figures for the same period :
Kingston by Spendthrift — Kapanga $ 78,095
Hastings by Spendthrift — Cinderella 76,885
Lamplighter by Spendthrift — Torchlight 51,271
$206,251
All the three above named are out of imported mares which reminds me to say that Wildidle, a brother-in-blood to Spendthrift, was a magnificent looking horse, but got no performers of any real merit, except from imported mares. Mr. Baldwin had nothing but native mares at Santa Anita, and that is why, in my belief, his handsome little horse Rutherford was such a signal failure. Rutherford was a full brother to Spendthrift and beat Wildidle three times, so his failure is not to be ascribed to a lack of courage, in any event.
The male line of Glencoe, extinct everywhere else on earth, has been very strong in America in the past twenty years. Its representatives this year are :
Hamburg by Hnuover — Lady Reel $ 98,440
The Commoner by Hanover — Margerine 45,838
$144,278
The Modern British Thoroughbred 6j
There will be a change of the figures at the close of the season, but none, in my belief, in the relative positions of the horses named, for Meddler is just as far ahead of Ben Brush as Little Benn}' is ahead of Hamburg. Ben Strome has a bare living chance to overhaul Hamburg, but it is not probable, as his best representative, High- ball, is dead.
It is therefore plain that we have not only the male-line of Glencoe, extinct every- where else in the wide earth, but that we have among Eclipse lines what England has not had for over twenty years — a good line of Don John through lago and Bonnie Scotland, the latter horse being the sire of the American filly Aranza that won several big races in England. In addition to that we have that great Matchem line that comes down to us through the sons of Spendthrift and Wildidle, but, of course, as those horses did not trace to any mare included in the Bruce Lowe system, neither Hastings, Kingston nor Lamplighter would be registered in the British Stud Book. That was why Mr. Keene brought Spendthrift back from England and the American public have good cause to thank him for it.
If you ask why there is no successful St. Simon horse in all America, my only answer to that is we have yet to import one that is bred from a sire-producing line of mares. True St. Andrew got Articulate, one of the greatest race horses ever foaled in California, but just stop long enough to consider how that colt's dam was bred? By Martini Henry, a son of Musket and his dam the dam of Goldsbrough, who was all of ten pounds better than Sir Modred ; the next dam Uralla, sister to that great race horse Carlyon, by Chester; and the next dam Moonstone by Blair Athol from Amethyst by Touchstone, from Camphine by The Provost, a half-brother to Alice Hawthorne. And where are the rest of your St. Andrews? Masetto got two good horses in Tommy Atkins and Waring but Massetto has made thirteen seasons in the stud and certainly ought to have more good horses than those. Simple Simon, who raced under the name of Ilunciecroft, was about fit to stand for a barrel of corn on the cob ; and as for Simon Magus, who was out of the best mare in the bunch, he did well to get burnt up.
The intelligent reader will therefore see that the Stockwell line is a long way the best of any line we now have in these United States of ours. Take- the winnings of all the St. Simon horses this year, through their progeny ; and the sum total would not equal the winnings accredited to one Stockwell horse alone— Meddler. St. Simon is a great horse, to be sure, but the mere fact that he headed the list nine times to Stockwell's seven proves nothing to me because in England they judge as we do, by the amount of money won and not the number of races. Now, let us examine this thing carefully and endeavor to judge the case without prejudice. St. Simon's best season was in igoo when he had £60,844 to his credit, with winners of the Derby, Oaks, St. Leger, Two Thousand and One Thousand Guineas, all five of the classic events of that year. Stockwell's best season was in 1866, when Lord Lyon won the Derby, Two Thousand and St. Leger, and Tormentor, by King Tom, won the Oaks in that year, while Repulse by Stockwell won the One Thousand. In th t year Stockwell's winnings were £61,391 and Tormentor's Oaks must have been worth at least £3000 to King Tom. As racing prizes, outside of the classics, which remain about the same, are worth from three to four times what they were in Stockwell's day, I fail to see where St. Simon has shown anything greater than aid Stockwell; and three out of every five of St. Simon's winners have a cross of Stockwell in them. Now then comes the query on the Bruce Lowe principle. Is not the success of these St. Simon performers from mares having a cross of Stockwell, owing largely to the fact that both Galopin, sire of St. Simon, and Stockwell also, came from the No. 3 family, orig- inating in the Byerly Turk mare which produced the two True Blues? Outside of mares having a cross of Stockwell, where would St. Simon be under your money test? What would he have amounted to under that test, without the aid of Per-
66 The American Thoroughbred
simmon, Florizel II and Diamond Jubilee, among Derby winners ; Mrs. Butterwick and Amiable, both winners of the Oaks and One Thousand ; and Persimmon and Dia- mond Jubilee among St. Leger winners. Carrying it still further the success of his four great sons, Persimmon, St. Frusquin, Florizel II and St. Serf, and you find Stockwell in every one of them. No other sons of St. Simon have achieved any- thing in the stud worthy of mention, while each of the four above named is the sire of one or more classical winners. Now put that in your meerschaum and fumigate it.
ENGLAND'S BELGRAVIAN DAMES.
I do not think it would be right for me to close up this section of my book with- out some reference to the mighty matrons that have contributed so signally to the prestige of the English horse. People who read this work may ask why 1 devote so much space to English horses, but my answer is that the American thoroughbred horse is descended from the English horse of the same class, for two centuries of our existence as a nation had elapsed before we purchased the first stallion or mare im- ported from France or Australia. But as there can be no great stallion without a great mother, I take the ten greatest mares of England that have any direct bear- ing upon the American thoroughbred horse of today.
PEWET, B M, 1786.
This mare won the St. Leger in 1789 and was by Tandem (son of Syphon by Squirt-daughter of Regulus-Snap mare) her dam Termagant by Tantrum (Cripple by Godolphin-mare by the Hampton Court Childers) next dam by Regulus out of the dam of Marske who was the sire of Eclipse. Pewet's produce I do not pretend to give entire, but only such as affect modern breeding:
1802, Sir Paul, a bay colt, by Sir Peter, the Derby winner of 1787, mated with Evelina, a half-sister to Pewet, he got Paulowitz, the sire of Archibald, who won the Two Thousand; and also male-line ancestor of Wild Dayrell, the Derby winner of 1855, from whom come in direct line Buccaneer, See Saw, Kisber, Discord and other good ones in England; and Neckersgat, Dunlop, Gozo and Gaulus in the land of the Kangaroo.
1804, Paulina, winner of the St. Leger in 1807 and several other good races. Her daughters, Galatea by Amadis (son of Don Quixote) and Soldiers' Joy by the Colonel (St. Leger and dead heat for the Derby in 1828), have produced some good perform- ers. Galatea produced Camp Follower, dam of Rifleman who lost the St. Leger of 1855 (won by Saucebox) through bad riding; and Soldiers' Joy is to be found in many excellent modei^n pedigrees.
1812, Clinkerina by Clinker (Sir Peter-Hyale by Phenomenon) whose great son Humphrey Clinker was the sire of Melbourne that saved the male-line of Matchem from total extinction; also the sire of Bran (twice second for the Ascot Cup), Thump, Famine, Rush and others in Ireland. From Humphrey Clinker, in direct male-line, is descended Spendthrift, greatest of all American sires since 1870 because he is the only one to get two premier sires — Kingston and Hastings.
EVELINA B M, 1791.
By Highflyer out of Termagant (dam of Pewet, above) by Tantrum. Her only notable produce were :
1799' Orville, b c, by Beningbro' (St. Leger 1794) was a great race horse and got Octavius and Eniilius, winners of the Derby ; Ebor who won the St. Leger of
The Modern British Thoroughbred Sy
1817, defeating Blacklock and others ; Muley, the only stalHon in history to get a Derby winner at 26 years of age; Master Henry, winner of The Whip (four miles) in 181Q and sire of that great broodmare Banter ; Edmund, sire of Margaret, dam of Ion and Eclat, dam of Little Red Rover ; Andrew, sire of Cadland who won the Derby of 1828; and of Gadabout, whose daughter. Miss Pratt, produced Echidna, dam of The Baron. Among other good matrons sired by Orville were Louisa, who pro- duced Jerry, St. Leger 1824; Desdemona, dam of Mulatto, Doncaster Cup of 1827 and sire of Bloomsbury; and two unnamed mares, respectively the dams of Heron (sire of Fisherman) and Slane, who lacked £15 of being the premier sire of England in 1845 . Candidly, I have the most serious doubts if a better sire than Orville ever lived.
1804, Orvillina, by Beningbrough, produced Sandbeck, the sire of Redshank and of Barbelle, dam of Flying Dutchman, who won the Derby and St. Leger of 1849 and the Ascot Cup of 1850 ; and of Van Tromp, by Lanercost, winner of the St. Leger of 1847 and Emperor of Russia's Cup in 1849.
1806, Cervantes, b c, by Don Quixote (sire of Sancho, St. Leger of 1804) got Neva, Oaks and One Thousand of 1817; the dam of Rebecca who produced Alice Haw- thorn, dam of Thormanby ; and the unnamed mare that produced jNIorpeth and Mel- bourne, the latter being the sire of West Australian and Blink Bonny.
1813, Paulowitz, b c, by Sir Paul. He got Archibald, winner of the Two Thou- sand Guineas, and Cain. The latter got Ion, who ran second in both the Derby and St. Leger of 1838; and Ion got Wild Davrell. Derby winner of 1855 and sire of Buccaneer.
PENELOPE, B M„ 1708.
Bred by the Duke of Grafton and got by Trumpator out of Prunella ' dam of Waxy Pope, Derby of 1809) by Highflyer, from Promise by Snap-Julia by Blank-Spec- tator's dam by Partner. She produced an unnamed filly that won one race.
Also 1807, Whalebone, brc, by Waxy, won 20 races, including the Derby. Got 3 Derby winners and one each of the Oaks, Ascot Cup and Goodwood Cup. Sire of 252 winners of £81,263 and 38 Gold Cups. Died in 183 1.
1808, Web, b f. by Waxy. Produced ]\Iiddleton (by Phantom), Derby winner of 1825; Filagree, dam of Riddlesworth, 2000 guineas of 1831 and dam of Cobweb, Oaks of 1824, she being also the dam of Bay Middleton, Derby of 1836; and Trampo- line, dam of the great Glencoe, who won the 2000 guineas and Goodwood Cup of 1834 and Ascot Cup of 1835.
1809, WoFUL. b c, by Waxy. Won 12 races. Got Theodore, a St. Leger winner and 2 winners of the Oaks. His get won a total of $33,589 and six cups. Sold to Germany.
181 1, Wire, br f, by Waxy. Dam of Vat and Verulam. the former being ances- tress of Blue Gown, Derby of 1868.
1812, Whisker, b c, by Wax3% and the handsomest of all her produce. He won the Derby 1815 and got The Colonel and Memnon, winners of the St. Leger. His get won £55,140 and ib gold cups.
1814, Waterloo, b c, by Walton. Mr. Osborne says he won the St. Leger but that is incorrect, for Reveller, by Comus, won it in that year. He won only three races but got 2)7 winners of £11,754 and six cups.
1819, Whizgig. by Rubens. Won the 1000 guineas and produced Oxygen, winner of the Oaks in 1831.
1822, Waltz, ch f, liy Election (Derby of 1806), son of Gohanna. She produced ^lorisco (by JNIuley) who is found in many good pedigrees. Penelope and all these mares are in the Bruce Lowe system as Family No. i.
68 The American Thoroughbred
YOUNG GIANTESS, B M, 1790.
Bred by Sir Charles Bunbury, and got by Diomed (Derby of 1780 and afterwards sent to America. Her produce was :
1796, Sorcerer, bl c, by Trumpator. Won 16 races and got 180 winners of £82,108.
1798, Eleanor, by Whiskey. Won 28 races including the Derby and Oaks. Dam of Muley by Orville and Active by Partisan. See pedigree of Springbok, by imp;. Australian.
1799. Julia, br f, by Whiskey. Best two-year-old of her year. She won 15 races altogether including the July Stakes at Newmarket. Produced Phantom, who won the Derby of 181 1 and got Middleton and Cedric, winners of the Derby.
1801, Young Whiskey, b c, by Whiskey. Never won. Sire of Erebus, winner of 17 good races.
1802, Lydia, br f, by Whiskey. Won 13 good races and produced The Corporal. 1807, Cressida, by Whiskey. Won 5 races and produced Priam, winner of the
Derby in 1830, as well as of 2 Goodwood Cups, carrying 139 pounds in the last one.
It seems that with the solitary exception of Sorcerer, all of Young Giantess' colts were failures on the turf, while her fillies were extremely successful. Sorcerer was a great sire. He got Smolensko, Derby winner of 1813, who got the St. Leger win- ner Jerry; Soothsayer, St. Leger of 181 1 and sire of Tiresias, who beat Sultan in the Derby of 1819; and Comus, foaled in 1809 who was by far the best of his get though he won no classic races. He won 10 events, including the Claret Stakes at Newmarket and got Reveller and Matilda, winners of the St. Leger. His get won, in all 222 races of a value of £54,892, as well as three cups. He got that big and homely horse Humphrey Clinker who was the sire of the great Melbourne, but for whom the male- line of Matchem would now be extinct.
MARPESSA, B M, 1830.
By Muley out of Clare by Marmion (son of Whiskey) from Harpalice by Go- hanna. She produced :
1834, Jeremy Diddler, b c, by Jerry, sire of Sundeelah.
1837, Pocahontas, b f, by Glencoe.
1839, Boarding School Miss, ch f, by Plenipotentic.ry. She produced Rose de Florence by the Flying Dutchman. Sent to Australia. Rose de Florence produced five good winners and two good sires, Maribyraong and King of the Ring. The former got 4 winners of the Derby, and 6 of the St. Leger and 2 of the Oaks, all colonial of course. King of the Ring got First King, who was, in 1876, probably the best horse in the world at three miles.
POCAHONTAS, B. M. 1837-
Bred by Mr. Forth and got by Glencoe out of Marpessa above. She produced:
1843, Cambaules, by Camel, sire of Touchstone.
1848, Indiana, br. f. by Muley Moloch. Sent to Ireland and started twice with- out success.
1849, Stockwell, ch. c. by The Baron. Won the Two Thousand and St. Leger at three and the Whip at five. Won 12 races in all out of 17 starts. Headed the Sires' List 7 seasons.
The Modern British Thoroughbred 6g
1850, Rataplan, ch. c. by The Baron. Ran 3rd in the St. Leger at 3 (won by West AustraHan) and in the Ascot Cup at 4. Won 42 races out of 71 starts, includ- ing the Manchester Cup (4 years, 130 lbs.) and 25 Queen's Plates, from 2^ to 3 miles.
185 1, King Tom, b. c. by Harkaway, won 2 races and was second to Andover in the Derby. Got i winner each of the Derby and St. Leger, 3 of the Oaks and 2 each of the One Thousand, Alexandra Plate and Cesarewitch.
1852, Strood, ch. c. by Chatham. A very poor horse.
1854, Ayacanora, ch. f. by Birdcatcher. Won 2 races at 2 years. Produced Talk of the Hill, by Wild Dayrell ; Chattanooga by Orlando, and Cachucha by Volti- geur.
1855, The Knight of Kars, by Nutwith (St. Leger 1843), son of Tomboy. He won 2 races, including the Derby Free Handicap, and was called one of the hand- somest horses of his day.
1858, Knight of St. Patrick, by Knight of St. George (St. Leger of 1854 and sold to America), he by Birdcatcher. This horse won four races, including the rich Bentinck Memorial (3 miles) at Goodwood, and got Moslem, who won the Two Thousand of 1868, after a dead heat with Formosa.
1859, Automaton, by Ambrose, who beat Macaroni at 2 years old and died that winter.
i860. Auricula, by Ambrose, son of Touchstone. This mare won three races, including the Newmarket St. Leger. She produced Blandford by The Duke and that grandest looking horse of his day, Nuneham by Oxford.
1862, Araucaria, b. f. by Ambrose (No. 16 family). She never raced, but pro- duced Chamant, winner of the 2000 guineas in 1877 ; Apremont, brother to Chamant and a popular sire in New Zealand, both of these being by Mortemer ; and Rayon d'Or, by Flageolet (who defeated Doncaster twice), winner of the St. Leger of 1879 and imported into America by Hon. W. L. Scott. Died the property of August Belmont, Esq., of New York.
Now here is a curious matter for me, though it may not be for iny readers. Camel, sire of Touchstone, and the Baron, sire of Stockwell and Rataplan, were both from No. 24 family in Mr. Bruce Lowe's system, and the only two stallions in that family that were worth a $100 bill. But it is a singular fact that Pocahontas' very worst foal should have been by Camel and her two best by The Baron, one of them being one of the greatest cup-winners that the world has ever seen, while the other was, in my belief, the greatest sire that ever looked through a bridle. Had you owned Pocahontas, as Mr. Theobald did, you would either have bred her to Touchstone or to his sire Camel ; and as Touchstone had not then established his prowess as a sire, it was very natural that Mr. Theobald should have selected his progenitor. Cambaules was emasculated at three years old, having been found utterly worthless for racing purposes, and is said to have ended his days between the shafts of a cab in London, while others say he was a gentleman's hack in Nottinghamshire and a very nice horse to ride.
MANDANE, CH. M. 1800.
By Pot-8-os-Young Camilla, produced:
1804, b. f. Scratch, by Whisky.
1805, b. c. Ernest by Buzzard.
1807, b. c. Flip by Whisky.
1808, b. f. by Trumpator.
1809, b. f. Manuella by Dick Andrews. Won the Oaks.
1810, ch. f. Altisidora by same. Won the St. Leger.
yo The American Thoroughbred
1811, b. f. Petueria by Orville.
1813, b. c. Capt. Candid by Cerberus.
1816, ch. c. Procurant by Langton.
1819, b. f. Muta, by Tramp.
1820, br. c. Lottery, by Tramp. Won Doncaster Cup 1825.
1821, b. c. Brutandorf by Blacklock. Won Chester Cup 1826.
1822, b. f. unnamed by Whisker.
This foal of 1822 was the dam of Liverpool, who defeated the St. Leger winner Chorister in the Gascoigne Stakes and subsequently became the sire of the great Lanercost.
BEGGAR GIRL (BIGGOTINI), BR. F. 1815.
By Thunderbolt — Tramp's dam by Gohanna, from Fraxinella by Trenthan. pro- duced :
1822, b. c. Bat by Oiseau.
1823, ch. c. Brass, by same.
1825, b. f. Bustle by Waxy Pope.
1826, b. f. Bittern by same.
1827, ch. f. Brine by same. 1829, b. f. Brandy Bet by Canteen.
This mare is ancestress of Russborough, who ran a dead heat for the St. Leger of 1850 with Voltigeur, and is also ancestress of the famous Australian horses Melos (by Goldsbrough) and Wallace (by Carbine"), winners of the Victoria Derby and Champion race of three miles.
ELLEN HORNE, B. ^L, 1844.
This mare, of so little note in her own day, is now famous as the ancestress of the following noted winners, in female-tail line :
Lord Lyon, b c, 1863, winner of the 2000 Guineas, Derby and St. Leger 1866. Sire of Placida, winner of the Oaks ; and IMinting, winner of the Grand Prix de Paris.
Achievement, winner of the 1000 Guineas and St. Leger of 1867.
Jannette, winner of the Oaks and St. Leger at 3 years and the Jockey Club Cup at 4.
Bend Or, Derby winner of 1880, City and Suliurjjan of 1881 and Epsom Cup of 1882. Sire of the great Ormonde.
Ladas, winner of the Derby and 2000 Guineas of 1894.
Chelandrv (by Goldfinch, imported in California), winner of the 1000 Guineas of 1896.
There is no mare in English stud history which, foaled since 1840, has made any such showing as has Ellen Home, who is also ancestress of Blue ]Mantle, ^lan-at-Arms, and Gardevisure, winner of the Cambridgeshire. Considering that she was by a third- class sire, Ellen Home's prominence is something wonderful.
This brings me to the end of my English chapter, and I hope I have not offended any of my British critics, for I have endeavored to write free from prejudice and speak only of things as I have seen them in the fierce light of the history of a half- century. I may have erred in judgment, but believe I shall at least be given credit for honest intentions.
PART IV.
The American Thoroughbred
^^ 'The flag is lowered — they're off- — they cornel The squadron is sweeping on ! There's a sway in the crowd — a murmuring hum^
They're here — they're past — they're gone. They came with the rush of the southern surf
On the bar of the storm-girt bay ; Andy like muffled drums on the sounding turf, Their hoof-strokes echo away."
— Gordon.
o
h
'^
Q<
The American Thoroughbred