Chapter X.. The Great Armada and the Contre Coup.

The Great Armada and the Contre Coup.

When the Hon. James White was at the zenith of his racing fortunes, he conceived the noble ambition to bring the English Derby to Australia, and accordingly bred from several of his best mares to English time. It was a great adventure. La Princess, a mare by Cathedral from Princess of Wales, by Stockwell, produced for him a chestnut colt to Chester, appropriately named Kirkham. Chester himself was from a Stockwell mare, and the cross was therefore a strong one. From La Princess he also bred Martindale, by Martini Henry, in the following year. On the same blood lines he bred the chestnut colt Narellan, by Chester from Princess Maud, by Adventurer out of Princess of Wales, by Stockwell, as well as a full brother to Dreadnought, by Chester out of Trafalgar, by Blair Athol from a sister to Musket, which was christened Wentworth; and the last, a full sister to Singapore, by Martini Henry out of Malacca, by King of the Forest from Catinka, by Paul Jones, named Mons Meg. This little string was duly despatched to the Old Country and placed under the care of the greatest trainer in England, old Mathew Dawson. But the invading expedition was not a success. The colts seemed to lose their action on the voyage; or it might have been that virtue had gone out of La Princess and Princess Maud after their several successive matings with Chester, and it had not yet come home to Mr. White that Martini Henry was doomed to be a comparative failure at the stud. Possibly the line of Whisker, from which Chester sprang, and which had practically died out in England, was simply not good enough to hold its own with the descendants of Whalebone, Whisker’s full brother, which it was destined to meet. It is hard to say. But Mons Meg was the most successful of the mob, and that was not saying very much. She won the Gold Vase at Ascot, and certainly seemed to stay. But she failed at the stud, and although Kirkham sired a winner of the Grand National Steeplechase, it was the best that any of the colts could do, and the great Armada deserved a better fate.

During James White’s career there were no stars of heaven which approached him in magnitude, although Sir Thomas Elder with his Gang Forward and Neckersgat blood, E. K. Cox with his Yattendons, Andrew Town with the Maribyrnongs, and Mr. Frank Reynolds with the Goldsbroughs, did much for the Australian horse. And in good truth the star of the lastnamed family never seems to set, although its racing fortunes may rise and fall with the tide.

And now, when the great constellation was near the setting, others commenced to rise. There was Mr. Donald Wallace, a generous and successful owner, and one whose name has been rendered altogether deathless through the peerless Carbine. He did not, however, breed the great horse himself, but bought him for what was considered a very large sum, three thousand guineas. Before Mr. Wallace died, unfortunately at a comparatively early age, Mr. W. R. Wilson appeared on the scene. He bought the St. Albans Estate, in the neighbourhood of Geelong, collected a stud of the very highest class of brood mares, and, by the aid of the Musket blood, principally through Trenton, and the St. Simon strain, through Bill of Portland, he experienced a succession of successful years, during which he stood at the head of the list of winning owners. It was in his reign that the first importations of the Galopin-St. Simon stock found their way into Australia, the effect of which has revolutionised the whole of the horse-breeding industry of our great island continent. Indeed, from Mr. W. R. Wilson’s time the aspect of everything has changed. We have become so intensely democratic in our notions that we do not seem to be able to suffer a king to live, not even in our pastimes. The prize-money has become much more evenly distributed, which, perhaps, is all the better for the prosperity of the turf, and we do not seem to be able to breed racehorses without importing a constant stream of sires from Europe. And for the greater part these importations have been scions of the Eclipse-Blacklock house through St. Simon and his great sire, Galopin. It was with the closing years of the nineteenth century that the last of the great dominating owners disappeared from the scene, and the days of the turf democracy commenced. Since the new century began there have been many good owners, many fine men, good sportsmen, but none who have held their place year in, year out, in the old-fashioned way. Mr. L. K. S. Mackinnon, the present Chairman of the V.R.C., has owned in his time many horses, and some good ones, amongst them Woorak, a great sprinter. Mr. E. E. D. Clarke, with his Welkins, is also constantly on the long roll. No one in Australia races in quite the same princely style as does Mr. Clarke. He breeds his own stock, employs the best of trainers, is faithfully served by Robert Lewis as his first jockey, and he races for the sport alone. Mr. Agar Wynne is seldom absent from the yearly roll call, and Mr. S. A. Rawdon never seems disheartened by cycles of bad years. Mr. A. T. Creswick races lavishly, and, winning or losing, retains an imperturbable countenance. Mr. Hawker, from South Australia, sticks nobly to the great game, and Mr. N. Falkiner, with his magnificent stud farm, and his high-class stallions and carefully selected mares, looks like emulating the deeds of those of old time. And then there is a long list of professionals and semiprofessionals whose names appear with a fair amount of regularity. But times have altered, and manners and peoples have changed with them since the decades sacred to the Taits and the Fishers, and the horse, and his rider, too, are not the same. The old blood which we cherished some sixty years ago has disappeared, and we wonder if it is for the better.

Sir Hercules, Yattendon, Chester, The Barb, Kelpie, Fireworks, Tim Whiffler, Fisherman, Angler, Maribyrnong, Kingston, The Marquis, Newminster, of all those heroes of old not a trace, on the male side of the house, is left behind. With the opening century commenced the invasion of English sires, and in the same fashion as the Norway rat of old ate up and exterminated his brown English cousin, so has the imported blood from England exterminated our old-time Australian horse. To-day, in the list of winning sires, the first sixteen are imported horses, and out of the first hundred, seventy-eight were foaled in the British Isles. Of the two and twenty that were dropped in Australia, many came from English parents, and each one at least owns to an English grandsire.

In the entire long list there are but a couple of the descendants of Chester that claim any winners at all, and these, sons of Carlyon, are lower than the two hundredth place. But that we are still capable of rearing dominant and pre-potent blood sires in our climate, and nourished on Australian pasture, is evident from the fact that, within recent years, Malster, Bobadil and Wallace have been powerful factors in the production of our winners, and this gallant trio, one or other of them, have headed the poll, and that many times. But they are dropping out, those three, and ere another generation has passed away, practically every winning sire will be an importation.

Even the very foundation stones of our studs have been turned topsy turvy and thrown away, since the days of Macarthur, Icely, the Fishers and Tait. In their eras the blood of Herod was in the forefront of the battle, although, as time went on, Birdcatcher, and from him Stockwell, encroached upon his domain, and finally settled the house of Eclipse on his unshakeable throne. The advent of Musket brought Touchstone to the front, and still further strengthened the Eclipse blood. But the greatest revolution of all was accomplished when Bill of Portland, a son of St. Simon, of the tribe of Blacklock, of the house of Eclipse, landed in Australia. So tremendous was the success of the sons and daughters of the brown horse, more especially when mated with Musket mares, that no newly imported sire seemed to have a chance of success unless he were imbued with that same St. Simon strain. The effect is still in the strongest evidence to-day.

If you scan the latest list of winning sires to hand, that for 1920 to 1921, you will find the following results: The first hundred and three places are occupied by sires of the following lines of descent: The direct descendants, in tail male, of St. Simon and Galopin number thirty-five; whilst three trace to Speculum, son of Vedette. Fourteen are Stockwells, through the medium of Bend Or, and eight through other branches. Birdcatcher claims other winning stallions, apart from the Stockwells, through Isonomy, the great son of Sterling, and for the most part by virtue of Isonomy’s chestnut son, Gallinule.

Touchstone boasts of twelve Musket sires to his credit, twelve Hamptons, and but a single Hermit. To-day there is not a single representative of the house of Herod in the first hundred on the roll. But Matchem, by the aid of that grand horse, Barcaldine, is represented by six living sires. This brief summary tells us exactly how the barometer is behaving. In Australia Eclipse is paramount, and that for the most part through the influence of Blacklock. Musket, who did such wonders for our breed forty years ago, is sick, almost to Doomsday with Eclipse. Hermit, as a male influence, is dead. Barcaldine is moribund, and it is perfectly evident that before another twenty years have passed, on the male side of the house, at least, it will be Eclipse first and the rest nowhere. Within the last ten years there have been, in the Old Country, symptoms of a revival of the blood of Herod through Roi Herode, and his speedy grey son, The Tetrarch. For the moment, the courses are flooded with them, and every field is flashing with greys. It seemed, for a lustrum, that Herod and Tartar were once more destined to become a vital force, but the zenith was reached ere many days. Even now this Herod star, or comet, which appeared in the heavens and rushed onwards as though determined to carry everything in front of it, has been observed to change its direction, and it is rapidly speeding away from the sun on its outward course. We in Australia have followed the fashion, and Herod, with Menin, Chrysolaus and Sarchedon, will enjoy popularity and a considerable measure of success, but the march of events here will certainly follow those in the old world, and the grey blood will, in a little time, weaken and fade away.

Eclipse must eventually reign absolute. Yet these importations of other families are immensely valuable. We must have out crosses for our perpetual blood of Eclipse, and the Barcaldines, the Roi Herodes, and The Tetrarchs are inestimable for such a purpose. And the greater their success in the early days of their stud life here, the better for the ultimate good of our thoroughbred horse.