RACEHORSES IN AUSTRALIA
The blocks in this book were made by the Globe Engraving Co. and
Messrs. Patterson Shugg Pty. Ltd. of Melbourne, and Messrs. Hartland &
Hyde and Messrs. Bacon & Co. of Sydney.
Wholly set up and printed in Australia by Messrs. W. C. Penfold & Co.
Ltd. of Hosking Place, Sydney, and published by Sydney Ure Smith at 24
Bond Street, Sydney, for Art in Australia Ltd.
[Illustration:
_From an old painting_
A change of horses never meant a change of whisky.
It was always then as now—JOHNNIE WALKER.
JOHN WALKER & SONS, LTD.
SCOTCH WHISKY DISTILLERS
KILMARNOCK, SCOTLAND.
]
[Illustration:
PLATE 1.
HEAD OF TRAFALGAR, one of the most genuine stayers bred in Australia
of recent years. From a painting of the horse, at the age of 7
years, in the possession of Dr. Stewart McKay.
]
RACEHORSES IN AUSTRALIA
WITH PAINTINGS BY
MARTIN STAINFORTH
EDITED BY
DR. W. H. LANG
KEN AUSTIN AND
DR. STEWART McKAY
PRODUCED BY HARRY JULIUS
PUBLISHED BY ART IN AUSTRALIA LIMITED
24 BOND STREET, SYDNEY
LONDON: CONSTABLE & COMPANY LIMITED
10 ORANGE STREET, LEICESTER SQUARE
1922
CONSTABLE & CO. LTD.
LONDON
CONTENTS
Page
Introduction By Ken Austin 1
Racehorses in Australia By Dr. W. H. Lang 3
Martin Stainforth—an appreciation By Dr. Stewart McKay 105
The Secret of Staying Power By Dr. Stewart McKay 117
The A.J.C. and Randwick By Ken Austin 124
The V.R.C. and Flemington By Dr. W. H. Lang 130
The Thoroughbred Homes of Australia By Ken Austin 137
Famous Racehorses By Frank Wilkinson (Martindale) 147
Racing in New South Wales 159
ILLUSTRATIONS
COLORED PLATES
Plate
Head of Trafalgar 1
Musket 2
Carbine 3
Trenton 4
Cross Battery 5
The Finish for the V.R.C. Flying Stakes, 1902 6
Maltster 7
Wallace 8
Lanius 9
Linacre 10
Yippingale 11
Trafalgar 12
Brattle 13
Poitrel 14
Gloaming 15
Artilleryman 16
Triptych 17
Cetigne 18
Kennaquhair 19
Comedy King 20
Woorak 21
Panacre 22
Eurythmic 23
The Finish for the A.J.C. Craven Plate, 1918 24
BLACK AND WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
Duke Foote 107
Desert Gold 107
Malt King 108
Biplane 108
The Welkin 109
Cagou 109
Greenstead 110
Beauford 110
Martin Stainforth 111
Pencil Sketches 111
Anatomical Study 112
Sketch of Pony 112
Artilleryman 113
Ready 113
Pal 114
Mallwyd Albert 114
Views of Randwick 125
Plan of Randwick 126
Views of Flemington 135
Plans of Flemington 136
Jorrocks 147
Veno 148
Fisherman 148
Flying Buck 149
Archer 149
Clove 150
Yattendon 150
Maribyrnong 151
The Barb 151
Tim Whiffler 152
Chester 152
First King 153
Robinson Crusoe 153
Goldsbrough 154
Grand Flaneur 154
Abercorn 155
Malua 155
Wakeful 156
La Carabine 156
Carlita 157
Tartan 157
Poseidon 158
Prince Foote 158
INTRODUCTION
This volume should have made its appearance towards the close of last
year but the regrettable death of Bertram Stevens, who had the work in
hand, practically suspended matters in connection with its publication.
With characteristic energy Mr. Harry Julius took up the work, and it is
due to his efforts that the book is now complete. The amount of detail
work concerned in bringing out this publication has been very great, and
can only be appreciated properly by those like myself who have been
connected with Mr. Harry Julius during the time the book was in the
press.
The scope of the volume as originally planned by the late Bertram
Stevens was very much wider than the present book. It was found as the
work progressed that the project was too ambitious and the field too
large to cover in detail.
A general view of the development of Australian racing has been
embodied, and the breeding of the racehorse in the Southern Hemisphere
lightly touched on. The illustrations, which include some of the best
performers of the present day, are devoted mainly to reproductions of
pictures painted by Mr. Martin Stainforth. To make a comprehensive list
of famous horses, Mr. Stainforth executed a number of paintings
especially for the book. Pictures of other horses who have made their
names famous on the racecourse or at the stud are also reproduced, and
should serve as a valuable record to those interested in the
thoroughbred.
Delays have been experienced in many cases with the colour
reproductions. Many of the original blocks had to be discarded as they
failed to accurately record the original colour and detail of line of
Martin Stainforth’s pictures. To overcome this a great many of the
colour plates were made again.
The publishers are indebted to a great many people for their helpful
efforts—those who have loaned pictures for reproduction, and the
officials of the Australian Jockey Club, Victoria Racing Club and the
Rosehill Race Club—in connection with the publication of this book.
They have been particularly fortunate in having been able to secure Dr.
W. H. Lang to write the bulk of the letterpress. No one is more
conversant with the thoroughbred than Dr. Lang, and his literary style
speaks for itself.
Dr. Stewart McKay has contributed a scientific article which opens up a
new train of thought in connection with the racehorse, while others who
have lent a helping hand are Messrs. Frank Wilkinson and Tom Willis.
Thanks are due to the trustees of the National Art Gallery of N.S.W.,
Sir Samuel Hordern, Dr. Stewart McKay, Messrs. McEvilly, R. De Mestre,
W. A. Crowle, G. F. Rowe, A. J. Morton, Jas. Barden, F. G. White, Norman
Falkiner, W. M. Borthwick, J. Campbell Wood, T. A. Stirton, Dr. Herbert
Marks, Mrs. H. Gordon, Mrs. Flemmich, Mrs. F. Body, and Mrs. Herbert
Marks, for permission to reproduce pictures in their possession.
KEN AUSTIN.
THE RACEHORSE IN AUSTRALIA
By Dr. W. H. LANG.
Chapter I.
The Pre-historic Days.
The History of the Racehorse in Australia is such a short one that you
might, with reason, imagine that the entire narrative could be condensed
into a very small space when committed to print. But you would be
utterly wrong. On the contrary, an historian, with his heart in the
business, could reel off a number of fair-sized volumes, and still his
work would not be fulfilled to his entire satisfaction. A little ancient
history may be useful to us before we commence to study the subject. As
you know, there was no trace of the genus horse on our island continent
before the coming of the white man. In America, on the other hand,
although there was no horse as we know him, before the advent of the
Conqueror Cortez, in 1518, yet the fossilised remains of the Eohippus,
the Protohippus and Hipparion are so numerous and well distributed on
the great American continents that these wide lands seem to have been
the most favoured home of the great race of equidae, in the far-off days
before the ice.
The whole species was then cut off, to a horse, possibly by an epidemic,
or by the ravages, more probably, of some insect or microbe, and its
history in that quarter of the globe recommenced with the Conquest. In
vivid contrast the tale of our own Australian horse, and all our other
domestic animals, begins as late as the 10th day of January, 1788.
Governor Phillip brought with him from the Cape of Good Hope, where he
had called to obtain supplies on his voyage hither with his first fleet
of convicts, a stallion and three mares with foals at foot, a few
cattle, and in all 500 head of live stock, but which consisted for the
most part of poultry.
The new Colony had a good deal of bad luck at this time. The four-footed
animals, owing to the negligence of a convict herdsman, strayed away,
and although one has reason to believe that the horses were recovered,
there is no certainty on that head. With the cattle there is a different
story to tell, and on the very day upon which I am writing this, I read,
in “The English Sporting Magazine” of 1797, the story of their loss and
recovery. A boat’s crew sought a bay on the coast whilst searching for
fresh water. At the spot where the men landed they fell in with a
convict who had escaped five years before, and who had joined the
blacks. This man showed them where the lost cattle had made their home,
deep in some fertile valley, and in the course of their nine years of
liberty they had increased in numbers to sixty-one head. It was a
valuable find for the struggling colonists, who, from drought and flood,
had lost a large portion of their property.
In the very early years of “the Colony” there was exceedingly little
need for the assistance of light horses in the daily work of the place,
whilst the desire to possess an animal more speedy than that owned by a
neighbour had not yet arisen at all. You will, perhaps, recollect that,
until the year 1813 or thereabouts, the only portion of our vast
continent which was being made use of by white men was a little strip of
soil between the Blue Mountains and the sea, some forty miles by eighty,
and the few horses which had now been brought over from the Cape, or out
from the Old Country, were simply beasts of burden, or, at the best,
perhaps, hacks and harness horses.
It was on the 31st day of May of that year that Blaxland, Wentworth and
Lawson burst their way through the hitherto impenetrable ranges and
scrub into the limitless lands beyond, and it was upon that same day
that the use for a swift and long-enduring saddle horse was discovered
by the inhabitants who followed in the tracks of these explorers, and
the first real need of the thoroughbred as a sire found its way into
Australia.
Yet, though there seems to have been such a limited demand for the
thoroughbred steed in these very early days, there were, at least, three
importations before the transit of the Blue Mountains had been
accomplished, and you cannot help wondering what was the inducement
which tempted the importers to take the risk.
A mist floats over the particulars of these first arrivals. In the
closing years of the eighteenth century there is on record that a blood
horse, Rockingham by name, was shipped to Australia from the Cape of
Good Hope. It was at the end of the seventeen nineties, and the only
other authentic fact which I can ascertain concerning him is that he
subsequently became known as “Young Rockingham.” There is no trace of
anything which he may have left behind him in the way of progeny. He was
probably by Rockingham, a stallion which was covering in England about
this period, but not the Rockingham, of course, by Humphrey Clinker, who
appears in the pedigree of Doncaster. The day of that sire had not yet
dawned.
A blood horse called Washington is said to have been imported from
America in 1802. The first volume of the “Australian Stud Book” simply
mentions the fact, and adds that he was “said to have been a very
handsome horse,” and there it ends. But Mr. T. Merry, in his book on the
American horse, states that he was by Timoleon, and that he was not sent
to Australia until 1825. The third importation before the transit was of
one whose name is still alive, and that is “Old” Hector, or simply
Hector. The exact year of his arrival here is uncertain. A correspondent
in a weekly paper some months ago gives it with confidence as 1803, and
states that the horse died in 1821. The first volume of the “Stud Book”
quotes it as 1810, but refers to him as a “Persian.” Hector was a
favourite name amongst horse-masters, and there were as many Hectors in
Australia as there were King Harrys on the field of Shrewsbury. The
thoroughbred Hector is described as “a very fine, commanding horse. The
gameness of his stock proves that he was not an Indian horse.” The
second volume corrects the dates, and believes that Hector was imported
in 1806, whilst the seventh volume adds that Hector went to Tasmania
from New South Wales in 1820. In a Tasmanian advertisement he is
described as “by Hector, probably Hector by Trentham,” the property of
the Iron Duke. All this is not only of interest, but it is of a certain
value to studmasters, for the blood of Old Hector survives in some force
to-day through the descendants of his daughter Old Betty. But, as that
famous mare, the ancestress of such a very numerous and worthy family,
was not foaled until 1829, we are left in a deep quagmire of doubt as to
what her real pedigree can possibly have been. The “Stud Book,” however,
accepts the mare as being by Hector.
And, to close these very early, almost prehistoric data, a bay stallion,
named The Governor, was imported about 1817. He was by Walton from
Enchantress, by Volunteer, from a mare by Mambrino, but I can find no
mention whatsoever of this horse’s services, nor of his progeny. That,
indeed, was inevitable, for until this period no race mare with a clean
pedigree had ever come to our shores. Our country at that time was no
land of promise, so hopelessly far away was it from the Old World, and
from civilisation, over seas very dangerous, not only on account of the
smallness of the vessels employed in transport, but also from the
unceasing violence of the enemy.