4 RACEHORSES IN AUSTRALIA 



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 importa- 

 tions 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, Rocking- 

 ham 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 Rocking- 

 ham, of course, by Humphrey Clinker, who appears in the pedigree of Don- 

 caster. 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 men- 

 tions 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 v/as by Timoleon, and that he was not sent to Australia until 

 1823. 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 w^ere King Harrys on the field of 

 Shrewsbury. The thoroughbred Hector is described as "a very fine, com- 

 manding 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 I 806, whilst the seventh volume adds that Hector went to Tas- 

 mania 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 stud- 

 masters, 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. 



