Old Dominion was Turf Mother 99 



Diomed blood was local in the sense that he 

 spent his entire life in Virginia, and few of his 

 immediate descendants went out of Virginia into 

 alien hands. But Sir Archy, living a long and 

 vigorous life, left such an amount of his blood 

 behind him, which had become so highly valued, 

 that when it came time for him to die, his sons 

 and daughters had been scattered from Long 

 Island on the north to Louisiana, Alabama, and 

 Georgia on the south. There was a strain of 

 Sir Archy, through a son or a daughter, on the 

 farm of every breeder, of however small preten- 

 sions, who lived in America. Not to have some 

 of the Sir Archy blood was not to be really a 

 thoroughbred breeder. 



Diomed sired so many performers of degree 

 that the mention of them in brief, as is given 

 here, is as far as one might go. But it is impos- 

 sible to leave Sir Archy without giving him, in 

 any history of the turf, as full, or fuller, notice as 

 his sire, Diomed. Diomed was essentially Eng- 

 lish. Sir Archy was English in so far as his 

 blood lines went ; but he was foaled, ran his races, 

 stood, and died on American soil, and he was 

 perhaps the first horse of grandeur that might 

 have been called American. He was the first 



