'The Modern British Thoroughbred 5j> 



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 50 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 Stud by Mr. 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 

 133, being beaten two heads by the French horse Montargis, six years, HI 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 37. 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 Wiidfowler, 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 



