The Modern British Thoroughbred 57 



later; and Macgregor got Brutus from Teardrop by Scottish Chief, going back to the 

 famous Phryne and Decoy family, a branch of No. 3. Outside of Mr. Haggin's im- 

 portations, no foreign-bred stallion has bred so well in California as has Brutus ; and 

 his success, moreover, was not based upon fashionably bred mares, like most of Mr. 

 Haggin's matrons, but on what we called "the old blood" of California, chiefly that of 

 Belmont (Henry Williamson's) who was the first thoroughbred stallion to cross the 

 plains on foot. Belmont got Langford (first called Vigilance) and he challenged all 

 America to come to California in 1860 and run four mile-heats for $10,000, the ac- 

 ceptor to be allowed $2,500 for expenses. The Doswells would probably have ac- 

 cepted in behalf of Planet, but deemed the stake too small for the risk to be incurred in 

 a twenty-five days' voyage from New York to San Francisco, as there were no trans- 

 continental railroads built until nine years later. Brutus' roll of honor is certainly 

 interesting reading, especially when you come to compare it with the American Stud 

 Book and see how he got good winners from mares that barely produced winners of 

 saddle horse purses to the cover of other stallions. 



Brutus' immediate predecessor in the Elmwood Stud at Milpitas was an imported 

 horse called Hercules, brought to this country in 1861 by Shumway and Jenkins of 

 Mountain View, Santa Clara county, in this state. I rode him several times while 

 he was their property and he was certainly the fastest walker I ever threw my leg over. 

 After Mr. Shumway's death the big horse was sold by the Probate Court and Mr. Boots 

 got him for about $1.200, if I remember it all right. Mr. Williamson bid him up to 

 that figure for me (I was living in Red Bluff at the time) and when he let go, I think 

 Mr. Boots was the only other bidder. At all events, Mr. Boots got the horse and had 

 only owned him a few days when Hercules broke his leg while playing in a small pad- 

 dock. Dr. Jules Savidan, a French veterinary surgeon living in San Jose, was sent 

 for and discovered that the fracture could be set and the horse saved. So Hercules 

 lived to be about nineteen or twenty and got some good stock. Hercules was by 

 Kingston (Goodwood Cup of 1852 and Northumberland Plate of 1853) out of Daugh- 

 ter of Toscar by Bay Middleton, she being the maternal grand-dam of Gamos (by 

 Saunterer) who won the Oaks of 1870, in which she beat that great fillv Sunshine, by 

 Thormanby ; and Sunshine was, in a general way, worth a dozen such mares as Gamos, 

 for she it was who placed her sire at the top of the tree in the only year in which he 

 was premier stallion of England. 



The decadence of these great Herod lines in England has been of longer duration 

 than in America for no Herod horse has won a Derby since Sir Bevys won it in 1879; 

 nor has any Herod horse won a St. Leger since Ossian defeated Chislehurst and High- 

 land Chief for that event in 1883. No such falling off characterized the Herod horses 

 in America for little black Virgil was premier in 1886, though with the smallest amount 

 opposite his name that was ever credited to any leader among sires. He got three 

 winners of the Kentucky Derby Vagrant, Hindoo and Ben AH a distinction achieved 

 by no other horse, living or dead. Virgil got Hindoo, who, while he never was pre- 

 mier, bred a great deal of class and got the beautiful Hanover who headed the pro- 

 cession for four seasons and was second to imported Albert in the next one, by a mar- 

 gin so narrow that it was hardly worth a line of mention. And so far from going 

 back again into what an emaciated citizen of Princeton, N. J., called "innocuous 

 desuetude," the male-line of Glencoe is now growing stronger than ever, for six sons 

 of Hanover are now very prominent as sires, Hamburg having already gotten two win- 

 ners and one second horse in the Futurity, while The Commoner, Handspring and 

 several others are the sires of animals of undeniable stake form. 



It is an open question whether Glencoe was not the best horse that ever came from 

 the male-line of Herod. True, he was no such race horse as his unbeaten nephew, 

 Bay Middleton ; and with the latter's son, the dashing Dutchman, he would have been 

 indisputably overmatched. But review his racing record impartially and what do we 



