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The Modern British Thoroughbred 61 



also imported several horses very closely related to St. Simon on the dam's side, Order, 

 the sire of Ornament, being the best of the bunch. Caesar Young, a bookmaker, who 

 was killed in a cab in New York last June, bought a horse called St. Avonicus, and 

 Mr. Edward Corrigan has one called Brantome, both sons of the great St. Simon. It 

 is most sincerely to be hoped that some one of the three just above named will do 

 better than the other sons of St. Simon that have preceded them. 



HAMPTON, foaled 1872, was a horse that was always sneered at by the turf critics 

 of his day, as "the little selling plater," but he was a horse of good class for he won 

 the Goodwood Stakes, Goodwood and Doncaster Cups and Great Metropolitan Handi- 

 cap with 120 pounds in the saddle, which does not look much like a plater's perform- 

 ance. At the stud he got Merry Hampton, winner of the Derby ; Ayrshire and Ladas, 

 both winners of the Two Thousand and Derby and, for another singular coincidence, 

 both second in the St. Leger. Hampton was also sire of Reve d'Or who won the Oaks 

 and the Jockey Club Cup ; and Sheen, who was the best long-distance horse of his day, 

 winning the Cesarewitch with 129 pounds, in a field of 23, the third horse being a 

 four-year-old with 98. For a while it looked as if Sheen were going to be Hampton's 

 best son at the stud ; for no other horse of that line ever got three such as Scintillant, 

 (third in the St. Leger and a winner of the Cesarewitch) ; Batt, who was second 

 in Jeddah's Derby, and Labrador, who lapped out Persimmon in his St. Leger. But 

 in the last three or four years Ayrshire seems to have improved greatly with age, be- 

 ing the sire of Solitaire, Dunlop, Tarbolton and the Oaks winner Airs and Graces. 

 The first above named is owned in California and of his first offering of yearlings in 

 New York two sold for $5,000 each, an almost unprecedented figure for the get of a 

 stallion as yet wholly untried. Tarbolton, whom I saw in England and deemed every 

 inch a hero, was imported to America, but died shortly after landing. Sheen, poor old 

 chap, has become impotent, so they say, and he was sold at auction for 80 some months 

 ago for that reason. 



SPRINGFIELD, by St. Alban's, out of Viridis by Marsyas, from Maid of Palmyra by 

 Pyrrhus the First (second dam of our own Kingfisher, by the way) was a horse that, I 

 hardly know how to place correctly. Not as a turf performer, however, for he was "a 

 holy terror" for years, campaigning successfully for three seasons, winning nine straight 

 races at three years old and five straight at four. He won three out of five at two 

 years old, being defeated by Kisber (who won the Derby of the following year) in the 

 Dewhurst Plate ; and in the Criterion Stakes b" Clanronald to whom he conceded six 

 pounds. His greatest performance was, however, in the Champion Stakes at New- 

 market, in which he carried 140 pounds, conceding twelve to Silvio, that year's winner 

 of both the Derby and St. Leger; and twenty-one to Great Tom, Thunderstorm and 

 Hesper, twenty-eight to Zuchero and thirty-one to Midlothian, the latter afterwards 

 imported to California. Springfield got Sanfoin, winner of the Derby of 1:890 and 

 subsequently sire of Rock Sand ; Watercress, winner of the Prince of Wales' Stakes at 

 Ascot, and third to La Fleche in the St. Leger; and Briar Root, winner of the One 

 Thousand, besides some dozen other big stake-winners and about sixty horses 

 in the "useful" class. 



I say I do not know how to class Springfield as a breeding horse because Sanfoin 

 is his only half-way successful son in England and his prestige is confined almos-t 

 exclusively to the winnings of one horse, Rock Sand. In America, Springfield has 

 two sons that I know of Watercress and Juvenal the former of which I like very 

 much. Juvenal has gotten one or two good ones, including Chacornac, who won the 

 Futurity of 1900 and I saw him in a race in England afterwards. But I don't fancy 

 Juvenal for the reason that he is a Springfield horse and resembles Blair Athol more 

 than he does Springfield. When I buy a horse because his father was a great sire, I 

 want him to resemble his sire and not his maternal grandsire; ,\nd this, too, in face of 

 my belief that Blair Athol was, by long odds, the best son of Stockwell. Now let 



