TOO The American Thoroughbred 



one of which, the Northumberland Plate, at 2 miles, he won with 136 Ibs. up. Bar- 

 caldine got Mimi, winner of the One Thousand and the Oaks ; and Sir Visto, winner 

 of the Derby and St. Leger of 1895. Three sons of Baroaldine, all out of the Oaks 

 winner, Geheimniss, have been imported to this country, Free Mason, Grand Master 

 and Odd Fellow. The latter has done only fairly well for a horse that was by the 

 best winner of his day and out of the best filly of her era also. Free Mason got a good 

 handicap horse called First Principal, before leaving England. Perhaps the blood of 

 these three brothers may show up better in the next generation, as they are all heavily 

 boned and strong horses in a general way. There is no denying that such horses 

 are an acquisition to any country where the mares are as light-boned as they are in 

 Kentucky and Tennessee. 



Mr. Joseph Osborne (Beacon) in speaking of the decay of Herod's line in Eng- 

 land, says, "Naturally the breeders of England look to the United States of America, 

 as the place whence the regenerating fluid must be drawn." In my belief, we can 

 supply England with "the regenerating fluid" from both the Herod and Matchem 

 lines. No Matchem horse has headed the Sires' List in England since 1857, when 

 Blink Bonny's double victory in the Derby and Oaks placed honest old lop-eared Mel- 

 bourne in the premiership. We have had two premiers of Matchem's line Kingston 

 and Hastings in the past five years, hence I deem our Matchem horses better than 

 theirs. Morion is the best performer they have had for years, but considering that 

 he was by Barcaldine out of an own sister to two such sires as The Palmer and 

 Rosicrucian, he has done very little at the stud. 



As for Herod horses, the descendants of Hanover and Jim Gore should be able to 

 fill the bill in that direction. At the same time the line of Pantaloon, through Thor- 

 manby, Atlantic and Le Sancy, gives the French a very wide opening in England if 

 the Herod blood is all they require. I never saw a much harder finished horse than 

 Le Sancy in my life. And the French have preserved the male line of Selim (which 

 is that of Hanover also) through The Flying Dutchman and his son, Dollar, to a 

 much greater extent than most of us are aware. Mr. William Allison, of Cobham, 

 has already imported Pastisson, a male-line descendant of Flying Dutchman, with 

 a view to distributing the "regenerating fluid" in England. I do not think the gifted 

 author of "The British Thoroughbred" is making any great mistake. They will have 

 to come to us or go to France, for a supply of Herod and Matchem stallions, just as 

 we have been compelled to go to them, in the past forty years, for better exponents of 

 the Eclipse line than we could hope to produce at home. 



The best Herod horse that has been imported from England in the past forty years 

 is St. George, by Cremorne ; and the only stallion of any real merit that Cremorne ever 

 got, his best performer being the flying filly Kermesse. St. George's dam was Strategy 

 by Adventurer out of Minerva by Stockwell, his sixth dam being Whim, the fifth dam 

 of both Barcaldine and his sire, Solon. St. George is the sire of several high-class 

 performers such as Aladdin, winner of the Sheridan Stakes and Oakwood Handicap ; 

 Lucien Appleby, winner of whole dozens of races ; and Bearcatcher, a three-year-old, 

 whose mile in i :39% with a goodly weight on his back, is at least impressive. Some 

 one of these three should serve to keep alive the blood of Sweetmeat who is one of the 

 five greatest factors in modern pedigrees. Our best native Herod horse, without one 

 moment's hesitation, was Lexington. No matter who else was second, Lexington un- 

 deniably was first. Lexington was very deficient in sire blood and that is why his 

 male line has so soon run out. He succeeded on his marvelous individuality and his 

 faultless form ; and that was about all there was to Hanover, who was about as badly 

 off for sire blood as was Lexington himself. Yet they are the two greatest Herod-line 

 sires since 1800 and Lexington stands close beside Sir Peter with a larger number of 

 years to his credit than the great Derby winner of 1787, who was also the greatest 

 Herod horse that England ever knew. Like Stockwell, King Tom and Rataplan, Sir 



