'The American Thoroughbred //j> 



winner of the first Derby and St. Blaise who won it in 1883. Diomed got one great 

 race horse, Ball's Florizel, who won seven straight races without defeat. He also got 

 that incomparable stallion Sir Archy, who while not as good a turf horse as Florizel, 

 was the best native sire from 1810 to 1860. Diomed also got Duroc, a big and coarse 

 horse whose sole fame was from his being the sire of the unbeaten American Eclipse. 

 There were two crosses of Duroc in Nantura, dam of the great Longfellow. The 

 triumphs of Sir Archy in the stud were without any previous parallel, getting four 

 such sires as Timoleon, Virginian, Sir Charles and Henry; and Sir Archy's daughters 

 showed, if possible, greater merits than his sons for they made reputations for a great 

 many other stallions. Sir Archy must have been 1 a pretty good race-horse also, for his 

 owner challenged all America to match him at four-mile heats in 1810, a defiance 

 which met with no response. Nevertheless, I have always been disposed to credit 

 a great portion of Sir Archy's excellence to his dam Castianira by Rockingham, out of 

 Tabitha by Trentham; and both those sires Rockingham and Trentham got winners 

 of the Oaks, while Diomed, notwithstanding his prestige as the first Derby winner, 

 never got a single classic winner and is only known to the best English breeders as a 

 broodmare sire. He got Young Giantess, the dam of Sorcerer and grand-dam of 

 Phantom and Priam, both Derby winners and good sires. Up to 1850 Priam was the 

 only horse, save Waxy, to get three winners of the Oaks. 



St. Blaise, however, made a mark for himself that is not easily obliterated. He 

 got 'Potomac, one of the only two horses to win the Futurity at two years old and the 

 Realization at three ; La Tosca, by ten pounds the best filly of her day ; St. Florian, a 

 great two-year-old and a fair sire ; St. Carlo, who was undoubtedly "pulled" in the 

 Futurity and since a capital sire; St. Maxim, Prince of Monaco, St. Julien, Magnet 

 (now in Australia), Belisarius (winner of over 100 races) and forty or fifty other 

 good ones. He was sold at the death of his importer, the elder Belmont, after which 

 he achieved but little in the stud as his new owner, who paid $100,000 for him at 

 auction, neglected to purchase the mares to whom St. Blaise owed so much of his 

 success. His daughters are breeding well as a rule, one of them being the dam of that 

 great performer Bannockburn. , 



The following is a list of the Derby winners imported to the United States, to- 

 gether with the years they were foaled, viz : 



Archduke ...1706 Eagle 1795 Priam 1827 St. Giles 1820, 



Uiomed 1777 John Bull ...1789 Saltram 1780 Sir Harry ...I7Q5 



Lapdog 1823 St. Blaise . . .1880 



PRIAM got many winners but inflicted an almost irreparable injury upon the stock 

 of America as he was very light under the knee and had bad legs, in addition to 

 which most of his get were knee-tied. His best was Monarch 

 whom he got before leaving England. Monarch won ten races with- 

 out defeat but carefully avoided meeting Boston, who was then Jhe champion 

 of the Atlantic Seaboard; and Wagner who was equally the best in the Mississippi 

 Valley States. Monarch was a good broodmare sire. 



The reader can, therefore, see for himself that the Australians in importing no 

 Derby winners and only one winner of the St. Leger, "builded wiser than they knew." 

 They let us import all the Derby winners we wanted ; and those chiefly after the English 

 breeders had them tried and found wanting. They imported their stallions and mares, 

 exclusively with a regard to heavy bone and ability to carry weight. I believe that the 

 Australians breed as good horses as ours, but not as many of them ; and we breed as 

 good horses as are to be found in England, but not so many as they do. Moreover, 

 the English, and Australians and the French, too, for that matter have a heavier 

 scale of weights than ours which is a great benefit. Our light weight system throws 

 many good riders out of employment for, just as soon as a boy gets so that he becomes 

 a really great rider, he becomes too heavy to do the weight. In 1890 I was at a meeting 



