T"he French "Thoroughbred 



SECOND EPOCH 



From the Second Empire until its Fall 



Louis Napoleon may, or may not, have been a great soldier. The campaign in the 

 Quadrilateral of Italy, concluding with the French victories at Solferino and Magenta, 

 would indicate that he was ; and a further corroboration lies in the camp equipment of 

 the French troops in the Crimean war when the provisioning and cookery of Marshal 

 St. Arnaud's army was placed in charge of the noted Parisian chef, M. Alexis Soyer. 

 The Franco-Prussian war, in which his armies were sent into the field with rotten shoes 

 on their feet and shoddy uniforms on their bodies, would indicate that he knew noth- 

 ing of the condition of the troops sent forth to battle for the duration of his empire. 

 But he certainly knew that no nation could successfully maintain a cavalry service with- 

 out thoroughbred blood in its horses. 



It is worthy of note that all, or nearly all, the best stallions in France, at that period; 

 were the property of the state ; and in 1854 the state went so far as to place at the ser- 

 vices of breeders no less than 345 English or French-bred stallions at figures ranging 

 from 200 francs down to a minimum fee of 40 francs. Among these were Ion, sire of 

 the Derby winner Wild Dayrell ; the Prime Warden, sire of Bassishaw, the third dam 

 of Isonomy ; Elthiron, a winner of the Suburban at Epsom ; Caravan, winner of the 

 Ascot Cup in 1839 ; The Baron, a winner of both the St. Leger and Cesarewitch at three 

 and sire of the immortal Stockwell ; lago, second in the St. Leger and winner of the 

 Grand Duke Michael Stakes, and dear to all Americans as the sire of Bonnie Scotland ; 

 Lanercost, winner of the Ascot Cup and sire of Van Tromp, who won the St. Leger of 

 1847 ; the short-lived Emperor, who defeated Faugh-a-Ballagh and Alice Hawthorne for 

 the Emperor of Russia's Cup in 1845 ; and last, but not least, Gladiator (who ran second 

 to Bay Middleton in the Derby of 1836, his only race) probably the best stallion that 

 England ever sent to the land of the Parleyvoos. At that date nobody could have be- 

 lieved that the day would ever come when a French-bred horse (Flageolet, sire of 

 Rayon d'Or, imported to America) would be sent to England to make the season 

 of 1880, at $1,000 per mare, the only higher priced stallion in England being Hermit, 

 who had been reserved by his owner (Mr. Henry Chaplin of Blankney) exclusively for 

 his own mares and therefore not accessible to the rank and file of England's most se- 

 lect breeders. But such is the incontrovertible fact, though that condition of affairs 

 lasted for only two seasons. 



We now come down to what Mr. Robert Black, in his gracefully worded little 

 book humorously styles "The Invasion of Perfidious Albion." This began in 1852 

 when a formidable stable was sent over there. Previous to that French horses had 

 won as follows : 1840, Beggerman, by Zinganee (sent to America) owned by The 

 Due d'Orleans, won the Goodwood Cup; 1850, Count Haber, born in Germany but re- 

 siding in France, won the Chesterfield Cup with Turnus (by Taurus, son of Morisco) 

 who was destined to be the sire of the Epsom Oaks winner, Butterfly. 



These were the only two races of any note, prior to 1852, won on English soil by 

 foreign-bred horses, which, let me add, were given a seven-pound allowance from their 

 scale weight, as being bred out of England. It was this allowance to' foreign-bred 

 horses which induced Mr. Richard Ten Broeck, of Louisiana, to undertake quite another 

 "Invasion of Perfidious Albion" in 1857, when he won several big races with compara- 

 tively inferior animals. As late as 1901 Mr. John Huggins, one of the best of the 



