The American Thoroughbred 



American trainers, became the utterer of the statement that "America has first-class 

 horses but has never, so far, sent one of them to England." This, too, in the face of 

 the stubborn fact that Iroquois had been the only horse in history to win the Derby, 

 St. Leger, Payne Stakes, Prince of Wales Stakes (Ascot), and the St. James Palace 

 Stakes, in one season; and that Foxhall ("bred in old Kentucky") had won in one sea- 

 son the Grand Prix de Paris, the Grand Duke Michael Stakes, the Cesarewitch Handi- 

 cap and the Cambridgeshire, carrying in the latter race the highest weight (126 pounds) 

 ever carried to victory in that race by a three-year-old, up to the present writing. But 

 I am digressing and the discussion is taking a very wide range. Let us, therefore, get 

 back to the French invasion of 1852. 



In 1852 the French sent over the crack filly Hervine, by Mr. Waggs. Under the 

 allowances made to her as a foreign-bred animal, she only ha*d to carry ninety-five 

 pounds in the Goodwood Cup, while Kingston, a three-year-old by Venison out of Queen 

 Anne, won the race with 104 pounds in his saddle. Hervine ran unplaced and it was 

 claimed that she was suffering from seasickness engendered in crossing the channel. 

 However, there were several English cracks which ran unplacd in that race, among them 

 Hernandez (2,000 guineas of 1851), by Pantaloon; Newminster (St. Leger of 1851), 

 by Touchstone; and Stilton, who won the Chester Cup of that very year, by Cother- 

 stone out of Gruyere (dam of Parmesan, sire of two Derby winners in late years) by 

 Verulam, son of Lottery and Wire. Hence it was not so disgraceful to run "in the 

 steerage" as might first be imagined. Next year Hervine "tried it on the dog" once 

 more with 99 pounds. She ran second with Kingston, Muscovite and Weathergage 

 astern of her. But "every cloud has a silver lining" and the winner turned up in an- 

 other French-bred mare, Jotivence, by Sting (son of Slane), out of Currency. That 

 two French -bred mares should run 1-2 in a race like that was enough to cause a 

 continuous illumination of the Boulevard all the way from the Rue Rivoli to the Made- 

 leine. 



In 1853 came on several sharp horses, one of which was Fitz Gladiator, now fam- 

 ous in the annals of the French stud ; Echelle, afterwards noted as the dam of the crack 

 Orphelin : Lycisca, by Sting and Valerie by the same sire. The two last named 

 fillies ran hopelessly behind the marvelous Virago (who won the City and Suburban 

 and Great Metropolitan three hours apart) in both the Goodwood and Doncaster Cups. 

 Fitz Gladiator got lame on the hard ground at Ascot (always a beastly place to train) 

 and had to be scratched for the Goodwood Cup. Hervine got lame and had to be 

 withdrawn from the Cambridgeshire for which she looked to have "a right smart 

 chance." Jouvence was started six times and failed to bring home any part of the 

 money. Trust, a five-year-old, was the only one to get a place (twice second) in any 

 one of thirty odd contests in which, the French horses were participants. But a brighter 

 day was to dawn upon the Parleyvoos with the coming of Monarque, a horse of real 

 class. 



This was a bay horse with magnificent forehand and about as expressive a head 

 (judging him from his pictures) as ever was set upon a horse's neck. His middle 

 piece was only fair and his stifles looked narrow, if the portrait extant is a truthful one. 



But his action was perfect, and up to about 117 pounds he was the d 1's own horse 



to beat. His pedigree was given as being by The Baron, Sting or The Emperor, the 

 latter of which is now the accepted one of all the foreign turf doctrinaries who know 

 more about such things than I do. But in point of conformation, he was Sting all 

 over and wholly unlike The Emperor, whose pictures resemble our great American 

 cup horse, Harry Bassett, more than any other that I can name. Monarque's dam was 

 that good winner, Poetess, by Royal Oak, already referred to. He was foaled in 

 1852 at Mons. Aumont's farm (Victot) near Caen. He was not a horse of extreme 

 speed, but had a low and frictionless way of going that the English call a "daisy-cutter." 



