296 THE ENGLISH TURF 



heard of in the course of a year or two, and in 1900 the stock 

 of Melton (bred by Mr. Musker in England) did wonderfully 

 well, two of them being sold for an aggregate of 25,000. 



Stockwell was by The Baron out of Pocahontas, and a 

 second alliance of the pair resulted in Rataplan, who was 

 one year younger than his famous brother. Rataplan was 

 also a stud success, and is best known through the lines 

 of Blinkhoolie and Ben Battle. Blinkhoolie was the sire 

 of Wisdom, a horse who forced his way to the front through 

 sheer merit, for he had no racecourse reputation to recom- 

 mend him, and began his stud career without flourish of 

 trumpets. He sired scores of winners, and probably the 

 best he ever got was Sir Hugo, who won for the late Lord 

 Bradford his only Derby, beating the gallant little La 

 Fleche. Subsequent events, and more particularly the 

 St. Leger, in which La Fleche amply avenged her defeat, 

 proved that this Derby running was wrong as far as the 

 first and second were concerned ; nevertheless, it permitted 

 Wisdom to take his place as a sire of a Derby winner, 

 and it strengthened the line of Rataplan. Sir Hugo, though 

 not quite of the highest class, was a good average Derby 

 winner, and a very fine big horse. He had all the com- 

 manding size and stature of the best of the tribe, and if 

 he hardly had the same amount of quality as Galtee More 

 as a three-year-old, he had even more substance and was 

 very strongly built. It is full early to write of his stud 

 career, but he has already sired winners, and he is likely 

 enough to sustain the glories of his line. Surefoot is 

 another good horse for whom Wisdom was responsible. 

 Rataplan also gave us Ben Battle, the sire of that wonderful 

 horse Bendigo ; but somehow or other Mr. Barclay's famous 

 black, a record of whose handicap victories would fill a 

 chapter of this book, has not been a stud success, and so 

 far he has given us nothing worthy of carrying down his 

 name. 



THE LINE OF CAMEL 



It is perhaps hardly necessary to go further into the Sir 

 Hercules (or Birdcatcher) line of Eclipse ergo that of the 

 Darley Arabian for I have shown how well it stands to- 



