CRANBROOK.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6136, 24 March 1898, Page 4

CRANBROOK.

"Milroy,"of the Sydvey Mail, recently Visited Mx H. C. White's stud at Havilah. He writes of Cranbrook as follows :— This magnificent chestnut giant is in rare buckle, and, though he had but just finished the season when I was there, he is as quiet as a' Quaker's hack, and lllows strangers to handle him without the least suspicion of resentment. Cranbrook is one of the biggest thoroughbreds alive, as he stands well over seventeen hands, and is massively made in proportion. His girths have to be made specially for him, as no ordinary ones would go near him. His shoulders are immense, and, in all probability, he can give any pure-bred horse alive a start and measure him from the withers to the shoulder point. His great arms, thighs, and gaskins are towers of strength ; while his wealth of bone is, indeed, marvellous. He is a thoroughly masculine horse from his great, plain, but intelligent head back to his tail. All this tremendous strength, no doubt, is due tG the invaluable double crosses of Melbourne and Stockwell that are in him. Barcaldine was, lam told, another such horse as Cranbrook in the matter of size. He came direct from Melbourne, and had three strains of Birdcatcher, one of them through Stockwell, and one of Newminster. Cranbrook has two strains of Melbourne* one of Newminster and two of Birdcatcher, through Stockwell. Like Barcaldine, Cranbrook was a great raceri and he gets his stock, as did the great Irishman, in his owd likeness, and with much of his great size. Barcaldine won four good races on the English turf as a five-year-old, but, with the exception of beating Tristan in the Westminster Cup at Kempton Park, •not one of his efforts was equal to Cranbrook's Newmarket Handicap, in which the giant three-year-old was asked to jump off the mark with Bst 121b in the saddle, and run his race from end to end. It is a matter of history how he won that race in a common canter, and put up record time for it, and beat twenty-seven others, some of which were the pick of Aixstralia. A. horse of Cranbrook's conformation should not have been trained as a fchree-year-old or worked on a tan track. Had he, like Barcaldine, been kept till he was five . years old he would, in the opinion of many good judges, have been a worldbeater, and had he performed as well in England as he did in Australia his value would have been reckoned by more thousands, there than it is by hundreds here. Those tan-track gallops he used to do in his young three-year-old days must have taken a deal out of him, as his great weight used to drive his legs deep in the bark at every jump. I shall never forget the wild rush to get on that took place when his number went up for the first time in the mile and a half Maiden Stakes at the Australian Jockey Club's Spring Meeting in 18S7. He was opposed by The Australian Peer, who had come into notice on the opening day of the meeting by running third to Abercorn and Niagara for the Derby, and among the others that started was Dainty, who ultimately won the Victoria Racing Club's Oaks. The punters gladly laid 2 to 1 on Cranbrook, and in the last half furlong he put in those giant strides of his and landed the qdds. Trident ■was the king of the Australian turf just then, and when The Australian Peer beat him in the Eandwick Plate, and followed that performance up by beating Abercorn and Niagara in the Victoria Eacing Club's .■Derby, he made. Cranbrook out a real top notcher, „ .- Afc the Victoria Amateur Turf Club's Spring Meeting of 1887 Cranbrook opened hia Victorian account by cantering over Silvermine and Duhlop for the Caulfied Stakes. These two horses ran first and second in the Melbourne Cup a fortnight later. In thab race Cranbrook was ■with the leaders from the start until they turned for home, but it was too much to ask a young unfurnished giant like him to run two miles out. The two-year-olds, Lady Betty and Consequence, just beat him in the Flying Stakes on Oaks day, but he made amends for this defeat by downing Niagara and Mentor in the Foal Stakes on the last day of the meeting. He did no more racing after this win until he ran away with the Newmarket in the autumn. On the last day of the Newmarket meeting he took a bitter revenge on Lady Betty for his spring defeat by running clean over her for the All-Aged Stakes, and among his victims in that race was the flying My Lord. The excessive racing and work which he had undergone now began to tell on the young giant, and Lady Betty next ;beat him in the Australian Jockey Club's All-Aged Stakes. This was his last good race, and he never afterwards regained his form. His owner and breeder, the late Hon James White, not having any use for him then, sold him for a large sum to his brother, Mr H. C. White, who bought him for the purpose of raising a stud of big mares — a task which the big horse has succeeded in doing in a most satisfactory manner.