HIGH-PRICED RACEHORSES.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XV, Issue 872, 22 November 1906, Page 11

HIGH-PRICED RACEHORSES.

SOME RECORD SALES.

(By

Captain Fulton-Taylor).

The reported sale of the famous crack New Zealand racer Solution for 4600 guineas is but another instance of the enormous sums paid for highclass animals. Carbine was sold for 13,000 guineas, and there was the recent sale of the French horse Jardy, by Flying Fox from Airs and Graces, to Argentine for 30,000 guineas. Again Flying Fox, the record-priced horse, cost M. Blanc, the premier owner and breeder of France, 39,375 guineas, but at the end of his fourth season at the stud the horse had brought back to his owner 46,000 guineas, having

again been instrumental in placing M. E. Blanc at the head of the winning owners of 1905. That plucky buyer, who beat Mr. Whitney and Mr. S. B. Joel in the bidding for the “ Fox” in 1900, has had ample return for his stupendous outlay. Therefore, from a patriotic point of view, the pity of it all is that Flying Fox was ever allowed to leave England at all, especially when the majority of English Derby winners of the last two decades have found their way abroad. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the raising and selling of Flying Fox, the most talked-of horse since Ormonde carried off all before him, is that he was descended from a fiddle-headed Irish mare, valued at £2O, and once in the possession of a priest with a penchant for weightcarrying horses.

Ormonde, the second highest-priced horse, was twice, if not thrice, sold, once by the late Duke of Westminster to Senor Boucan for £12,000, and later to a Mr. MacDonough, an American, for £31,250. Sceptic was twice sold, first as a yearling when she attained £lO,OOO, and went to the bid of Mr. R. S. Sievier, who, after she had won four classic events, parted with her for £25,000 to Mr. W. A. Bass. In the meantime she won over £30,000 in stake money for the first purchase. If there is one thing the British Government shows a lack of enterprise in, it is that of not keeping in England and her colonies the best blood which private individuals secure at an enormous cost. Always on the lookout for a stallion which might improve the existing stock, the Governments of Europe have literally fallen over each other to secure English thoroughbreds. The Russian Government paid £21,000 for Galtee More, the Austrian Government £15,000 for Match Box, the German bought St. Gatien for £14,700, and Italy paid £lO,OOO for Melton. Surely those figures strike the outer world with a sense of wonder, but of course there’s method in the seeming madness of paying such tall figures with such readiness. There is the return in high fees, and the possibility of establishing a stud of racers capable of carrying off the many rich stakes, which run almost to a million a year in England and on the Continent. Optimism and enthusiasm run hand in hand in these deals, for did not Hermit, the winner of the Derby, bring in to Mr. Chaplin a sum of £201,000 ? What a contrast these £30,000 purchases make with the job lot which so frequently have scored on the turf, as instance Octarian, a £lO purchase, which won the St. Leger'; the £56 purchase of a broken-down mare and filly foal by Lord George Bentinck, the filly to become the great Crucifix, and to win the Oaks and £4587 in her two-year-old season alone. Then The Hero, winner of the Goodwood Cup, was found in Wales for £3O along with her dam; and Teddington’s dam and her weakling son at foot, was picked up at a blacksmith’s shop for £157. Harkaway was ridden to and from Kildare market, and Little Wonder, a Derby winner, was bought for 68 guineas. The mighty Eclipse was himself once bought for 46 guineas. George Frederick, another Derby winner, for 65 guineas, and Sir Bevys, who won that race five years later, cost £5OO. That’s the price nowadays a turf man gives for the winner of a selling race. At the very sale in which Flying Fox was sold for £37,500, thousands of pounds were paid for horses which never brought back a penny. La Fleche, as a yearling, cost 5500 guineas, but she brought many recompenses; yet King Thones, valued at 7000 guineas at that age, did little; neither did Maximilian, who cost the late Duke of Westminster £4lOO. Isinglass holds the record in the matter of winning the greatest stake money. For the late Colonel McCalmont he secured £57,456. including the triple crown of classic events — the Two Thousand Guineas, Derby, and St. Leger, Donovan, who failed in that accomplishment, winning but the Derby and St. Leger, however, won £55,154 for the Duke of Portland. Lord Lyon won £25,600, Ormonde won £28,465, Galtee More £27,019, Diamond Jubilee £31,885, Flying Fox £40,096, and Rock Sand £45,618, all won “the triple crown,” and carried off the huge sums mentioned after their names. But all these records pale before one —St. Simon, whose offspring since 1889 won £517,641 in stakes and 512 races. In 1892 they accumulated £55,995, in 1896 £59,224, and in 1900 £55,240. Lexington, an American sire, was responsible for 400 winners, but that international boast is put qirckly in the shade when

one tots up the total of that grand old racehorse St. Simon. Many men have won in one year on the turf sufficient to bring in a princely income, for in 1889 the young Duke of Portland took away £70,858. That year his horses won 34 races. Since 1881 his Grace has won 330 at the total value of £260,546.