Successful Combination: Partnership of Hal Price Headley and W. B. Miller a Ten Strike, Daily Racing Form, 1917-12-09

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SUCCESSFUL COMBINATION j Partnership of Hal Price Headley A and W.B.Miller a Ten Strike. Lucky Purchase of Yearlings Which Brought Record Prices a Purchase of Uncle. 4 I Among the wonders of u wonderful year in Hie turf world were the wonderful prices realized for the j Beaumont Stud yearlings when Mild at auction at Saratoga last iiutuiuu. The consignment of fifty- four yearlings brought 54,350. f Remarkable were the prices obtained for the get ; if Uncle, one of his sons bringing 0,000 and the i ontire linnd averaging well over ,000 each. The j volts, and fillies sired by Star Shoot also brought lilx prices, ranging from ,100 down. i An illustration of the good fortune of II. 1. Ileadley, owner of Beaumont Stud, is shown in the fact that the four youngsters to bring tlie top price at that sale were purchased by Miller and ileadley for an average of 00. It may :Ik well 1o tell hei-e how young Mr. llendley nud .Mr. Miller formed a partnership, which has proved advantageous to both and resulted in ; the purchase of tlie great, young stallion Incle. A turf writer, who visited Beaumont Kami last spring, narrates these incidents as follows: Among the great breeding establishments in the Blue Grass -State. Beaumont Farm looms prominently and from tie first step upon the grounds one is impressed with the feeling that here is a place worth while and where there is something doing all the time. It soems almost !is if the development there could be seen, so pregnant is the air with all that hustle and bustle that is scarcely tlie accepted theory of farm life. "And there is a reason for all this, because at the head of Beaumont is a young man so full of vigor and businesslike action as to seem charged with electricity. Hal Price Headley. who rules over Iteaumout. is the youngest head of one of , the .bigsisLrJui-eding establishments in this country; lie being but 2S years old. lie is a Princeton man and his is all example of a college man making goid on the farm without ever having had one day of schooling in such a thing as the modern agricultural college. As a matter of fact, young Mr. Ileadley decries the book- taught farmers and prefers to profit from experience and learn from older hands alout the place. "It was something like thirty years ago that II. P. Ileadley, father of the present owner of tlie farm, established Iteaumout, where he began tlie breeding of thoroughbreds and the care of stallions and brooflmares sent there by other owners. Later the elder Headley added another farm to his holdings when he purchased I.a Belle Stud from Eugene Leigh. Tlie two are now combined and known as Beaumont Farms. UNCLE IS STAB OF STUD.. "At the head of the Beaumont Stud is that great sire, Uncle, and in connection with his habitation here there is an interesting story of a partnership now known wherever thoroughbreds are known as the breeding firm of Headley and Miller. It was in 1918 that young Hal Price Ileadley, who had been breeding a few mares on the farm where the great Ornament had been bred when the late William Kaston sent that grand sire. Order, there became ambitious to own as good a stallion as any owned by any of his neighbors. He was fortunate in tin; acquaintance of one William B. Miller, a pioneer in the rubber tire industry and a man who hud taken an interest in harness horses. Mr. Miller chanced to pay a. visit to Lexington while the thoroughbreds were racing at tin? Kentucky Association track, that oldest course in America, and immediately he became interested in the runners to such a point that he followed tiie meeting from there over to Louisville. "Any one witli the slightest acquaintance with Mr. Miller would pick him as a man who will go far and well with anything he once starts and that is he way he has gone since he became interested in thoroughbreds. Voung Air. Ileadley made a proposition to Mr. Miller to purchase a stallion. Ever since Headley had seen Old Rosebud fight flvo races out with I.lttle Nephew in 1913 and win the Ktntueky Derby of the spring of 1914, he had longed to own a sire such as Had produced these two great horses. And it chanced that in this same year Uncle, which had sired the two, came uiK.ui tlie market through tlie death of Mr. Kohler, his owner. Mr. Miller agreed to purchase Uncle if he could le had at the auction sale for 7,000. That was the limit he would stand, but as he tells the story himself, it was a dying kick that landed the cood son of Stnr Shoot The Niece and brought him to Beaumont. 3UYS HIM FOR 39,000. "Frederick Johnson was commissioned by Messrs. Miller and Headley to do the bidding on the horse and the first bid was 0,000. The firm of Heudrie and Palmer also had a wish to own Uncle and Mr. Palmer raised the bid. The bidding went up by thousands at a time until Mr. Millers limit of 7,000 was reached and as the bid was against hiin, the auctioneer was about to knock the horse down to Mr. Palmer when Mr. Miller lield up his finger for Mr. Johnson to go just one more thousand. He describes this last holding up of his finger as the dying kick that won him the horse, .lust as manv a good gamecock has won a battle in the pit. "Messrs. Headley and Miller did not stop with the purchase of Uncle, but also bought the entire crop of Uncle and Star Shout yearlings from John :. Madden. "Mr. Millers hobby is breeding and some of bis friends even call him a "bus" on tlie subject. He himself declares that he gets much more pleasure and excitement out of the breeding industry than ho does out of the racing of his produce, although he will race thoroughbreds under his own colors for the first time this year, Billy Karrick having a few select ones in training for him. "Mr. Millers ideas of breeding horses runs to the Mendellan theory, in which lie is a firm believer. He was present at the Kentucky Association track when Ticket and Midway ran first and third in Hie Derby Trial and also saw these two finish second and third the Kentucky Derby, and this bowing pleased Mr. Miller because ho owns both Princess Oma, dam of Ticket, and Thirty-third, the rtnn of Midway, and it was from bis form that these two were sold. FINE BROODMARES THERE. "The mares at Beaumont Farm owned jointly by Messrs. Headley and Miller and Individually by cneh member of the firm, Include many of the best matrons in the Stud Bool:, and the yearlings now being prepared for the sale at Saratoga are not only Individuals of striking merit, but are by two of the most popular sires in Kentucky. The youngsters by Uncle "are the first to be offered at public auction sales since the advent of this horse in Kentucky. Uncle is now twelve years old, and yet he is credited witlt a Derby winner, got before he was sent abroad, and a horse quite the equal in many respects of aiiy seen in the history of the American turf. "Some idea of the estimate in which Unele Is held by the breeding public can be had from the statement that since his advent at Beaumont Farms bis book has been full at 00, and that his get are in demand is shown by the prices realized by public and private sale, nine of his yearlings in 1015 being sold to A. K. Macomber for something like 5,000. "Uncle is a chestnut horse, fifteen hands three inches high, of rare quality ami abundant substance. He has a beautiful bead and exquisite ear. a short, full-chested neck, deep shoulders, a stout body, well-ribbed back, tremendous quarters, well-muscled and running down into the gaskins. He has remarkable length from hip to hock, is short in the canon, stands well on his pasterns, has tlie best of feet and legs, and what is of vital importance, a rugged constitution. He is a great stock horse as well as a successful Fire, his get taking after him to a striking degree. "While his stud period has been interrupted, the fact that he sired Old Rosebud in his first year Is proof enough, if any were needed, of his ability to get speed and staying qualities. Tlie American turf has seen few race horses the equal of Old Rosebud and perhaps none his superior. In the Kentucky Derby the son of Uncle Ivory Bells led from start to finish, making, every post a winuing one, and leading ills opponents from fivo to ten lengths and finishing with something in reserve in 2:0373 over a cuppy track, record time for tlie race. "Other stallions at Beaumont Farms besides i Uncle are Jack Atkiu. a race horse of great merit and the best son of Sain. Ivan the Terrible, siro of the game race horse Hodge; Sir John Johnson, whose youngsters have . commanded high prices at public auction and himself a winner of many Important events; Cock o tho Walk, perhaps the best son of Peep oDay; Kapld Water, a fast horse and one of tho best sous of the English atalliori, Eap-palo."


Persistent Link: https://drf.uky.edu/catalog/1910s/drf1917120901/drf1917120901_1_2
Local Identifier: drf1917120901_1_2
Library of Congress Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/unk82075800