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STAIN IN HANOVERS PEDIGREE INSOLVABLE MYSTERY COMES IN THE REAL BREEDING BREEDINGOF OF HIS FOURTH DAM OPHELIA WHICH ALSO WAS WASDAM DAM OF THE CELEBRATED RACER GREY EAGLE Heeeiitly in Daily Kacing Form the subject Misty Old American Pedigrees was considered by Mr AT K Aosburgh in an uncommonly interesting article in which he discussed various famous American racing families concerning whose breeding there is or has been expressed more or less doubt His point of departure was the fact that many American thoroughbreds or at least horses considered thoroughbred in America are debarred from registry in the Knglish Stud Hook because of the inability to trace their pedigrees in all removes to orthodox Knglish sources sourcesKoadors Koadors of this able article who must still have it freshly in mind will recall that Mr Aosburgh took up at some length the pedigree of Hanover that mighty race horse and progenitor whose blood has been instrumental in the production of many grand racers on both sides of the Atlantic As a matter of fact there is more than one weak spot in the breeding of Hanover from the Kritish stand ¬ point with its insistence upon its own standards of what constitutes pur sang in thoroughbred blood I5ut the glaring flaw which was especially considered was Hanovers fourth dam she was also the dam of that renowned hero of ancient days Grey Kagle a mare called Ophelia by Wild Medley MedleyIn In a somewhat indirect way Mr Aosburgh chides the late Captain T 15 Merry during his lifetime so weH known as a turfite under the pen name of Hidalgo as being responsible for casting doubt upon the pedigrees of many American horses including Hanover when he states on the authority of a man named Hobert Wooding who told him that AVild Medley the sire of Ophelia Hanovers fourth dam was a myth unknown and that nobody could have recalled seeing such a horse as AVild Medley Continuing Mr Vosbtirgh gives a few particulars concerning this family but does not advance any ¬ thing which tends finally to invalidate the opinion that Captain Merry expressed in his book The American Thoroughbred that Mr Aosburgh quotes especially when we lay aside hearsay and go direct to the fountain head i o the American Stud Hook in the effort to ascertain the facts AVhen we have done so and have finished our researches wo can only feel that Captain Merry had grounds for TTis snitffCT TKv ib foiiT tnfnt Hm e Pedigrees in his book referred to I have failed to find any mention of Hubert Woodings name so I take it that he must have used him as an authority in some other portion of his work which lias escaped my attention attentionIf If we wish to obtain the best possible light on AVild Medley the place to go for it is as abovesaid the American Stud Hook compiled by the late Messrs S D K G and L C Pruce and originally published the foundation volumes in 1ST In an appendix to Vol II is given a list of Stallions from M to AVhose Dams Have No Names and in this list page we find the following entry entryWILD WILD MEDLEY gr h foaled bred and owned by Captain Saml Washington Airginia AirginiaHy Hy imported Mendoza First dam by imported Pensacola Jml dam by Lindsays Arabian 3rd dam by inported Fearnaught 4th dam by imported Arabian Hanger th dam by Old Kockingham KockinghamThis This is all As will be seen the year in which the horse was foaled is unknown and the line of dams all unnamed ends abruptly with the fifth one Let us begin with the first one the dam of AVild Medley She is given as by imported Pensacola Who and what was imported Pensacola a name that sounds strangely to the student of racing pedigrees You will not find him in the list of imported English stallions for he did not come from England Hut in Vol I of the Stud Hook on page 151 is given a brief list of Imported Spanish Horses which contains the following entry entryPKNSACOLA PKNSACOLA Nothing is known of this horse except that he was a tolerably good foal getter getterThat That is all And right here at the outset we encounter a cross that cannot under any consideration be termed thoroughbred Moving on we come to the second dam given as a mare by Lindsays Arabian This horse is recorded by Itruco on page of Aol I where a somewhat detailed history of his origin and career is given It is highly traditional and embellished by incidents to modern cars incredible He was not an Arabian but a Iarb presented to an Kiglish officer it is claimed by the Sultan of Morocco was shipped to one of the AVest Indies by mistake there landed and by accident broke three of his legs whereupon he was given away by his owner to an American engaged in mari ¬ time trade between the islands and New Kngland This Yankee got the horse on board his own vessel secured him in slings and carefully set and bound up his broken legs Thereafter he duly voyaged to Connecticut and landed there in 17ii then four years of age After making numerous seasons in Xew Kngland he was sold in 1778 to Virginia where he spent the rest of his life The drte of his death is unknown unknownNUMEROUS NUMEROUS COMPLICATIONS MORE TO CONSIDER CONSIDERThe The reader is at liberty to believe what he wishes of this romantic narrative and to imagine as host he can how a horse with three broken legs was over gotten aboard a small sailing craft with the primitive appliances available in one of the West India Islands in 17 iii and afterward nursed back to serviceable soundness and eventual long life Kven nowadays with all modern improvements veterinarians as a rule make no effort to save a horse that breaks two legs considering it vain Personally I have asked a host of horsemen and surgeons whether it would be possible to save one that had broken three and 1 have never as yet found one that did not scout the idea In Aol I Iof of the old American Turf Hegister you will find the w Irons story of Lindsays Arabian told at atstill still greater length by a correspondent signing himself simply F with the date of September 10 1SH7 F apparently hears in advance the voices of doubting Thomases for while he states that he had himself examined the horse and both saw and felt the irregularities on the three legs caused by their broken bones he concludes as follows Make what use yon please of this statement 1 will stand corrected in my narrative by any person who can produce better testimony respecting Lindsays Arabian ArabianHaving Having examined Pensacola and Lindsays Arabian let us go on to AVild Medleys third dam She is given as by imported Fearnaught Here we encounter some firm ground This was a veritable Knglish thoroughbred by Hegulns Silvertail by AVhitenose duly registered in the English Stud Hook Vol L p 178 He was foaled in 17r imported in 17 H into Airginia and died there in 1770 1770Now Now for the fourth dam by imported Arabian Kanger And here we receive a distinct shock For imported Arabian Kanger is one and the same horse with Lindsays Arabian above described He was called Hanger while owned in Connecticut but after being taken to Airginia his name was changed to the more aristocraticallysounding Lindsays Arabian AVe therefore have this strange knot to mravel Namely that if the pedigree of AVild Medley is correct Lindsays Arabian the sire of his second dam got that mare from another one whose grandam was by himself Of course this is no stranger than the story of his three broken legs and we may say that almost nothing was impossible to so wonderful a horse which indeed seems to be as marvelous in his performances as Pegasus Hucepha lus or any of the equine heroes of classic myth mythHut Hut let us pass on to the final fifth dam described ns a mare by Old Hockingham This horse Old Kockingham is another bona fide one but his breeding is very hazy He is said to have been by Morotons imported Traveller out of Hlossom an imported mare by Old Sloe but neither Traveller nor Hlossom can be found in the Knglish Stud Hook Hruce says of Traveller Various conjectures have arisen respecting the true pedigree of this horse All that we can say is that nobody knows or ever can know knowCareful Careful analysis cannot but reveal the fact that this alleged pedigree of AVild Medleys is an impossible one The dates of foaling of many of the animals figuring in it are not known but with those which are we have sufficient data to relegate it to the realm of fiction Hut then it was always considered fiction by sober students Previous to the publication of Hruces American Stud Hook in 1873 which has remained our standard and present authority the late John H AVallace afterward so celebrated as an authority on trotting pedigrees issued Aol I of his Wallaces American Stud Hook This was in 1807 And as the venture failed to pay out financially no subsequent volume was attempted Here we Continued on second page STAIN IN HANOVERS PEDIGREE Continued from first page llnd the following entry on page 41t the numbers are those which Wallace iu this work atlixcd to the names of stallions 2701 WILD MEDLEY foaled IS got by Mendoza IJKSS dam by Pensacola 1SI2 g d by Lind ¬ says Arabian J31KJ by imp Feinnaught SS8 with a cross of Rockingham and Lindsays Arabian This horse has been the subject of much controversy and the above appears to be the most authentic and satisfactory account of his paternity Stood several years in the west westThus Thus Wallace who used as the foundation of his Stud Book the older works of Skinner and Edgar the pioneer American pedigree compilers Manifestly we have in Wallaces version what may be termed the unedited one taken direct from the old records while iu Bruces we have the edited OIK there are by the way a great many others of this class iu Brnces work Tlie alleged sire of Wild Medley Menddza is given by Bruce as imported Mendoza a lion foaled in 17SS and bred in England by Mr Broadhnrst whereas the Mendoza given the number l 8 by Wallace and assigned as the sire was an Americanbred horse foaled 17t got by Boxer sou of imported Medley To further con ¬ fuse tilings Mr Vosbiirgh in his article refers to Wild Medley as being a son of imported Mendoza also called Boxer That imported Mendoza was ever called Boxer is rather doubtful and the fact that there was a native Mendoza that was by Boxer points to the fact that the imported was edited into the Wild Medley pedigree at the same time when the cross of Rockingham and Lindsays Arabian blood was edited to read 1th dam by imported Arabian Ranger iith dam by Old Rockingham There is no word in Bruce to show when imported Mendoza was imported by whom or where he stood in this country AVallace however says of him When or by whom imported is not known occurs in Mississippi and Louisiana pedigrees pedigreesIt It is all a mass of contradictions from start to finish And the contradictions have been going on for nearly a century Grey Eagle the son of Ophelia by Wild Medley whose name will never die so long as thoroughbreds survive in America was foaled iu lSi and ran his great races against AVagncr in 1S3I lie was a faster horses than AVagner but could not stay with him At that time his pedigree was the subject of acrimonious discussion and his critics claimed that his cold blood was one of the factors in his defeat We may acquit Captain Merry of anything original when he wrote in bis book that the pedigree of Grey Eagle was always considered spurious on account of the AVild Medley cross For that claim was first made when Hidalgo was I suspect either as yet tinhorn or at his mothers breast I have at one time and another made many attempts to verify important American pedigrees of the elder days of our thoroughbred history Anybody who has ever dabbled in this branch of turf lore knows its fascination once you get interested it is all up with you and yon cannot let go It is a simple fact that the foundation volumes of the American Stud Book are honeycombed with apocryphal mythical and absolutely impossible pedigrees As Mr Aosbnrgh has himself pointed out there is excuse for this Breeding and racing went on for generations before we had a real Stud Pook during that time the wars of the Revolution and the Rebellion caused chaos and many invaluable private and public records were lost In this manner a host of genealogies disappeared so far as authentic proof of them was concerned This is much to be lamented even at this date when those times seem so far distant as almost to be prehistoric That many short pedigreed horses were truly thoroughbred as Mr Aosburgh argues we may accept as certain that opinion is both rational and probable But at the same time that the pedigree fakers were legion and that they invented revised edited and improved a host of pedigrees many of them important ones cannot be doubted doubtedAVhat AVhat is more the same thing is true of the foundation pedigrees of the English Stud Book From time to time some iconoclast arises to mention this but he is always frowned upon either for idealistic or materialistic reasons The idealists like to believe that the modern British thoroughbred is a pure ¬ bred descendant of the Oriental Arab and Barb while the materialists would like to have this believed for very palpable motives As a matter of fact such a contention is preposterous and must be so ad ¬ mitted by all who have taken pains to investigate the subject subjectAll All tliesv things however in no way affect the value or the merits of the American and British thoroughbreds of today except in so far as the action of the English Jockey Club lias been a detri ¬ ment to some breeders It was an arbitrary action and in many ways both unnecessary and invidious But this need not cause any great heartburning on this side of the water American horses American owners and trainers and jockeys are really out of their element in England where they may be suffered in all affect the issue that there is no but are never really welcomed But that will never probability other place on earth where they so long to make themselves felt
