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GREAT AMERICAN FAMILIES NativeBred Sires Have Led for 38 Out of 62 Years Lexington Himyar Hanover Ben BenBrush Brush and His Glorious Sons SonsAll All Notable Examples BY SALfVATOR SALfVATORRecently Recently in Daily Racing Form I alluded to the curious fact that whereas our Amer ¬ ican families are outside the pale so far as beingr true thoroughbreds and their na ¬ tive blood constitutes a bend sinister across their scutcheons which they never can live down at the same time the number of great performers great sires and great dams pro ¬ duced in this country by thrf firsthand mat ¬ ing of imported stallions and mares is sur ¬ prisingly smalL smalLTake Take for instance our premier sires The American Racing Manual contains an in ¬ valuable table showing them in chronological order from I860 to 1921 inclusive or a period of sixtytwo years In past time I have drawn attention to the fact that while imported stallions horse for horse enjoy superior stud opportunities as compared with native ones the native ones have outstripped them in the race for premiership The score is American sires thirtyeight imported sires twentyfour But going back of this I find the further most interesting fact Not only have American sires led in thirty eight years out of sixtytwo during the pe ¬ riod under consideration but not a single one of the Americanbred premiers has been thoroughbred Each and every one of them has car ed the bend sinister the native stain stainRevenue Revenue premier in 1SGO had an imported sire Trustee but his dam Rosalie Somers was native bred and had eight nativebred dams behind her The tap root of this pedigree is the mythical Miss Bell a mare claimed to have been imported in 1753 but of whose blood nothing has ever been known She does not occupy a place among the im ¬ ported mares in the parent volumes of the American Stud Book BookLexington Lexington in 1861 was the next American bred premier He was the recordbreaking and is still the recordholding winning sire of racing history having headed the list for fourteen consecutive years 18611874 and then again in 1376 the year after his death and for a sixteenth and final time in 1878 which eclipses all similar achievements throughout the world worldAMERICANISM AMERICANISM OF IiEXIXGTOX IiEXIXGTOXLexington Lexington was by a nativebred sire Bos ¬ ton he by another Timoleon and he by an other Sir Archy The dams of Lexington to j the eighth remove were all Americanbred the ninth one having been another mythical imported mare the sccalled imported Duch j ess by the Cullen Arabian from Grisewoodsj Lady Thigh by Crofts Partner whose pedi ¬ gree is fraudulent and whose existence what ¬ ever her blood may have been is more than doubtful doubtfulThe The next nativebred leader was Virgil in 1S85 He was by a nativebred sire Van ¬ dal and from a nativebred dam Hymenia with a chain of five other nativebred dams behind her Then we come to the famous trumpedup sixth dam imported Trum petta which while not like imported Miss Bell and imported Duchess a myth but a real mare with a real British pedigree be ¬ longs no more to the ancestry of Virgil than to that of Bend Or or St Simon She was revised into his pedigree over half a century after her early career and if there is a horse heaven as we all hope must re ¬ gard from that point of vantage the doings of her undescended descendants with much amazement amazementNext Next came Longfellow in 1891 He was l y the imported horse Leamington but his dams for seven generations back had been bred in America For many years this pedi ¬ gree stopped there with no pretense that it went farther In fact it never did until the advent of Longfellow Then the pedigree fabricators immediately got busy and lo and behold a whole line of beautiful im ¬ ported dams was added regardless of ex ¬ pense or authenticity In reality the pedi ¬ gree of this great race horse and sire ends where stated above aboveIroquois Iroquois followed in 1892 He was the nearest pur sang of any of our native bred premiers to that date his sire being imported Leamington and his dam Maggie B B by imported Australian while his third dam Magnolia was by imported Glencoc from imported Myrtle But alas his grand dam Madeline was by the nativebred ple ¬ beian Boston the sire of Lexington LexingtonHIMYAIlS HIMYAIlS FOEEIG5TSM FAH BACK BACKWe We next encounter Himyar 1893 He was by a nativebred sire Alarm which horse however was by an imported sire Eclipse and from an imported dam Maud But Himyars own dam Hira by Lexington was nativebred and it is not until we reach his I tenth dam that we get to an imported one j Mary Gray She was foaled in 1742 or just 133 years before Himyar HimyarHanovers Hanovers name now confronts us he hav ¬ ing led four years in succession 18951898 in elusive Hindoo Virgil and Vandal his sire grandsire and greatgrandslre were all Americanbred So was his dam Bourbon Belie and all the rest of his maternal line until we reach his eleventh dam imported Selima by the Godolphin Arabian The vari ¬ ous stains In the pedigree of Hanover have been well exploited They have not sufficed to prevent him from being considered the most potent American stallion of his day a great influence both at home and abroad abroadKingston Kingston Hanovers stable companion on the turf followed him as the next nativebred leading sire This was in 1900 and in 1910 he made a memorable come back in the same stellar role Kingston had an Imported dam Kapanga but his sire was Spendthrift American bred and badly stained as all his dama were nativebred back to the eighth where tho line stops short never to go again Alas poor Spendthrift SpendthriftSir Sir Dixon leader In 1901 was by the im ¬ ported horse Billet His maternal line was the same as that of Iroquois the leader of 1892 as his dam Jaconet was Iroquois own sister The first four dams of Sir Dixon were all Americanbred AmericanbredHastings Hastings led in 1902 He was by the Americanbred reprobate Spendthrift above noted as also siring Kingston His dam Cin ¬ derella was an imported mare Like King ¬ ston Hastings came back as he also led again in 1908 six years later laterHamburgs Hamburgs name appears in 1905 He was a son of the badly stained native American Hanover He has six nativebred dams in a row before we reach his imported seventh dam Gallopade GallopadeCommando Commando loomed up in 1907 He was by the nativebred Domino son of the native bred Himyar see above son of the native bred Alarm His dams for eighteen genera ¬ tions were American bred Then we reach the same mythical imported Duchess that passes likewise as Lexingtons taproot taprootBEIT BEIT BRUSH AST GLORIOUS SO3JS SO3JSBen Ben Brush came to the front in 1909 He was by the Americanbird Bramble and from the Americanbred Roseville and goes on back directly to the wooCs being from one of those pariah families which the figurers designate in their tabulations as Am and so contemptuously regard regardBroomstick Broomstick a son of this Ben Brush led in the three years 19131915 He is one of the premiers from an imported dam Elf by Galliard Incidentally Elf henco Broom ¬ stick comes from the Ajjnea family which has administered to the Bruce Lowe system the heaviest of body blows for aside from the tribe of Agnes this line the No 1C of the Figure group has been nilnihilnoth ing in the production of great sires siresSweep Sweep another son of Ben Brush led in 1918 His dam was tj e nativebred Pink Domino by Domino her dam the imported mare Belle Rose As we have seen Ben Brush has a native American taproot while Dominos first seven dams were all nativebred nativebredFair Fair Play the sire of Man o War led in 1920 He is a son of the nativebred Hast ¬ ings the premier of 1902 and 1SOS see above Fair Plays dam is imported Fairy Gold GoldCelt Celt the leading sira of the past season of 1921 is a son of Conimando 1907 see above nativebred out the imported mare Maid of Erin ErinThis This completes the rfst Recapitulation shows that t e seventeen nativebred lead ¬ ing winning sires in the period 18SO1921 fall in the following categories categoriesBy By imported sires from Imported dams 0 0By By imported sires from native dams 4 4By By native sires from imported dams 4 4By By native sires from native dams 9 9It It will be seen that the native products have far the best of it there being more than as many of them as of ail the other three classes combined And mark their quality The group consists of Lexington Virgil Longfellow Ilimyar Hanover Hamburg Commando Ben Brush and Sweep SweepTho Tho only consolation that the antiAmer ¬ ican propagandists can fiud is the fact that in three of the past four years sires from I imported datna have led
