view raw text
RECOLLECTIONS OF ADVANCE GUARD OWING TO FIGURE FANATICISM RAGING AT TIME TIMESUPERLATIVE SUPERLATIVE PROBABLY ONLY DESCENDANT DESCENDANTOF OF ONE OF AMERICA S MOST FAMOUS FAMOUSLONG LONG DISTANCE RACERS BY SALVATOR SALVATORI I note that W J Salmons threeyearold Superlative by Superman has twice won at the Maryland meeting though given no chance on either occasion by the dopedoctors He did not run as a twoyearold and while his performances alluded to have not indi ¬ cated that he is more than a useful colt he may develop into something more than that if he is a true descendant of his paternal grandsire Advance Guard his dam is Rupi cola by that famous son of Great Tom and Nellie Van in his day one of the grandest horses that graced the turf and one that I always have particularly admired admiredSuperlative Superlative is probably the only thorough ¬ bred now racing that carries the blood of Advance Guard owing to the figure fanati ¬ cism raging unchecked in this country at the time of his retirement from the turf Ad ¬ vance Guard came from one of the old American families destitute of a Bruce Lowe numeral and because of that despite his magnificent performances and imposing indi ¬ viduality was cast out as a pariah from our breeding assets and sent into the outer dark ¬ ness of the Jockey Clubs Breeding Bureau BureauThis This occurred in 190G He had finished his turf career in 1902 The attempts to get him to the post in subsequent years proved abortive and finally he was sent to the Stud in Kentucky standing as I recall it at Woodburn Farm for a season or two But owing to the clamor against nofigure horses which was then deafening practically nobody would patronize him I doubt if he served enough mares to pay for his keep So E R Thomas and his trainer Alex Shields who owned him sent him to the block and he was sold at Sheepshead Bay in July the hammer falling at 1500 A J Joyner was the maker of the closing bid but the chestnut stallion passed a few days afterward into the owner ¬ ship of F R Hitchcock of the Jockey Club who presented him to the Breeding Bureau He went upstate shortly after and passed the rest of his life as the mate of the farm ¬ ers mares in Dutchess and the adjoining counties Several times he was exhibited at the Dutchess County Fair at Poughkeepsie in the fall and always excited the admira ¬ tion of the spectators spectatorsBREEDING BREEDING OF ADVANCE GUAHD GUAHDAdvance Advance Guard was bred at the Belle Meade Stud and foaled in 1S97 His dam Nellie Van by Enquirer had been at times a brilliant race mare performing first under the name of Edgefield She won nineteen races some of them in excellent company As pedigrees go under the pur sang dis ¬ pensation however Nellie Van was a shock ¬ ing sort Her maternal line ended abruptly at the seventh remove with an unnamed mare by Buie son of imported Janus And Buies own dam was of entirely unknown blood She is described as an imported thoroughbred mare an elegant way a hundred and fifty years ago of embroider ¬ ing a hiatus in a Virginia pedigree Import ¬ ed thoroughbred mares were not running around loose in those days in the Old Domin ¬ ion and the few it boasted were not of this nebulous description Howbeit this Buie mare from the unknown dam was bred to Beeder a horse little better off than Buio himself in blood lines he having been sired by Halls Union son of imported Sprightly alias Slim a horse not to be found in the English Stud Book dam by Nonpareil son of imported Fearnaught granddam described as Byrds imported mare Pocahontas an animal otherwise en ¬ tirely mysterious concerning whose antece ¬ dents silence rules The produce was a filly fillyFrom From such an humble and obscure origin however came one of the best native ma ¬ ternal families of America Among its prod ¬ ucts have been two of the best twoyear olds that our turf has seen Proctor Knott and General Harding Bootjack one of the best geldings and allaround race horses we have produced Senator Grady another two yearold star winner at that age of some ¬ thing like 40000 Bill Letcher winner of both the Latonia and St Louis Derbys Helen Nichols one of the speediest of two yearold fillies winner of twelve sparkling races at that age then taken to England and a stake winner there and Irish Lad which in this country just missed making the list of winners of J100000 or more and is now a successful sire in France There are many others of less repute reputeWith With such a tap root however it was a flat impossibility for Advance Guard to get a hearing as a stallion in his native land Perhaps if some kind fate had allotted him an owner who had taken him to France like Irish Lad which also without doubt had become an outcast from the Stud Book had he remained here he would today have a flourishing family there thereLongdistance Longdistance racing is today more firmly established in France than in either Eng ¬ land or America and that was where Ad ¬ vance Guard shone During his last two campaigns he was confessedly the longdis ¬ tance champion Tho further the route the better he liked it and when the others were weary he was fresh as paint For this his long reaching stride peculiarly fitted him He got away rather slowly was ready to go great guns as the furlongs lengthened There was an air of reserve power about him very impressive He stood well over sixteen hands tall and had a frame worthy of being mod ¬ eled in everlasting bronze and erected for the admiration of posterity posterityFew Few modern race horses have been as unmercifully used as was this noble stallion Here is a brief tabular resume of his career Year Age Sts 1st 2d 3d Unp Won 1S90 2 38 9 5 10 14 3173 1900 3 50 14 15 7 14 14780 1901 4 43 13 11 9 10 20918 2091819ft 19ft 5 31 13 7 4 8 25510 Totals 162 43 38 30 4G 04387 04387You You can only marvel at the structural excellence of a horse that starts thirtyeight times as a twoyearold and fifty as a three yearold and then races on for two years more and closes his career the best long ¬ distance horse on the American turf It is precisely sach individuals as this that are needed really to improve the breed of horses by the transmission of their indi ¬ vidual superiority superiorityADVANCE ADVANCE GUARDS GREAT SPEED SPEEDAdvance Advance Guard in addition to his game ness stamina and wearing quality possessed tremendous speed He was one of the first if not the very first twoyearold to run a mile below 1 40 and repeatedly he won in time of the recordmaking or recordbreaking variety In different hands the summary of his career would have been far different from that above It is almost criminal to squander the powers of such a horse as his were squandered He campaigned from the At ¬ lantic to the Pacific winter and summer No purse was too small no day or track too bad for him to be hauled out to face the bar ¬ rier Among the stakes won by him were the Canadian Derby the Great Western Handicap at Washington Park the First Special at Gravesend and the Saratoga Cup His farewell appearance was in the Autumn WeightforAge race at Morris Park which he won in grand style He just missed win ¬ ning the Brooklyn Handicap of 1902 in which he split the two lightweights Reina and Pentecost One of his finest efforts was for the Wheeler Handicap of 1901 In which he gave that brilliant horse Pink Coat two years and ten pounds and carrying 128 pounds himself was just beaten beatenSuch Such horses deserve to live in the remem ¬ brance of turf devotees even if theoretic breeding fanaticism and foreign propaganda of commercial motivation deny them tho opportunity to perpetuate their merits It is for this reason that I have allowed myself the pleasure of the paragraphs above
