view raw text
r Blood Lines of Sallys Alley Of all the girls thai are so smart. Theres none like ..etty Sally ; She is the darling of .iy heart, And she lives in car alley. Old Song. The result of the Futurity of 1922 has caused persistently to run in my mind the ditty which Henry Carey wrote 200 years ago. Carey was a "minor poet" and dramatist who was born in 1690 and died, presumably in London, perhaps thirty-five or forty years later. Little is known of the" circumstances of his life and nothing exact of the time and manner of his quitting it. Of his poems, "Sally in Our Alley" became and has remained popular from the moment it appeared and in latter days gained added vogue from the exquisite illustrations which the American artist, Edward A. Abbey, made for it. These may be found in that beautiful volume, "Old English Songs," illustrated by him and published some years ago by the Harpers. FROM AN OLD SONG. Mr. Kilmer must have been familiar with this old song, for he so named the flying filly by Allumeur Salvolatile as to suggest it immediately. Of course her name is also a clever derivative from those of her sire and dam, although somewhat transposed in the making; Alleys Sally would have been still more direct. The name pleases because it is an echo of a song that has pleased for 200 years and is clothed with happy memories of art and poesy. But otherwise it is not, perhaps, particularly alluring. The story of Allumeur has previously been narrated in Daily Racing Form in connection with that of his daughters victory. Allumeur, a French word, means, literally, "Lamp-lighter," and the young stallion which hitherto was giving but a faint illumination has now lit things up so brightly that he cannot be overlooked for some time to come. REVrVAIi OF MEDDLER MALE LUTE. "Who, at "this time of day," was looking for a revival of Meddlers male line? Let echo answer. The latest breeding handbook published in this country is the "American Thorouhgbred Stallion Register" for 1921, and among the ninety-three horse3 whose tabulated pedigrees appear in the main body of that work, not a single representative of Meddler, in any remove, may be found. If we delve into the appendix, however, we will find that among the horses standing "up state" in New York, in the Breeding Bureau of the Jockey Club, whose consorts are the farmers mares, is Pharaoh, son of Meddler. Two others, Stalwart Meddlers best son, as a race horse and Flotsam EL are languishing in "innocuous desuetude" over in Jersey; while another, Cameron, is buried at Natchez, Miss. You will look in vain, however, for the names of any of these horses in the table recently printed in Daily Racing Form of the sires of two-year-old winners in 1922. They do not appear there, for the good reason that while still alive, to all intents and purposes, they are dead in so far as any active work of procreation is concerned. In the aforementioned table Allumeur is the sole and only Meddler representative that figures, and Sallys Alley is his solitary winner. The dam of Allumeur was Strike-a-Light II., and we may well say that his presence in the dispatches are due to a series of scratches. But as these make much turf history that is not at all surprising. Allumeur, as the public has learned, was formerly a Breeding Bureau stallion, L e., an outcast from the thoroughbred breeding world. His "come back" has been spectacular. How long will his light burn? Let us not attempt to anticipate the future, but wait and watch. Allumeur is not a fashionably bred horse from a "figure" satndpoint He comes from the No. 22 family of the Bruce Lowe system. Gladiator was the only sire of merit that it produced in England for some two centuries. It produced a Derby winner in 1SS3, St. Blaise, and St. Blaise, imported to this country, did wonderful things here as a sire for a few years and then, after having gone up like a rccket. came down like a stick and has stayed down. I still vivid"y recall St. Blaise as I last saw him, in his old age, gaunt and ready for the reaper, at Major Belmonts Nursery Stud in Kentucky. Candlemas, the own brother of St Blaise, also came to these shores just because he was a "full brother" also because no English breeder had any use for him whatever and here got that grand performer Irish Lad, in the stud for a number of years past in France and the sire there of many winners, including PelJsie, which won this years Prix de Diane French Oaks. Since Gladiator, however and he was foaled in 1833, there has not been a sire of real consequence in England from the No. 22 family, with the solitary exception of St. Frusquin, but his blood has evinced no carrying power he has not a single son or grandson that is "carrying on" there, excepting Rossendale, and that horse whose unsexed son Yellow jHand was one of our best handicap performers in 1921, has been exiled to Australia, there being no call for him at home. THIRD DAM OF ALLUMEUR. Allumeurs third dam was Fusee, which was the dam of both St Blaise and Candlemas, so he really belongs to a sub-family of the No. 22 tribe. His dam, Strike-a-Light II., was by Donovan, until the appearance of Isinglass, the largest winning thoroughbred in history, and still ranking second to that giant alone. But Donovans stud career was one of the great disappointments of modern times in England. The next dam, however, was by Bend Or introducing once more that truly golden cross, which is now so ubiquitous, seeming to bring with it something excellent however introduced. Meddler was a somewhat "marish" horse in appearance. As a rule his fillies raced better than his colts. Breeding pundits pointed out the fact that this was to be expected, because his first second and third dams Busybody, Spinaway and Queen Bertha each and all won the Oaks. Years ago the idea was abandoned in this country that his sons were of any account as sires. And now along comes Allumeur and gives us the winner of the fastest Futurity ever rim down the straightaway at Belmont Park! Of course, it is in line with the family traditions that this performer is a filly. But then, if Allumeur will keep on siriDg fillies like Sallys Alley we may leave it to other stallions to provide us with colts. DOMINOS BLOOD IN FUTURITY. The maternal breeding of Sallys Alley is chiefly interesting to me because of the fact that her dam, Salvolatile, is by Disguise, the son of Domino. I seems to be impossible nowadays to breed a Futurity winner without recourse to this blood. Bunting, winner a year ago, was by Pennant, a male-line Domino horse. Step Lightly, winner two years ago, was by another Ultimus, and he Ultimus was inbred, to boot, being by a son and from a daughter of the son of Him-yar and Mannie Gray. I need not go back through the list of Futurity winners to indicate by rote all trose which have descended from Domino, but the "high light" is the fact that Disguise, in addition to siring the dam of Sallys Alley, this years winner, also has to his credit the brilliant Maskette, which herself won in 1908 and in doing so had behind her in the second and third places two as good two-year-olds as Sir Martin and Helmet From a family whose hallmark is speed, Disguise has sired such "speed marvels" as Iron Mask, Harmonicon, Bulse and others that I need not pause to name. His present granddaughter may never shine over lengthy courses, but it i3 not strange that she has won the fastest Futurity yet run at Belmont Park.