view raw text
GREATNESS IN OUR RACING Prowess on Track Not Always Indication of Success in Stud. Rotable Exceptions, Though Fate Ordained That None Should Found Enduring Male Line Family. o BY SALVATOR. Various lovers of the American thoroughbred and those lines of blood which, for generations, have been productive of great racers in this country, have expressed their pleasure because the granddam of Sallys Alley, winner of the Futurity for 1922, ha for her granddam a daughter of Luke Blackburn, back of which the line runs to that indigenous tribe familiarly known to breeders as the Maria West family. This, in addition to the fact that Salvolatile, the dam of Sallys Alley, is by Disguise, son of Domino, a family which, in the male line, is another American product for generations. The name of Luke Blackburn always gives me a thrill. Ten Brceck was my first "super-horse," to use the up-to-date epithet, among thoroughbreds, and Luke Blackburn his successor. How I exulted in his career of conquest! And how heart-broken I was when he broke down, total eclipse succeeding a perefect "blaze of glory." No other horse ever quite won from me the same fervid enthusiasm, not even Hindoo or Hanover, until Salvator appeared. And since Salvator, only Henry of Navarre and Hermis have seemed to me so worthy of that emotional admiration which passes over, in the presence of great deeds, into a sentiment approximating worship. FAILS IN 3LVLE PROGENY. Yet fate ordained that none of these horses should found an enduring family of his own in the male line. Death came early to Ten Broeck, which sired numerous good racers, including several that grazed greatness at the peaks of their careers most particularly Drake Carter and Bersan. Hindoo, through Hanover, appeared at one time to have become our dominant progenitor. But today it is through maternal channels that his blood enters the most fashionable combinations. Salvator and Henry of Navarre are, rightly or wrongfully, referred to, as a rule, Continued on eighth page- GREATNESS IN OUR RACING Continued from first pace. as failures as sires. The same thing is usually said of Hermis. Luke Blackburn, by Bonnie Scotland and Nevada, by Lexington, came from the Levity family and breeding pundits are fond of making the assertion that while this tribe was prolific of great racers it never produced a great sire. That depends upon what one construes greatness in a sire to consist of. Let us take the case of Luke Blackburn himself into consideration. Can any horse be rightfully termed a "failure as a sire" that begets so many winners as did he, among them being a Futurity winner, Proctor Knott, and an American Derby winner, Uncle Bob? Whose daughters produced many winners, including so grand a performer as Kinley Mack, the first horse to win both the Brooklyn and the Suburban Handicaps and whose performances, in so doing, were more meritorious than those of the only two other horses that have duplicated the feat, to wit, Whisk Broom H. and Friar Rock; while one of them has now given us the dam of this seasons Futurity winner, which filly has placed to her credit the fastest race ever run in the event over the present course. WE05G TO CHAItGE FAELTJ11E. Was such a horse a failure as a sire? I do not think so. Many horses of Luke Blackburns era were considered more successful sires, but none of them ever sired a performer whose name will live so long as that of Proctor Knott, nor the dam of one so long to be remembered as Kinley Mack, and none of them today figures in the ancestry of a Futurity winner. Is it "greater" as a sire to beget many high-class horses than to be concerned in the begetting, or production, of a few en-duringly historic? There can be only one answer to such a question. These sires of many second-class horses that never got a first-class one are already buried in oblivion. And from it they will never emerge. There is one phase of the stud careers of great race horses which fail to fulfill expectations as sires that has always appealed to me as ponderable, but that receives little thought. As a rule such horses go to some one stud, remain there for a period, often quite extended, fail it is considered failure there, and henceforth their doom is sealed. Nowadays it is the correct thing to bestow them upon the Breeding Bureau of the Jockey Club. In former days they went to the auction block and then into a black shadow-, of permanent obscurity. When we pause to think of the instances of horses that have apparently failed as sires, and then, owing to some happy chance, have reversed the verdict and won enduring fame as progenitors, it cannot but leave the open mind stricken with doubt about otliers whose fates were not so kind. According to the old-time copybooks, "Circumstances alter cases." Also, "It is better to be born lucky than rich." The circumstances of the stud careers of many great racers have left much to be desired if they were to succeed as sires. And many of them, though rich, were none the less unlucky. It is possible that Luke Blackburn might have won much greater success as a sire had he not gone back to Belle Meade, his birthplace, for his stud career. Gone there and stayed there for when the Belle Meade Stud was finally dispersed, in 1002, while it was at first stated that for sentimental reasons he would not be offered for sale, teing then twenty-five years of age and near his end, he was nevertheless led before the block and struck off for 00. But this was not the "bitter end." Soon after he was resold to a negro for 0, which indignity he did not, most happily, long survive. To Be Cortinued.
